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Posted By Guru Larry about 2 years, 6 months ago
Games Yanks Can’t Wank – Contra-versy; A Very British Guide to NES Ports: Part One, 
The NES wasn’t the most successful of machines in Europe. Though while it didn’t bomb, publishers were often forced to port their games to more popular European computers and consoles to make money.
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I don’t remember exactly but I’m 99% sure the boss in the third level of the C64 version is the same one as in the arcade version. There was no big alien flailing his arms around in that version either.
Anyway, this was a great video and I’m really looking forward to the next one.
Great review as always Guru Larry. Keep making videos about those games that us yanks, can’t wank.
Damn some of those Contra ports are big jobs, as you guys across the pond would say.
Oh, I think we’d be a lot more cruder than that to explain them
I’ve got the arcade version of Contra downloaded on Xbox LIVE Arcade. Not a bad game.
Would you say it’s better than the NES port?
For interest: Larry, how do you know that Konami made the changes to Contra due to the situation in Germany? Nintendo forced many changes to games on their own when it came to the European or the American market.
For what i know,it hadnt anything to do with germany, but more with the USA, for instance games like rush n attack, gradius and life force were also renamed to green beret, nemesis and salamander when they first released in europe as ports keeping their original names, or getting another name, just for distribution reasons or cause of liscening issues in most cases.
besides of that you got to the problem publishing your game when a german or french company already claimed the right on a title so you had to rename the game for specific regions in europe, and in that case it just way easier and less expensive to release them under a different preclaimed title.
All the games you mentioned are made by Konami too! Interesting!
Well Hudson also did it with Bomberman & The Floaters , but that we’ll prolly see that in one of the next or earlier episodes.
It’s common knowledge really, it’s been reported in gaming magazines ever since the original Probotector (and more so when Super Probotector on the SNES was released).
Also Germany have replaced a few games with humans to robots, The German Turok on the N64 comes to mind.
Carmageddon is prolly the best reference, as the save mode was also included in the other EU releases.
I haven’t read console related magazines at the time, so I don’t know if they mentioned it. I know about the changed to Turok and such, but these were in all cases the German versions and not the releases for all of Europe (as far as I know, the UK release of Turok did not have the change to robots). I did not find it evident that they modified the game for the whole continent because of one country.
Great Vid, Mr Guru.
And a pity about the C64 port. Then again, the German violence laws at least gave rise to a situation where seminal 1990 Run’n'gun game Turrican could be produced.
Yes I know, I’m single-minded. But I’m HUNGRY FOR FAME!!!
You write at the start that: “The NES wasn’t the most successful of machines in Europe.” and I disagree..
You give a good explanation of what you mean in the video, but here in Finland (and I suppose in many other European countries) NES was actually quite popular with games easily available in supermarkets and with a decent price (or so)..
So just because UK messes things up, don’t blame a whole continent for it.
The NES never dominated the console market in europe as was the case in the USA, the NES got uptil 12% of the european market were it was like 85% in the Japan and USA markets.
I disagree..
Where I lived NES totally dominated the video console market.. From my friend I had one friend who had barely heard of Sega Mage Drive, but everyone had heard of Nintendo. The commercials where everyone and the games were in every super market..
Perhaps it was only in Finland (or only in Scandinavia), but I can’t belive Nintendo woulnd’t have been the biggest home console in Finland in the 90′s. The next begind Nintendo was probably Amiga, but I don’t think that was so popular (and I don’t count PC as a home console).
While I agree with what you’re saying, I’m really referring from the beginning of the NESes European life. Mattel had full control of the system and essentially screwed it up by mainly pricing themselves out of the market here. It was catching up when Nintendo took over towards the end and slashed prices considerably (also by releasing the Hero Turtles & Mario 3 box sets). But it was too little too late.
So any popularity and availability in supermarkets was during the Nintendo owned era. 1989 onwards.
But like PaRoDiUzZ said, it didn’t have anywhere near the market share that other consoles (like the Master System) had. Even the 2600 still had a bigger share.
Since my first console was Amiga 500 (yes I consider it more console than computer) I didn’t knew about those versions of Contra before this. Thanks Larry.
Thanks bud, Speaking of the Amiga, I wish I mentioned the Amiga port of Super C. That version is hilariously bad!!!
i had a zx spectrum in the time, but never played that contra port, the msx version of contra was quite good, but then it was never officially released in europe, released by konami and you had to import it for quite some cash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8lOB_R64tA
If you want to se a BAD Contra port, check out the DOS version.
whehe, reminds me a bit of rush n attack/green beret with those one coloured sprites
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Guy w/ the Glasses, Antonio E. Gonzalez. Antonio E. Gonzalez said: RT @TGWTG: From @LarryBundyJr it's Contra-versy- Games yanks can't Wank- A very british guide to NES ports part 1 http://is.gd/iExcY [...]
Hi, i am from Germany and i just cant believe that the NES was this expansive in the UK. I was born in 92, so i cant say how much his price in germany was, but i am very interested in Retro Gaming. I never heard anything about outrages prices for NES or his games here. But we didn’t had the Mattel Version, because it was only sold in the UK Australia and Italy.
For the Censorship… yeah, our government goes nuts in this way, the first game was that wasn’t allowed was a game where you fligh a plane and shoot other planes
Today they still are retards because both he government and every Media say, that violent Video games are responsible when a kid goes on a killing spree in a school.
They showed a video made out of mixed scenes of Advent Children, an other FF – Title and some completely different game to show how Brutal it is, after 2 kids went berserk who called themselves Cloud and Sephiroth.
Life is not Easy for German Gamers
I don’t remember the prices for the NES, but games for 16-bit consoles were very high in Germany back in the day. A SNES game would cost around 140 Mark (this would be 70 € today but was for more money 18 years ago), for example. So I don’t think we were much better off than the British.
Well, life is not difficult for German gamers, either.
Why do the Contra guys have Phoenix Wright hair in the ZX Spectrum version?
Awesome, so glad to see you on here Larry, representing the UK gamers. We get fucked over, all the time when it comes to video games.
The DOS version of Castlevania is so fucking bad.
Also, I care not for this Toki Toki Panic treatment with Contra, Probotector is fucking awesome. How do you make Contra better? Make it fucking Robots. Probotector on the Mega Drive, was amazing, but so so difficult.
Ah, thanks bud. Glad to be here
how ´bout thankin the germans for that ?
no srsly – germany gets fucked the hardest in the games category with australia.
if you all wanna know how german censorship is : massive amount of tits and curses,but blood will make our kids baaaad.
also we had no arcades due to restrictions which made them illegal for persons under 18 cuz the politicians thought it would be like the one-armed-bandit and stuff.
I’m not going to thank Germany for the unnecessary censorship. But yeah, thanks for the robots.
Americans don’t know how well they have it, but then again, neither did I until I read your comment.
that sucks man, my condolences.
…I think I might of accidentally reported your comment, if I did, I’m really sorry. I’ve been drinking…
$110 for an Nintendo game? That’s kind of humbling considering that now days I easily go to a flee market and buy at least 3 or 4 decent NES games for mere pocket change.
that must have been very frustrating that there were 2 different versions of the NES, and that the games didn’t work interchangeably . I know Nintendo was very strict when it came to their region compatibility, but to make 2 separate lock outs for the same region? What were they thinking?
I guess Mattel was to the NES in europe, what Tonka was to the Master System here in the states. ^^;
I think that Mattel did also make the first batch of US NESes as well, as some of my American friends who own more than one NES tell me that some of them have a smooth surface, whilst others have a rough surface.
Which is the exact same case here with the Mattel and NES systems. Mattel NESes had a smooth top, whilst the later NES ones had a rough top.
They’re all crap compared to the Famicom version. Don’t believe me? Look on YouTube. It’s the NES version with superior graphics and animation. Not to mention a better ending.
That’s Nintendo of America’s fault that is, the Japanese Contra used a custom graphics chip made by Konami, but Nintendo US insisted only they make carts for everyone in the US and refused any additional 3rd party hardware.
damn your accent ^^ kinda hard for me to understand what you´re saying – but it seems to be worth it
great video – the first one i saw
Thanks dude, I’ve got plenty more on TGWTG if you want to see some of my older stuff!
I actually prefer Probotector. Robots fighting against aliens, much better than these Marines or whatever they were, in my eyes. YMMV of course.
Simply put, stick to the NES version, and always remember: UUDDLRLRBAS!
Great video Welshy, learned a lot about Contra ports. I’m still shocked that NES didn’t go over so well in Europe.
I hope you said Welshy as a joke. I really do.
Either way I really enjoy this series.
How dare you consider me a Welshman!
WOW!!!! I mean, I still can’t get over the Amstrad ending for Contra…That is messed up and genius at the same time. This is by far I great episode, I’ve always wanted to know why Contra’s games were different in multiple regions especially Probotector, thank you very much.
This is by far I great episode? Sorry you’ve lost me dude.
Well it was originally going to be one long episode, but since the first part clocks in at 15 minutes alone, I thought people might have hated sitting through a 40 minute episode.
Well… That and I’ve not edited it yet and wanted to get something out this month ^_^
I meant to say “a great episode” big derp on my part LOL
Looking forward to the Castlevania part.
Personally, I feel this could be a series all its own. If there were a slew of NES titles ported to the British computers, maybe you should make a series where you take these games, and compare them to their NES counterparts.
Great vid, Larry.
I always laugh at the intro with the whole creepy pedo-looking “would you like to be my friend” line.
I don’t think I could force myself through any of those versions of contra, though I had one for DOS way back in the day that I remember being made up of white, green, and pink lines. Or at least I THINK I remember that. That was back around second grade so it’s possible I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Wait! I found it! Wait til you get a load of this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2YxE73gQNA
I only now realized THE AkewsticRockR linked to one of my videos.
Thanks Kyle
Saw your link, wow, that is a terrible port!!! Almost as bad as the DOS port of Mega Man. I heard the Amiga port of Super C was pretty terrible, but How on Earth did you manage to play that?
BTW Did you notice I never swore in the video? I thought it be better in future, get a wider audience
It’s never been about “not swearing” for me, per se. It’s more about having that not be the focus of a review, or the sole reason that it’s funny. To me people just get lazy. I’m not going to name names, but I’m sure you have a pretty good concept of who I mean. And it’s nobody on this site or its affiliates.
You haven’t fallen into that category in pretty much EVER, aside from a blooper video you posted ages ago. Anyway, it’s just a matter of personal preference for me. I’ve sworn plenty of times in my videos. I don’t think I’ve ever dropped the f-bomb, but I’m pretty sure everything else has been fair game.
So, swear if you want. I only used to come down hard against it because it was such an epidemic among the reviewing community once Rolfe hit the scene.
is it just me or does the commodore 64 version of Contra’s music sounds vagually like the boss theme from Teenage Mutent Ninja Turtles on the NES?
Wow, you guys had it rough with Nintendo on your side of the pond.
So anyway, good video! Always knew about “Probotector” but it was interesting to see other versions of contra on various old PC’s.