When we learnt of Nintendo's plans to release SNES games for the New 3DS Virtual Console it was an exciting time, yet there was the niggling question of whether or not we would end up getting third-party titles as well; it seems the answer to that is a resounding yes and a Konami game at that no less. Anyway enough from me and on with the game! 

Available for download this week we have...   

Contra III: The Alien Wars  

Forget the previously released Super Probotector:Alien Rebels for here in Europe we now have the original Contra III: The Alien Wars released on the Wii U VC - and now New 3DS - in all its full 60Hz glory, while both games might be almost identical aside from the different refresh-rate plus a few palette swaps, this is the game in its untampered format how it probably should have been brought to us worldwide in the first place. Taking on the role of a special forces marine who has been tasked with ridding Earth - set in 2636 - of the evil alien Emperor Demon Gyaba along with his hostile army consisting of many creatures which come in varying sizes for you to run 'n gun your way through as you attempt to fight in the Alien Wars to ensure that the humans are victorious... of course this is all just a convenient excuse to kill everything in your path but it's nice to have a cause for mass destruction.

Right from the start things get pretty hectic as you wander your way down a war-torn street stage firing at enemies coming literally left, right and centre in addition to watching out for some rather evil-looking rabid dogs who seem to run from the background right at you, being on high alert the whole time is the only real way to get through this game as you really don't know what's going to happen next; mechanically you have a button for shooting, - which you'll be holding constantly - one for jumping plus a 'last resort' where your very limited bomb supply is mapped to. Additionally if you hold the right shoulder button then you can fire on the spot freely in eight directions plus if you then press the left shoulder button your character will jump on the spot sending out showers of bullets in a circular motion which can be useful in a small set of situations, thankfully though the second-to-none responsiveness of the d-pad controls should be enough to get you through most of the games six substantial stages even though it's still quite the challenge and will likely have you using many restore points which are more than welcome here.

Seemingly not afraid to mix things up, there's a plethora of power-ups available in Contra III including homing missiles, flame-throwers, lasers plus the good old spread shot all of which drop from floating pods in the sky so watch out for those as sometimes they'll even drop you an additional bomb which can prove ever so useful; the structure of the stages changes too from your more typical left to right affair, to more involving challenges which have you constantly clinging onto some part of the stage while you simultaneously shoot as if it's second nature plus even the odd Mode 7 overhead stage which you are dropped into - after picking a start point - and then have to control your movement by walking forward/backward while rotating your character using the shoulder buttons, though those stages are less fun. At least there's a decent selection of bosses evenly spread out throughout the entire onslaught ranging from a huge armoured skeleton tortoise, a mechanical spider on wheels, killer robots and everything inbetween... one of my favourite parts though is still part-way through the fourth stage where you're literally hanging onto/jumping between missiles in the sky that have been launched from a friendly chopper at a boss which you have to obliterate while being one false move away from losing a precious life.

It's a case of terminate or be terminated!

Proving to be very capable indeed in its visuals, there really isn't much wrong with the presentation of the game today but back in the early nineties this would have looked simply spectacular, there is so much detail to behold across the varied stages ranging from industrial platforms, decimated streets, right through to the alien hive itself all the while including some nicely rendered backdrops which further enhance the experience; the perfect sprite animations are just the icing on the cake as are the inbetween stage story renders. As you'd expect from the series the soundtrack is nothing short of a masterpiece featuring tracks which range from rather spirited gung-ho jaunts keeping up with the intense pace of shooting right through to tension building pieces which leave you with a feeling of uneasiness for brief periods, all wrapped up with some rather substantial sound effects that seem to have been expertly picked.

This should be a clear winner for anyone who is a fan of the side-scrolling run 'n gun genre as not only is it fun to play in both single and two-player modes but it is quite simply one of the finest examples you will find to date, thanks to Konami being rather bold with the Contra series they managed to create something which very much re-wrote the games dna from that point with excellent results. While the whole experience won't take you more that an hour or two to blast through at most this is very much to the advantage of Contra III as it is a rare title which begs to be played multiple times over as it is genuinely fun, never seeming to lose its charm on even your tenth or twentieth play-through.    

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!