[360, PS3] Hard Corps: Uprising Review

[360, PS3] Hard Corps: Uprising Review

Title - Hard Corps: Uprising
Platforms - XBLA (Xbox 360), PSN (PS3)
Genre - Run and Gun
Release Date - Wednesday February 16th, 2011
PSN: TBA 2011

Another year another party on Xbox Live Arcade. Last year we were graced with the Block Party promotion which delivered us Perfect Dark, Scrap Metal, Toy Soldiers and the arcade game platform Game Room. This year things fall into a similar scheme with the House Party promotion Hard Corps: Uprising, Bejeweled Blitz, Beyond Good and Evil HD, Torchlight and a more abstract product in Full House Poker that aims to continue the community/competition based success of 1 Vs 100.

Back to the now with the first release of the 5 week promotion - Hard Corps: Uprising. The 13th game released in the classic Contra franchise, acting as a prequel to Contra: Hard Corps. The eagle eyed readers amongst you will realize this newest entry has dropped the Contra name and the game's producer, Kenji Yamamoto, has explained he hopes Hard Corps to become its own series. Though after playing through Hard Corps: Uprising I'm not sure why as the game is as Contra as it gets. And that's not a bad thing. In sticking to tried and tested methods of gameplay with slight adjustments and a visual overhaul Arc System have crafted an excellent title for Xbox Live Arcade that'll soon be gracing the Playstation Network too.

If you have played a Contra game before you'll feel immediately at home in Hard Corps: Uprising as the game fundamentally plays the same. Essentially point A to point B traveling left to right by running, jumping or even riding a vehicle. Enemies will spawn all around you and you have to gun them down in order to progress and you'll eventually reach one of the many climactic boss battles in which you'll have to memorize patterns and use your reflexes in order to defeat it and move on. From the moment you press start you're running the gauntlet. However there is more, much more, to this game than the simple mechanics suggest.
Written By: James Stevenson (James.s@vgzero.com)

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