Whatever, flipped explosions are the heart and soul of Contra!

Looks great thus far, of course, and if it's looking better than THAT we'll certainly be going crazy over the finished product. I'm used to seeing 3D rendered games look better with newer screenshots, but having this sort of update for any 2D game is a new experience for me.

I have just looked quickly all over this thread. Correct me, but I haven't seen anyone mentioned Contra: Hard Corps .

Contra: The Hard Corps is right up there for me. I'm not sure if I like it more than Contra III in general, but the stage selection is a plus (even if it's handled kinda awkwardly in-game via a prompt).

A lot of people rag on it as being "not Contra" in terms of gameplay, as there are more bosses, although these work similarly enough to Contra III. Never bothered me, but it's definitely a departure for the series. Contra 4 seems to follow Contra III's approach for battles; fewer single minibosses, more "waves" of enemies. Of course, people also complained about the extreme difficulty (the US commercial had a kid being turned through a grinder into hamburger, which seems only a small exaggeration!), and people who know about the hit bars either complain that we didn't have them or dismiss the life bars as "not Contra" (although the MSX2 Contra had them, and in Super Contra the heroes use "lives" rather like hit points because they don't die until they run out of "lives").

Graphically, Contra HC was a big departure...the visual style is not as serious and there's quite a few visual gags/simple looking machines in there. They really made use of the Genesis with stretching limbs made out of individual sprites and other graphical feats based off the game's style.

I can't even tell what gun it is. If you want a laugh, check out the topic I made on 4chan (it's worksafe, at least thus far)'s Weapons board: http://zip.4chan.org/k/res/604021.html

Not EXACTLY the help I was looking for, there. Anybody want to take a stab at guessing (Mad Dog?) Vin and Lance's weapons?

Edit: Haha, now I don't know if I should be crediting Lee N or GoNintendo.com:

http://gonintendo.com/wp-content/photos/contra_poster_2_dsf.jpg

Gonna keep my eye on them...

Will Contra 4 be localized as "Probotector" in Europe btw?

Speculation here, but...I would be a little surprised. As far as I know starting with Legacy of War (developed in the UK) it's been changed to Contra, and I believe it's remained that way through Neo Contra. Not sure.

Also, don't forget Operation C which also got Probotector-ized, although the Game Boy Collection release (with the cool color game selection screens) seems to be the Japanese release of Operation C with only a name change in the title screen/selection screen (you'll notice that the mini-portrait is taken from the box art/sticker label of the Japanese release).

I'm just asking because it would make little sense to release "Contra 4" in Europe since there are no Contra 1-3 there.

Gryzor 2? Konami has made some odd changes to brand names at times for strange reasons, although since this isn't Igarashi we might see a more rational approach.

For what it's worth, I think Probotector 2: Return of the Evil Forces has a nifty title screen and the characters look cool.

The Mega Drive Probotector was a low point, though - butchered the character selection.

I prefer the original men in Contra, but it would be great to have the Robots as secret unlockables.

I second this motion. It was great that the developers of Hard Corps paid homage to Probotector by throwing in Browny; surely throwing in a few robots as "extras" wouldn't hurt the feel of the game.

What I would like are character-held weapon models that change depending on the weapon (generic weapon models are lame), and I'm also a fan of Super Contra-style weapons that resemble the actual one. Of course, that can lead to confusion...it'd be nice as a menu option though.