Contra, what was it really meant to be?

[Drakon]

From my experience playing various contra games it seems like they took all the best stuff from 80s / 90s action movies and mashed them all together into a video game.  After reading a bit of this article here:

http://www.heymister.net/blog/2010/3/7/theres-something-about-that-contra-cover.html

The author seems really annoyed that konami ripped off american movies for the cover art....but I thought that's what contra was supposed to be, just one giant interactive american action movie game of awesomeness.  I'm curious if I'm right about what konami was aiming to do or not.  It does seem like certain other contra games (contra on the genesis comes to mind) seemed less focused on taking ideas from great movies.  However contra 3 feels like they just took terminator and aliens and made the ultimate james cameron tribute game.....WHICH I LOVE!

I'm wondering what peoples thoughts are on this subject.

Also metal gear stealing a frame from the terminator with kyle reese, a character who's only way of surviving the machines is to be stealth, that doesn't seem like a sin to me.  These classic video games obviously took inspiration from a lot of great american movies yet the games were very original (and not ripofffs).  I think creating box art based on the movies that inspired these games was konamis way of paying respect.

Also I must say this.....contra the arcade game SUCKS....as did super contra in the arcade....thank god for the amazing console versions.

[Parodius Duh]

Yeah, Id say it was 100% inspired by American, Filipino, and Italian action/sci fi films, which were insanely popular in Japan during the 80s. You can find ANY action and sci fi film on vhs, even the most lowest of budget, barely distributed crap....it was released there. Under Action film VHS listings on yahoo Japan theres close to 9,000 different titles.

[Cheetahmen]

If I remember correctly, that label art was originally done for the home computer ports by Ocean and then Konami ended up using it for the NES version.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Newsflash: It isn't just Konami

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

And FlyingOmelette contains a nice section of this kind of material:

http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/oddities22.html

What I don't get is why didn't Konami develop the NES games, Rambo or Predator?

Sunsoft making Terminator was going to happen... but I don't think our world was prepared for that awesomeness.

[Drakon]

I dunno I prefer the idea of combining all different awesome elements from action movies into one game, way better than theming a game off of just one good action movie.  Ironically the released terminator 1 games look terrible from what I've seen, oh well atleast silius shows them how it should be done.

Good to know that ultra games isn't a ripoff artist.

[L___E___T]

Contra Sprits also ripped off a Scwarzengger cover, if it matters (it doesn't).

Spoiler

[close]

Basically, this is what budget designers/artists do with 'reference material' and it still happens today.

[Drakon]

Looks like konami gave ahhhnold a raw deal