I forgot to mention this when it happened, and I deem it sufficiently awesome that I will bring it to light now. As an aside, this is a benefit of not being a super-important gaming news site. On the afternoon of July 30, I unlocked the 'Bulletproof' achievement in the Xbox Live Arcade version of the classic shooter Contra. This, as you may know, means that I was able to complete the game on a single set of lives, without the assistance of the Konami code. The finale was a close-run thing; I finally took out Red Falcon's heart on my last life, surrounded by those weird scorpion things he exudes. I would have done better, but I lost my spread gun (undoubtedly gaming's first über-weapon) during the second tunnel in exchange for the flipping flame-thrower.
Half the gamers in the world would most likely shrug at me and say "Sure, but can you score a perfect headshot on Blackout?" or something else of a generally ephemeral nature. Keep in mind that Contra holds a somewhat iconic place in my gaming psyche. I traded my copy of the NES cartridge to a classmate for Rampage in the sixth grade, and I regretted my decision within a week. In hindsight, though, I got the better end of the deal, as I had played that poor game until its terminals were ready to disintegrate. With all my efforts, at the peak of my twitch-reflexes and pattern-memorizing abilities, I was never able to finish Contra without either continues or the Konami code. Was I subconsciously trapped by the presupposition that I needed those extra chances to reach the conclusion? Maybe the most famous cheat code in the history of the universe was, after all, at the heart of my failures back then. Perhaps the dangling carrot of an achievement was enough to push me past the bonds of those immortal button presses (which, hilariously, were initially told to me incorrectly by the guy at the video game counter).
Wow, that is the deepest I have pondered an old-school gaming experience since I wrote that essay on Crystalis in the tenth grade. Back to gaming; enjoy your Wednesday, and may your ping times stay low.
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