{"id":1993,"date":"2013-01-08T16:34:22","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T16:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1993"},"modified":"2013-01-08T16:34:22","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T16:34:22","slug":"my-top-100-38-contra-iii-the-alien-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1993","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #38 &#8211; Contra III: The Alien Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2000\" style=\"width: 1270px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?attachment_id=2000\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2000\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2000\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2000\" alt=\"1992 - Konami (Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Console)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/contraIII.jpg\" width=\"1260\" height=\"924\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/contraIII.jpg 1260w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/contraIII-300x220.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/contraIII-1024x750.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1260px) 100vw, 1260px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2000\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">1992 &#8211; Konami (Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Console)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There was a time that\u00a0sequels didn&#8217;t have to blow your mind to be successful.\u00a0 All they had to do was <em>deliver<\/em>;\u00a0\u00a0just create a game with more of the same,\u00a0only bigger and better-looking, and call it a day.\u00a0 There\u00a0were fewer things to screw up, and\u00a0that was nice &#8211; no need to worry about terrible voice acting or\u00a0potentially\u00a0awkward\u00a0motion controls, because they weren&#8217;t a thing yet.\u00a0 I miss those days!<\/p>\n<p><em>Contra III <\/em>just needed to have the same tight controls, the same hectic action, the same aggravating\u00a0life-stealing multiplayer as <em>Contra<\/em> and <em>Super C<\/em>, and we&#8217;d be all\u00a0set!<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, Konami didn&#8217;t screw around, and gave us exactly what we wanted&#8230;\u00a0 and it was amazing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xCk9Rjrkp_A\" height=\"360\" width=\"480\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This game scared the crap out of me, as a kid.\u00a0 From the apocalyptic intro to the creepy cyborg boss at the end of level 3, I actually had nightmares about some of the things I&#8217;d see in the game.\u00a0 They weren&#8217;t so much nightmares where I&#8217;d be chased or threatened by these alien characters, but dreams about the end of the world, and how freaky a place the world would be if this guy ruled what was left of the world.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2001\" style=\"width: 647px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?attachment_id=2001\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2001\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2001\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2001\" alt=\"Hey...  Roland Emmerich...  where'd you say you got the idea for Independence Day, again?\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/alien.jpg\" width=\"637\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/alien.jpg 637w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/alien-300x208.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2001\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hey&#8230; Roland Emmerich&#8230; where&#8217;d you say you got the idea for Independence Day, again?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That, and the whole concept of\u00a0&#8220;outer space&#8221; kinda freaked me out.\u00a0 Weird, but let me explain.<\/p>\n<p>My mom worked at a library when I was in school, and still works there, in fact.\u00a0 After class, I&#8217;d always go there to kill time before she got off work and made the drive home.\u00a0 Naturally, I started reading random books about this and that, but the books that truly had me\u00a0hooked were from Isaac Asimov&#8217;s &#8220;Library of the Universe&#8221; series.\u00a0\u00a0In it, there was\u00a0one book for each planet in our solar system, and\u00a0each had\u00a0some pretty vivid drawings of what life would be like in the various environments.\u00a0 Very interesting stuff!<\/p>\n<p>When it\u00a0came time to read the\u00a0book about\u00a0Jupiter, there was something about the look of the planet that\u00a0got to me.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure if it was the\u00a0toxic gases it was comprised of, or if it was the giant storm on the surface, staring at me like a massive mole on someone&#8217;s upper lip.\u00a0 There was\u00a0an image comparing the size of Earth to the &#8220;Great Red Spot&#8221;, which (according to the book) was itself three times bigger than our home planet!\u00a0 My mind was blown&#8230;\u00a0 that was spectacular, and scared the crap out of me.\u00a0 For some reason, I started thinking that Earth would miraculously leave orbit, and we&#8217;d get sucked into the massive storm on Jupiter.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah.\u00a0 That makes no sense.\u00a0 But to me, as a kid, it made perfect sense.\u00a0 I swore off\u00a0science fiction (specifically <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em>)\u00a0because the thought of getting sucked into Jupiter just scared the buh-jeezus out of me.<\/p>\n<p>I eventually came around and realized I was being unreasonable, but <em>Contra III<\/em> was one of my first forays into sci-fi after my so-called &#8220;Jupiter phase&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>My motivation?\u00a0 &#8220;Don&#8217;t let the Jupiter guys win!!!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2003\" style=\"width: 709px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?attachment_id=2003\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2003\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2003\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2003\" alt=\"OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENI----oh...  it's just an image showing the spot is, in fact, NOT three times the size of earth.Just the same size.  Still crazy.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Jupiter-Earth-Spot_comparison.jpg\" width=\"699\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Jupiter-Earth-Spot_comparison.jpg 699w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Jupiter-Earth-Spot_comparison-300x257.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 699px) 100vw, 699px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2003\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">OH MY GOD IT&#8217;S HAPPENI&#8212;-oh&#8230; it&#8217;s just an image showing the spot is, in fact, NOT three times the size of earth.<br \/>Just the same size. Still crazy.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; There was a time that\u00a0sequels didn&#8217;t have to blow your mind to be successful.\u00a0 All they had to do was deliver;\u00a0\u00a0just create a game with more of the same,\u00a0only bigger and better-looking, and call it a day.\u00a0&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1993\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contra","category-super-nes","category-top-100"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1993"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2008,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993\/revisions\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}