Contra

Contra (also known as Gryzor in Oceania and Europe), is a 1987 run and gun action game developed and published by Konami originally released as a coin-operated arcade game on February 20, 1987. The game had…

50 1 February 1987

Arcade Platform Shooter Action Science fiction Warfare

Contra is an arcade developed by Konami, released 1 February 1987 on Arcade. The main story takes about 1.8 hrs to finish.

Verified 15 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Contra is

Contra is an arcade game developed by Konami and released in 1987. It is available on Arcade only.

The premise, in the publisher's words

In Contra, the player controls one of two armed military commandos named Bill "Mad Dog" Rizer and Lance "Scorpion" Bean, who are sent on a mission to neutralize a terrorist group called the Red Falcon Organization that is planning to take over the Earth. Details of the game's setting varies between supplementary materials: the Japanese versions sets the game in the year 2633 on the fictional "Galuga archipelago" near New Zealand, whereas the manual for the American NES version sets the game during the present in an unnamed South American island. The American storyline also changes the identity of "Red Falcon" from being the name of a terrorist organization to the name of an alien entity.

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a side view perspective. Its themes are action, science fiction and warfare. It supports multiplayer and includes co-op. Local play supports 2 players. Available modes: Co-operative, Multiplayer and Single player.

Where it sits in the Contra series

Contra is the first of 44 entries we hold in the Contra series. The next entry was Gryzor in 1987. Its critic score of 50 is 14 points below the series average of 64. The highest-rated entry is Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns at 95.

See all 44 Contra games in release order →

How it was received

Contra holds a critic score of 50 out of 100. That places it above 8% of the 2,164 rated arcade games in our database, which average 70. Games released in 1987 averaged 72, so it scored 22 points below the year average. Players rate it 65, 15 points higher than critics did — a gap worth knowing about before you buy.

How long it takes, and what that costs

The main story runs about 1.8 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 6 hrs, roughly 3.3 times the length of the critical path.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Contra yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

Know one? Send it in and we will test it →