Kontract Shooter

The controls consists of an eight way joystick and two action buttons for shooting and jumping.

As one of the first great-co-op games, in both arcades and at home, holds a special place in the heart of any shooter fan old enough to remember the game.

Online multiplayer, simply, is broken. On the third Waterfall stage, our game became disconnected, but we were still playing. Basically, we both were seeing a different screen. My partner kept jumping at the bottom of the screen and I yelled at him to c'mon. And then he told me I had already died because I was jumping around like a crazy man and that he was fighting the boss.

Offline, the co-op played great until my partner wasn't able to continue. For each co-op game, you get a few continues. After that, it's game over. The strange thing is that you can't simply hit the start button and jump back in. You have to wait for both players to lose all their lives and then a giant continue screen pops up, even though it constantly says "Press Start" at the top of the screen. When you do continue, only the first player respawns and the second player is then able to hit start and jump in. A few times, however, it wouldn't even let my partner jump back in.

Trying to beat the game on one life is a great challenge many stoners will remember from their college days while ditching classes. There's even one for beating the game in 12 minutes. As for the other next-gen "upgrades," there are "enhanced" graphics and sound. The graphics look the same except for new smoke effects, explosions and gunfire.

The controls consists of an eight way joystick and two action buttons for shooting and jumping. When the character jumps, he curls into a somersault instead of doing a conventional jump like in other games. The joystick controls not only the player's movement while walking and jumping, but also his aiming. During side view stages, the player can shoot leftward, rightward or upward while standing, as well as horizontally and diagonally while walking. The player can also shoot in any of eight directions, including downwards, while jumping. Pressing the joystick downwards while standing will cause the character to lie down on his stomach, allowing him to avoid enemy fire and shoot low targets. When the jump button is pressed while crouching on a higher platform, the player will drop down to a lower level.

The player's default weapon is a rifle with unlimited ammunition that can be upgraded into one of four other guns. These can be obtained by destroying the pill box sensors and flying item capsules containing them, or by defeating the red-clad guards in the enemy bases. They consist of a machine gun, a laser gun that shoots a powerful beam, a fireball gun that shoots its rounds in a corkscrew pattern, and a spread gun that sprays bullets in five directions. There are also two auxiliary power-ups that only appear in certain areas when the player is armed with his default gun: a rapid bullets upgrade that increases the firing speed of the player's shots; and a barrier that makes him invulnerable for a limited period.