Contra Hardcore

It all started when I recieved a PM on my youtube. I'm a Let's Player, so to speak, I do playthroughs and Let's Plays of games and just random videos involving games as well. I checked my youtube one day to find that I had an inbox message from someone who, for the sake of this tale and the video accompanying this story, shall be known as the "messenger". The title was called Contra Hardcore. Two thoughts entered my mind, First: Dumbass spelled Hardcorps wrong, and two: I had already done a Let's Play of Contra Hardcorps. Prepared to reply with a simple copy and paste link to my Let's Play Contra Hardcorps Playlist, I opened the message, but to my surprise it read "Hi can you do a lets play of contra 3 thanks!" The lack of grammatical correction in that message made the inner writer in me wanna punch this guy in the face, but I figured what the fuck? Let's play some Contra 3!

I had already had ZSNES on my computer, but not Contra 3. A quick google search and a few seconds later I had the rom downloaded and was ready to go. I turned on Fraps, put my headset on so I could do my commentary like normal, and fired up the emulator.

"What's up everybody? It's Dante Fydoe here" I started all my videos with this intro, it's kind of my signature thing. "And I got a special request to do a Let's Play of Contra 3: The Alien Wars, so I'm gonna go ahead and fire it up, and we're gonna start doing this" I said as I navigated my way through the roms, which I only had 2 at the time, Contra 3 and Super Mario World. I let out a loud sigh as the Konami symbol started to appear. God how I hated this game, don't get me wrong, I fucking love contra, but Contra 3? That game was just stupidly fucking difficult, anyone who's played it can back me up on that.

"I...wooh, shit" The Konami symbol had made the usual chime it does but my volume was turned up way too loud, I turned it down, and prepared for the inevitable.

"That was loud...I have not played this game in so long and I remember it being so fucking hard too" Just waiting at a black screen for the game to start, I let out another exasperated sigh, I in all honesty really didn't want to play this game, but someone has a request, it's my job to see it through.

"I really...I...I can't believe I'm gonna fucking go do this, this game is gonna kick my ass so bad." Famous last words I suppose, the sound for the intro was starting to kick in, and I could see the city which appeared to be fine, but I knew that city was about to be turned to ruin by the scary as fuck Alien in the sky.

"That's a fucked up town" I said as the explosion that destroyed the city went off

"God I hate that face, man, that thing is like..gah, that used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid." No joke, we all have things that frightened us as kids, for example I still hate the movie IT, and clowns, they can both die in hell, but something else I hate is that god damn Alien face. I remember watching my brother play through Contra 3 on our SNES back in the day after seeing that face the first time, it would haunt me for quite a while. Considering at the time I was 5 years old I believe, you'd be scared of something like that too. It didn't help that music was creepy as fuck also.

"Did I say that in the last video I made of this? I don't remember if I did or not, I did a short like little attempt of Contra 3 like way back in the day but....Let's attack agressively, yeah no shit, no, let's attack passively..that I know I said." Simply talking my way through the introduction as there wasn't any voice overs to cut off in these older games, I went to the options and set the difficulty to easy and gave myself 7 lives, which even still the game was quite difficult.

"Anyway, alright, I'm gonna go to options and I'm gonna switch this shit cause god this game is so fucking hard. We're gonna go to...there we go, 7 lives and on easy, thank you. We'll leave it at that."

"Um....the fuck?" I was pressing start, or at least I think it's start? I set up my controller for the ZSNES emulator, I'm pretty damn sure I was hitting the right button, but the screen just stayed at the title.

"Start....go...the fuck.." Suddenly the cursor began to move on it's own.

"Whoa...whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa...what the fuck..." it was moving up and repeating itself, as if it was being pressed rapidly. The cursor stopped on option, and selected it, what the fuck was going on?

"The fff....like I am not controlling this right now" The cursor was moving even faster now as it selcted Player,  Level, Sound, Exit.

"Whaaat..." The cursor stopped on Player, and changed my 7 lives to 3. A chill went down my spine, why was this happening?

"Wha..." The cursor moved to Level, and began to rapidly scroll through the options of Easy, Normal, and Hard. It stopped on Hard.

"Fuuuuck." I said seeing the game changed the difficulty to what was a certain doom for me.

"Shit.."I spoke quietly, not from the game difficulty and lack of lives I had now been chosen with, but from the realization of the entire situation that was unfolding. I had finally put two and two together. This had to be a virus, that fucking "messenger" told me to play Contra 3, and now this shit was happening, he had to have put a virus on my computer. My thoughts suddenly started spinning. How destroyed was my computer already? If I tried to close the game would it ruin everything? I decided the only thing to do...was to see this through, despite every bone in my body telling me to just turn off the computer, turn it back on, and hope that nothing was affected. I had to see what was in store for me. You read all these stories and think when the scary shit happens just turn off the game, but curiousity really does get the better of you, you're just dying to know what happens next, and in this case, I didn't want my computer blowing up on me or something because I failed to fufill a "request"

"Um...ok well I guess I'm gonna have 3 lives and I'm gonna go through the game on hard" I said, trying to shrug this off, seeing the red fraps number in the corner, I was still recording, might as well make the best of this.

"Ok um..." Stage 1, I had never even bothered to try this game on Hard, so I really had no idea what was in store for me.

"I...don't even know what the controls are" I had set up the buttons in my ZSNES Emulator yes, but couldn't tell which one did what till I was playing the game, poor preparation on my part I suppose. "Ok..that switches...that does that" I said as I started hitting buttons, but suddenly I used one of my powerful grenades.

"Ahh shit...well that uses my bomb I guess." Making a jump in the air and firing, I began the level. "Well let's fucking do this shit then." The capsule floated over head and I took it out, grabbing the shield as well as another bomb.

"Got the shield, ok good, got another one of those, thank god..." Two more capsules buzzed over me and I acquired the spray gun, arguably the best gun in the game.

"The...Spray Gun, yes, awesome!...fuck" Almost as soon as I obtained it, the spray gun was lost from me taking a bullet to the chest, my character doing a back flip death animation and a yell of pain.

"Alrght, come on" I said as I respawned, about a second after landing a turret appeared from the floor, and while trying to dodge the bullets it was firing, I instead landed on one. Another life gone.

"Shit, kicking my ass" I said as I respawned a third time. This time I took the turret out, made my way past a few enemies, and took out another turret.

"Ok, doing pretty good, there's the...fuck!" Just had to say something, I took another bullet to the chest, and with a final death animation, the screen turned to black.

"Aaaand that's game over..alright, continue? Got more continues." I pressed start, and began again. Stage 1.

"Alright here we go, once again." I got a bit more comfortable now, picking up the shield, bomb, and then the spray gun without getting hit.

"K, spray gun, that's a plus." I took out the turret again, and a few other enemies, but the alien on the top firing at me was just shooting too fast, dodging his bullets as best I could, I finally got hit at the same time I killed him.

"Woooh, fuck." I said as I pressed on, killing a turret and a few enemies in my way, hitting capsules, one with an H on it, but it was out of reach, the other one was an L. Fuck that gun, nobody want's the Laser.

"Don't want the laser, that's a shitty weapon...holy fuck the dog came after me,what the fuck? they normally do that?...I don't remember that shit oh fuck." There was just too many enemies on screen, and I suffered my second death for this continue.

"Yeah that was...that just screams I'm dead right there." I kept going, on my last life now, I took down enemy after enemy, reaching the farthest I had gotten so far, where the wall tank, for lack of a better term, awaited. One soldier on top was firing extremely fast, and while I was able to take him out, one of his stray bullets caught me in the foot, ending my game.

"Oh my god...oh sweet, I actually made it this far..holy shi..damn that dude is firing  like yeah...and he shot me in the foot, awesome." The screen faded to black to again. GAME OVER. This wasn't a good start for me.

"Alright, game over number two." Stage 1. I began to think I was never gonna see a Stage 2, this was proving to be hopless. I did the same routine as before, shield, bomb, spray gun, this time I was hit by another guy on a top platform where I literally jumped into his bullet.

"Shit..God..damn it!" I could hear the frustration in my voice now, another death only a few moments later. I hit the H capsule and grabbed the homing missiles. In this case it was a pretty good weapon, I could fire in any direction I want and it would take out my targets for me, too bad it didn't help.

"Don't want the laser, that gun sucks, homing..fuck, damn it." As if somehow spared from my inevitable defeat, I got an extra life right before I died, giving me one more chance before this game over.

"Well I was gonna say homing missiles were working awesome..and I'm dead again" That extra life wasted, I reach my third GAME OVER. I let out a sigh, this was becoming annoying. Continue 2. Upon seeing this I figured it was time to do something about this shit. I tried moving to end, nothing happened. I tried hitting escape so I could exit out of the emulator, I was done with this, but still nothing, it's like my keyboard didn't respond.

"Um..I can't..it's..it's not letting me do anything else. I'm trying to go to end or something and it's just..it doesn't let me do anything but continue." I said to my audience, a tone of defeat in my voice. Well, time to go die again, I thought.

"Well I guess I'm gonna keep going." I said. Shield, bomb, spray gun, I progressed a little bit further then normal before my first death.

"Damn it...extra life yay...good fucking god, god damn jesus." There was just way too much shit coming at me on screen, death was only a matter time at that point. Another respawn and I moved on.

"My god that guy shoots fast" Another death, I reached that tank wall and was ready this time, or not.

"I'm at this part...and it doesn't even matter." As soon as it got into view I used a bomb, but a bullet from that guy on the top platform got me again, giving me a fourth GAME OVER.

"I was like yeah yeah I'm gonna run in here, I'm gonna set my fucking bomb off and I'm gonna be good." If only it worked out that. Continue 1. Was this the end? I couldn't remember if there was a Continue 0 that would give me 1 more attempt, not that it mattered.

"And I died before I could use it so...k this is the uh..last attempt..maybe, I don't know...guess we'll find out what happens." I started as usual, getting the power ups, killing enemies.

"Shit" I couldn't even see the bullet that hit me, it was like I just died for no reason. "Damn it" After grabbing the homing missiles, another quick death. This was my last life, how long did I have? I figured fuck it, and when the L capsule flew over head, I shot it and let it drop on me. I was using the Laser now, the most powerful gun in the game, but also the slowest, basically useless in a game where you need to shoot as fast as possible to kill every enemy there is.

"Fuck it, let's get the laser, why not?...It's actually kind of working." And it was, I was making decent progress, until one of those damn dogs chased me into that crazy mob of enemies from earlier. Trying to avoid the dog I jumped straight into the enemy on the platform, ending the game.

"And I'm dead...jesus." I let out another sigh as the screen changed to black. GAME OVER.

"That's it..and..wait what the fuck?" Stage 1. The game had started over, and I began the level again.

"Uh...ok.  I guess that's not it, I'm gonna keep going...fuck." Another death almost instantly. Was the game gonna make me play this on Hard difficulty over and over till I finally beat it? Ain't nobody got time for that, I really didn't wanna do this shit over and over.

"Damn it....uh..." I kept going, got the spray gun, but i noticed something, I got to the part where the dogs chase after you, but they didn't, they just simply looked at the screen, rather creepily I might add, but they weren't an obstacle anymore. That part with all the enemies everywhere I took out with one quick shot of the spread gun, it had never been this easy before.

"Well this isn't nearly as hard as it was just a second ago, I think...either I'm in the zone now, like a boss...or...somehow the difficulty has been changed I think." I was at the tank wall and I was destroying it quickly with the spray gun still armed, and within moments, it was defeated.

"It didn't let me do anything, it just took me straight back into the game so..." I tried to explain to my viewers, as well as trying to explain to myself what was going on. I jumped in the tank with the bitchin missile launcher. Fortunately you couldn't be hurt when in this vehicle.

"Not sure what the fucks going on." I used the tank to get through the next part of the level where you face another one of those tank walls, but thanks to the power of the tank you kill it one hit, but your tank is also destroyed. Well fun while it lasted.

"Damn it..I hate this gun, these grenades fucking suck." As soon as I jumped out of the destroyed tank I was hit by a turret, making me lose my spray gun and picking up the grenade launcher, which while powerful, has a very slow rate of fire and a short range, good for bosses, shitty in the actual game.

"Well that's handy I suppose" I had shot down two more bombs and a shield, which kept me protected while I just walked through the flames shooting out of the ground, not needing to jump over them anymore.

"Ooh, I actually want the laser for this dude..shit..shit..grab it. grab it fast, wooh, woooh...cause I can just sit here and spam my laser at this guy and it will blow him up." While the laser has the slowest rate of fire of any gun in the game, it's only for as long as the laser is on the screen, and it since it travels so slow, it fires slow, but if, for example, you fire at the edge of the screen it will fire fast as hell, as the beam is only on the screen for a moment. So getting up in this boss' face makes the laser disappear almost instantly, meaning you literally kill this guy in about 3 seconds with the laser, handy as hell.

"Um uh...looking for..oh shit..now that was the wrong button." I said as I tried to switch weapons, but ended up using a bomb instead, damn controls!

"Yay homing missiles...don't want the C, cause the C is crap...here is where the plane sets everything on fire." The plane flew over head as I stood atop a platform that kept me safe, the plane burning everything on the ground for a good 13 seconds before fire erupted from the floor, making this a bit more challenging now as touching the ground meant instant death.

"Good...man I hate that part...go go go..go go" Just barely avoiding flames and finally reaching near the end, a capsule flew over head and I shot it, grabbing it I once again had the spray gun.

"Spray gun, fuck yeah..switch back to my laser in case I fuck up and die right here, it'll get rid of that instead of the spray gun...I...yeah I don't think I can grab that, eh fuck it" As the fire disappeared and I jumped back onto the ground, a capsule floated over me and I shot it with my spray gun, but it appeared to land just outside of range, it looked like it was another bomb anyway,  and I already had 2, I'd be fine. Another capsule went by, also bomb, which I grabbed, giving me 3 now, that final boss was going down!

"Here comes the giant turtle boss guy...anyone else think they based the final boss of Metroid: Other M on this guy? Cause I think they did. Literally the boss from Metroid: Other M look exactly like this. except he has to eat you and you lay a power bomb in his throat." Spoilers? Sorry Metroid fans.

"What's with this guy? Fucking die soon.." I had already used all 3 of my bombs on this dude and was still shooting away at him.

"I hate that...whoa he's a firin his lazah!" I said as he charged a beam attack and fired it in similar fashion. Still shooting, this guy was durable as hell, not surprising though, he is a turtle...thing,

"Cool, I got an extra life." I spoke, hearing the chime indicating I now had 3 lives.

"Sweet I beat him...awesome." The turtle's body burst into flames, and he began to shake up and down, the usual death animation, but something was different, it kept repeating, over and over. Had the game glitched up? Figures this would happen as soon as I actually get somewhere.

"Uh...what the fuck?..I do not remember this lasting this long...ok, alright, there it goes* Eventually the screen faded to black, and the contra level complete music played.

"Alright, stage 2, let's fucking do this shit...wooh." I let out a sigh of relief, more or less, it had felt like hours since I started playing and I was glad to finally be rid of this damn level.

Suddenly Fang from Contra Hardcorps jumped onto the screen from the intro of the game, and as the screen faded from white I was now in the first level of Contra Hardcorps.

"Whoa what the fuck?..this is Contra Hardcorps, what the fuck?..what....what the fuck was that?" As the vehicle your in crashed into the side of a car and you fly out the front window like normal, for a split second the alien face from Contra 3 appeared on screen, along with a deep pitched noise for a second as well. What words can I use to express this amount of fear coursing through my body at that moment? Let's recap, in a matter of about 5 seconds, I was now playing a different game, on a different console, and that god damned alien face from the previous game I was playing before had now popped on my screen in a split second on a game where that shit shouldn't even happen. If this was still a virus, then holy shit was this thing pro, how the hell was it making me play Contra Hardcorps on the ZSNES Emulator, it's a genisis game?

"Ok um...uh..I just...uh...I'm just gonna keep playing, I'm gonna pretend like that shit just didn't happen, oh my god." I was truly terrified at this point, what else would happen if I kept going?

"Did anyone else see that shit?" I asked rhetorically, I continued my way through the level, picking up capsules A and D for Ray, which were the rapid fire laser, and the homing missiles. As I blew open the tanker that was blocking the way, the screen flashed white, at the same time that alien face appeared again.

"The fuck..ok this is...this is really not cool, I don't know what the fuck this, I don't even know how this is fucking...I'm using ZSNES...this isn't even a fucking....this is a sega game, I don't know how this is even possible right now." I defeated the two mini bosses, and continued on. I had play this game hundreds of times, way more then I had played Contra 3, so getting through this game was a breeze for me, assuming it was still the same game, I didn't know what I was in for now though.

"I guess I'm playing Contra Hardcorps now..I don't even wanna...I don't even wanna know how this is...happening." With the second mini boss defeated, it crashed into the building and I climbed up it, reaching the third mini boss. You could see it in the back ground, and as it fired a laser and set the background ablaze, it leaped into the air. As soon as it did the alien face popped up again.

"Oh my god, why does it keep doing that? God that shit is...gah!" It was seriously unnerving everytime that happened. As I continued to fight the boss, he kept bouncing up and down like he normally does, but more times then before.

"The fuck?....Alright well extra life, yay for me I guess...got all my guns now." I had defeated the boss and grabbed capsules B and C, which now gave me access to all of Ray's weapons. Personally I liked Fang's arsenal the best but oh well, I would make do with Ray's equipment.

"Honestly when I did my playthrough of this I was Fang..cause uh..I'm a lot better with him, but I mean..I guess, alright I'll be Ray, he's cool I guess." I jumped from platform to platform and onto the spinning thing that comes alive and flys down, which is then destroyed by the Unmanned Robot, but when it blew up something totally unexpected happened. The colors from the explosion reversed, which was normal, but they kept glitching out for a couple seconds, and then the alien face appeared at the end. "Whoa...haha...that was fucking trippy." Honestly seeing the game freak out like that was more amusing then scary.

"Wow...uh ok, it's definitely not supposed to do that. so...shit." How broken was the game becoming? and if it was starting to effect the game, how fucked up was my computer already?

"I love heat seeker grenades..err, heat seeker missiles, their so awesome. I can sit back and blow this guy away...that..oh god..I..I have no idea why I did that..that was so stupid of me." As the boss jumped from platform to platform, and then right into the middle, I for unknown reasons also ran right into the middle, making the boss land right on top of me and killing me, I had now lost my heat seeker missiles.

"God...Very well timed with the evil laugh there, it's really cute." As the bosse exploded and Deadeye Joe came leaping out, he did that creepy laugh he does, and as the laugh ended the Alien face popped up on the screen again. Unlike the other contra games, this one actually let you pick your next level and to an extent, the ending as well.

"Sure let's go after the research center, why not? Let's do that shit." And with that, the Stage Clear music played and the screen blacked out, going to the next level where Ray was riding up on a motorcycle type thing., as he started his dialogue the alien face popped up again and the air police showed up instantly, cutting out a few moments of speech

"Doh..Ok uh...guess we'll just skip past the conversation there...it appears the game is doing what it wants, when it wants, that's fucking wonderful" A tanker appeared behind the air police and started shooting missiles that exploded and at the edge of the screen and then releasing a soldier with each one, after killing the soldiers they would fall on the road and blow up the tanker.

"That was easy enough." I said as the tanker exploded. The air police plane took off into the sky where a guy with a grapple hook would grab onto parts of the plane and really just be annoying. After noticing the spread gun wasn't hitting enough from how fast he was going I switched to the rapid fire laser for a bit more precision, positioning myself just right and taking him out, but he returned with his jet pack, and fired lasers, which were easy enough to dodge.

"Jeez man..why won't this guy die?...there he goes...wooh shit the plane, wow that was close." I said after finally defeating the jet pack guy, which even with the lasers was taking god damn forever. Once he was dead a plane arrives from above you and fires three shots, which almost hit me. After pumping that plane full of grenade rounds, it flew beneath the air police plane and set it on fire, the guy exclaiming how we're going down and it'll be a rough landing.

"What the fuck?...God...Ha, ok, well that was a rough landing, I'll admit that." The animation where the plane crashes into the ground repeated itself several times, with the alien face popping up at the end, honestly I thought the whole thing looked pretty damn funny. I continued on through the door and got to the part where the doctor explains about the alien cell and how it's from the alien wars 5 years ago. Now you may remember, Contra 3 is called The Alien Wars, this game directly references Contra 3, another reason why I was playing it now? I couldn't say for sure.

"They make a reference to contra 3 which is what I was just playing...and now I'm playing this..I still don't understand how he's climbing up the wall like that..that just..I dont know, that baffles me." I said as I controlled Ray and made him climb up a completely vertical wall with no problem, it just looks weird when you see it. I moved forward and made my way into the boss room.

"Jeez...ok...what the fuck?" As the boss lowered it's head into the view, which looked a lot like a terminator, the contra 3 alien face popped up a few times, much quicker then it had before. "I love heat seeker missiles....wow that actually...huh." I fired heat seeker missiles into the boss and the "trash" that he makes, when you destroy the trash, the boss lowers, super pissed off and turns red, at the same time the red alien face appeared.

"Shit shit..aww." The trash the boss had made flew up and out of the screen, and then landed right on me, killing Ray and making me lose my beloved heat seeker missiles.

"Can't fucking hit it..k spray gun, go go." I switched from my laser to my spread gun, giving me a wider attack range so I could hit the boss without climbing to high, as going up to high would cause his fists to hit you and kill you.

"Ok I get it, there's a similarity between when the guy's red and that face..it's it it's cute." I said as again the boss lowered turning red and the alien face popped up, they really did look pretty similar. As the boss created his next set of trash it leaned to one side and then launched up, killing me and getting rid of my spray gun.

"Shit...I forgot that that does that..and I didn't think those hands could reach up that far." As I climbed higher to use my laser gun to a better effect, I was immediately killed by the bosses hands from climbing too high, as mentioned earlier.

"Clearly I'm extremely bad at this game." I switched to my grenade launcher and pumped a few shots into the boss, killing him, but as he made the death animation of explosions the alien face popped up rapidly on the screen, finally stopping as the boss exploded and the Stage Clear music played.

"I don't think the game is happy that I beat that guy" Getting a sudden sense of dread as the alien face had never popped up that many times before, it wasn't a good sign. I moved onto the next level, which was in a junk yard.

"K uh..Stage 3." The level started and I picked up the C and A capsules which gave me the Spray Gun and my Laser back.I started mowing down all those enemies on the motorcycles.

"These guys are so easy to kill, jeez.....shit!" I walked right into an enemy attack as I tried to kill him, giving me my first GAME OVER for Contra Hardcorps. As the black GAME OVER screen appeared, so did the alien face for a split second.

"I guess the game isn't happy that I died right there...that face popping up, that shit's gotta mean something, there's gotta be a reason why..." I said as I was at the character select and forced to pick Ray again. I got through all the guys on the motorcycles and moved to the next part.

"Let's try this again without dying." I defeated the previous enemies and the volkswagon's with missiles for engines, which shoot at you by the way, who comes up with this shit? I had gotten to the first mini boss when that alien face appeared right before he jumped up into the air.

"Jeez" The alien face seemed to appear whenever the boss landed, and whenever he jumped out of the ground, almost as if to represent something, but I wasn't sure what. When I defeated the boss he did the reverse color explosion and again the game had glitched at that moment, with the alien face appearing at the end.

"Whoa...that's trippy." I said as I made my way down into the junk yard, switching to the spray gun as it's the best weapon to use against these wall mounted turrets. As I destroyed each of the turrets on the wall I got my head taken off by one.

"Wooh, that was close." I blew open the way to the next room, and the game paused, saying State Slot 0 Saved. This was a standard ZSNES function, and damn save states were handy, but thinking that would be breaking the rules, I didn't wanna risk doing it, but it looks like the game saved on it's own. Was it giving me a break for once? I would soon realize how very wrong I was, this game was playing for keeps.

"So it's gonna pop up at the end of every evil laugh now, jesus." Noiman Cascade did an evil laugh, a bitch higher pitched then Deadeye Joe's, but the alien face appeared all the same.

"It also likes to pop up at the start of every boss too." I said as the first boss appeared, and so did the alien face, I was detecting a pattern now, and being able to predict when it would appear made it far less scary, as the shock value was practically none. As I fought the boss and he did a few attacks, the alien face popped up right before one of his timed attacks, and then again before another. This actually threw me off and got me killed. It was the first time that damned face had actually killed me.

"whoa...ok...god." I took out the first boss immediately after dying and moved onto the second, but the face kept popping up more often now. Fighting the second boss with that face popping up was unnerving, and I died again.

"Shit...fuck!...piece of shit, suck on that!" As soon as I spawned I used one of my grenades and instantly defeated the second boss. That face may be playing by different rules, but the game itself still had to go by them.

"Fuck...shit." As the third boss and was about to move, so did the face, which made it so I couldn't tell which direction the boss was move and thus, got me killed again. I spawned and moved under the boss to shoot at him, all the while the face appearing several more times till I died yet again, and that was GAME OVER.

"Ok that is getting really distracting now..yeah." As soon as I said it was distracting, the face popped again, as if to respond to my statetment. I would soon learn just how distracting that face could be. I started

"is it..nope, just auto picked Ray for me, alright." I said as I was taken to the character select, I was hoping to pick Fang, this would be a piece of cake with him.

"Ok so now I've gotta fight the boss and try to get through this thing." As the first boss appeared, so did the alien face. I realized then that the alien face was gonna do everything it could to stop me from beating this boss, but why? Was this as far as the virus was programmed to go? If I got past this would it be over? It was definitely determined to stop me, that's for sure.

"Not gonna work." I said as the alien face appeared right before the first boss attacked. I had done this fight enough times to have that timing memorized, and even with the alien face throwing me off a bit, I could still get past this. Unfortunately it seemed that face had other plans, it backed me up into a corner and popped on the screen twice real fast, which really threw off my timing and got me killed.

"God..sh..fuck shit..wooh." As soon as I spawned the first boss was dead, and the second appeared. The alien face now began to appear about every other second, and it was starting to get to me it a bit, I admit.

"holy shit...ok, it's not scary anymore, it's just distracting, like seriously...,god, man." I had successfully defeated the second boss without losing a life, and the alien face, as if responding to my victory, stepped things up a notch. When the third boss appeared, the alien face now popped up several times a second. I mean like rapidly over and over until I had a died, there wasn't even anyway to play the game like this.

"Holy fucking shit...ok stop enough." I told the game, and surprisingly, it did, with the exception of one final face popping up.

"Is that it did it stop?" I asked, seeing the face not pop up anymore when the boss made his next attack. Could the game hear me? Anyone's that's seen my Let's plays knows I use a headset and do commentary. Was this virus able to react to the words I said while playing the game? Realizing this I shouted the only thing that was going through my mind at the time and had been this entire time.

'WHAT THE FUCK?!" As soon as I said that the game glitched up, and took me to the character select screen, and it was now on Fang.

"Whoa....shit." If this was the game's way of talking back to me, I was officially terrified now. I asked "what the fuck?" and the game picked a character who's reply is "It's payback time" I suddenly began to think of all the people I actually knew in real life that could pull something like this off. Had I wronged someone and not even know it? Was it someone I didn't even know? The suddenly switched a different level, one of the very last levels, and I was playing as Fang, finally some good news.

"Whoa, the fuck?" I was at last playing as Fang, and I felt right at home, I had weapons A, B, C and one bomb. I started taking out every enemy in my path. Fang's A weapon was a wide spread rapid fire attack that was one of the most powerful in the game, in my honest opinion the best weapon in the game.

"Why am I...I don't know..this is um...this is area 52 I think, and I'm Fang, which is a plus cause I'm fucking awesome with Fang,,,makes me laugh every time..soy!" Deadeye Joe appeared, the final time you fight him and makes some kind of weird Karate sound which I attempted to mimick. The fight began and I fired off a bomb, dealing terrible terrible damage to all four of that machine's legs. I switched to my B weapon, also one of the most powerful guns in the game and blew off one of Deadeye Joe's legs, changing how the fight works now so that he bounces around the room. Switching back to my A gun kept him at a far enough distance that I couldn't be hurt, and I could just sit back and take him out. Deadeye Joe now did a move where he'd a appear where you are and bounce up and down. How do you avoide this attack? DODGE! A simple slide move every time he got near me and within moments Deadeye Joe was defeated once and for all.

"Alright well that was easy." The game started to slow down and get choppy, repeating a few sounds as Colonel Bahamut destroyed Deadeye Joe.

"Whoa..what's it doing?..and more bugs..more glitches, yay...damn this thing is." Suddenly the alien face appeared, the first time I had seen it for that level, and the game returned back to normal speed.

"Oh..ok, well seems to work now." Two capsules went by over head and I got weapons A and D, which both I already had, but oh well, bonus points. I climbed up the ramp and made my way to the final battle with Colonel Bahamut.

"Ok..here we are, Colonel Bahamut, let's do this!" The Colonel said his usual speech and then transformed, the fight was about to begin.

"Fortunately this is like the easiest boss ever...2, 1, slide!." The boss did a count down attack at 3, 2, 1, and then he rushed toward, the easiest way to avoid it is to time a slide move when he charges and you'll pass right through it, as I did several times.

"I'm pretty sure they stole this character from Dragon Ball Z..2..1..slide!." The guy has the glowing aura like a super saiyan, he jumps in the air and does the energy ball volley in the same fashion, and shoots out a kamehameha beam thing, it doesn't look like one, but the attack animation he does is almost exactly the same, but I digress. Colonel Bahamut began his second transformation, a form that I really don't have words for. "What the fuck?...Oh shit that thing...god that thing is creepy looking." And it was, it's got a giant black body, two heads, a crazy looking face on each one, and weird hands for legs, which it jumps around on, we're talking the stuff of nightmares here.

"Oh shit." It does an attack where it slams hit's head against the ground repeatedly and these red and blue orbs fall from the ceiling, which you have to dodge, had a few close calls on that one. Still blasting away at it, it switches to the other side of the screen and extends one of it's heads, which you have to do a slide attack through, then stay back and hit it when you can.

"Phew..beat him..oh wait, shit...shit shit shit shit." The boss now was now just a giant head, surrounded by several other skulls, it honestly looked like something out of Doom. The boss just floated around the screen, but if you shot at him then the skulls surrounding him would expand and kill you if they were too close.

"Um...shit...how do I...how the fuck do i beat this guy?." I was honestly drawing a blank at this part, I seriously couldn't remember how to beat this boss wihout getting hit by his skulls.

"If I hit em, yeah, yep, he's just gonna do that." I fired a blast at him and the skulls expanding across the screen, almost killing me again.

"Well, this is why I pick Fang, he's got the most powerful weapon in the gun..err, gun in the game, and shoots off one blast." I switched to my D gun, now this gun was made for bosses, it fires one shot, which can be charged up, and is the single most powerful attack in the game, hands down, if you can manage to hit with it, fortunately this guy was rather big, and after a mere 3 shots from the D gun, the boss was defeated.

"And there it is...is that it?...is that it, I beat it?" As the final stage clear music played, I had an immense sense of relief, but still was ready for anything. The fortress began to explode, and Fang ran off screen.

"Really?..another boss?..another..no?..Really, really I beat it?..there's no fucking face gonna pop up, throw me back at the beginning of the game, put me back in contra hardcorp 3..is it...that's it?" I meant Contra 3, I was having a hard time still believeing it was all over.

"There's the credits..alright..um..well..I don't...I don't even know what the shit that was." With the credits rolling, it was safe to assume it was all finally over. I sat there watching the credits replayed the events in my mind. Holy shit what a day!

"All I know is I need to run some serious virus...serious virus scans on my computer...that...that is the last time I take a Let's Play request from anybody again...ever!..jesus" I didn't even feel like doing anything at this point, I wanted to exit out of the program, run some virus scans, and go to sleep.

"Contra Hard Corps..see you next mission..yeah, ok whatever..fuck" Let's just say this was the last time I was playing a Contra game for a very, very long time.

"Final score, whatever" Like I really gave a shit what my final score was at this point? I was just so relieved all of this was over. The screen blacked out and went to a staticy screen, what looked to be the idle screen of the Fusion Emulator, a sega genesis emulator, but I didn't have that on my computer, or I didn't before anyway.

"Is that it? is that the end?...we done here? Still nothing but static, I was starting to get creeped out.

"SHIT!...oh my fucking god." That alien face popped up one last time in the static before disappearing, shortly after the program closed itself out, ending the recording.

I ran every virus scan I had on my computer, some of which took over an hour. While I waited a bit I looked through various files, nothing seemed to be missing. After a couple minutes seeing that everything overall was fine. I laid down on my bed, and passed the fuck out. I felt physically, mentally, and emotionally drained after something like that. I didn't have any crazy dreams or nightmares, as I usually don't when I go to sleep, but when I woke up, my computer was turned off.

Odd, I thought, it must have had some updates, as the computer does that and then shuts itself down when their done. I checked the clock, I had only been asleep about 2 hours. I turned my computer on and realized I couldn't see the results of the scan now. Fuck! I put in my password to my computer, and to my horror, my desktop was now that creepy alien face. I tried to get it off but no matter what I tried to change it to, it would always change back. I ran those virus scans again, and when they finished, everything checked out fine, my computer didn't have any viruses, and all my files were still intact. It seems the only change is my desktop, which remains to this day, that creepy Contra 3 alien face, perhaps it's there to help me overcome my fear of it? who knows?

The link for the video of everything that happened is right here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpSmIyXCkHc

Enjoy!