 Welcome to the Official PPM Slime of the Season.
Have you ever played a game so thoroughly rotten, so outright disgusting, and so downright despicable that you'd rather flush it down the toilet than plug it into your gaming console? Our team has dedicated this section of the mag exclusively for those nastiest of nasties. To them, we award our dishonorable Slime of the Season. There is no higher glory for electronic scum than being showcased as a Slime Award recipient.
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THE SUMMER '98 SLIME AWARD GOES TO......!
 
C: The Contra Adventure on SONY PLAYSTATION
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Not every franchise can successfully make the leap from 2-D to 3-D. Contra once meant pushing hardware limits to bring about a challenging yet ultra-addictive bout of alien blasting kickassery. The series suffered greatly with the outright disaster of Legacy of War, and this year's C: The Contra Adventure is no less disappointing. It seeks to recapture the essence of the original games but comes across as a stale and uninspired copycat in the worst way. Its first stage is a 3-D side scroller rehash of Contra III, albeit lacking any of the personality or special effects of the source material, and things only go downhill from that point on. Many of these levels are in full 3-D and play much like a downgraded version of Tomb Raider with boring "destroy X to open this pathway" objectives that feel so unlike true-blue Contra that it is maddening.
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| Fight a gray ship inside a gray tunnel! |
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Run down gray corridors shooting enemies, sometimes! |
Even aside from the mishmash of level designs at play, the presentation as a whole just reeks of shoddiness. Visuals range from sterile to disgraceful with empty corridors and lackluster character polygons. The run-and-gun gameplay itself is hindered by a glaring imbalance in weapon types, and a cardinal sin for Contra, imprecise controls. Yes, a series known for its pinpoint accurate platforming controls cannot hold it together for this outing. There is virtually nothing here to admire or otherwise grant credit for. Do yourself a major favor and plug in your Super NES to play some real Contra, and leave this abomination on the shelf, unsold.
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