Hard Corps: Uprising was the first game released of five in the 2011 Xbox LIVE House Party. A prequel to Contra: Hard Corps, you can expect all the great platforming and epic difficulty in this game. It has dropped the Contra title and Hard Corps has become it’s own franchise.
The shear awesomeness of this game will be enough to make you want to play it. That is until you start to platy it and all the memories of just how hard these games are come rushing back to you. Hard Corps has two modes to choose from. You can play classic arcade mode which will dominate most players who venture into the territory. Arcade mode will give you three lives and say go. When those are gone you are done. You can also chose a much lighter path to go and most players, unless veterans of the series will go with Rising Mode. In Rising Mode you can earn skill points to give yourself permanent upgrades and will make the game easier to tackle especially in the later levels.
Personally while playing the game turned my right hand into mush because of the level of difficulty. You will constantly have enemies spawning and running at you and you will always be hitting some button for something all the time. If you mange to make it through the levels to have the chance to confront a boss, you will be pleased. The bosses are one of the memorable parts of this game for me. When you do confront a boss you will have to use memory and careful jumping on most of them and can be a challenge even after getting used to the difficulty. As you go through these levels trying to make your way to the end of each one you will be graced with all the standard weapon drops and health or extra life pick ups.
The look of the game is just beautiful. Between the smooth running side scroll play and the overly epic intro’s and cinematics you will be pleased. The controls are fairly simple and pretty much pick up and play. The only problem i see anyone having with this game is simply that it is so incredibly hard. Then again if you know the franchise name then you should be expecting to be in store for a hard game. The achievements are about half and half. Some can be earned through the games progression in Rising Mode. Most will require you to play Arcade Mode. Good luck with that.
All in all this game has no problems to be seen and is supremely fun to play if you can get past the difficulty. At 1200 MS points the game will be a pricey buy. For the amount of time you will need to put in it for completing will be worth it. If you are looking to play it casually, I would not suggest picking this one up.
