Contra Force is an NES spinoff of Konami's popular Contra series released in 1992. Unlike the first two Contra titles for the NES, Contra Force was not an arcade adaption , but was an original game. Originally planned as an unrelated Famicom game titled Arc Hound (アークハウンド), Konami opted not to release the game in Japan, but instead decided to release the game exclusively in North America and marketed it as a Contra title. In contrast to the rest of the series, Contra Force is set in a contemporary enviroment, in which the player controls a counter-terrorist task force known as the Blue Group.

The gameplay is very similar to the other Contra games, but instead of picking up individual power-up items, the player has a "selection bar" similar to the Gradius games. There are four characters to choose for, each with his own arsenal of weapons. Characters can be changed during gameplay and each one has his own amount of spare lives (the game ends if one of them runs out). The player can play the game alone, with a friend or with a CPU-controlled partner. There are five stages in the game: three side-scrolling (odd-numbered stages) and two overhead (even-numbered stages).

Reference

• Contra Force instruction manual.