Iron Meat

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Metroid? Castlevania? Mash them together and you’ve got Metroidvania, two great tastes that taste great together with a name that lets you know exactly the type of adventure you’re about to have. But is there a word for the ever-growing world of Contra clones that attempt to capture the magic of Konami’s run ‘n gun platformer? We’ve got Roguelikes, Soulslikes, how about Contralike? Nah, but considering how closely most of them stick to the formula, maybe Contra Clone is enough. Let’s go with that.

via YouTube

Iron Meat is one of those games, a true Contra Clone that, at first glance, so completely copies the 16-bit Contra games it looks like a knock-off. Thankfully, it eventually deviates enough from that formula to become its own thing. And Iron Meat is all about the gore. Chunky, sticky, and gooey gore. When an experiment goes wrong (as they often do) on Earth’s Moonbase, an evil biomass called The Meat invades the planet via an interdimensional portal and infects everyone with its meaty hooks. Now it’s up to you to fight back, and things are gonna get messy.

The controls are absolutely Contra, and absolutely joyful. You can shoot while running or fire while stationary (don’t laugh, it took years for the genre to realize players want both options) across a number of grotesquely detailed levels blasting endless waves of baddies, picking up new weapons (most of which are just variants of Contra weapons, i.e. the spread shot) and swapping between them. You can hold two different weapons at once, but die and you’ll lose the one you currently have equipped.

The game’s presentation echoes the best 16-bit Contra entries, meaning it looks and sounds incredible, with detailed sprites that animate nicely and a pulsating techno soundtrack. The design goes all-in on the gory premise with plenty of meat chunks and blood splattering every corner of the screen, albeit in that overexaggerated way games love to do. If Contra paid PG-13 homage to H. R. Giger, Iron Meat revels in its R-rated Clive Barker inspiration.

One especially nice touch were the slightly interactive elements like shooting objects to drop boxes or blasting out lights, and seeing members of your team scrambling in the background and even offering an occasional assist. There are interesting ideas at work here and I wish the game had played more with these concepts. The only settings worth mentioning are the CRT filter and chiptunes variant for the soundtrack, which are fun if you’re into that kind of thing.

Where things get disappointing is how closely Iron Meat sticks to the basic Contra formula, almost to a fault. There’s no slide, no dash, no screen-shaking bombs, no hoverbike sequences, no insane platform hopping, no perspective-shifting shooting, none of that. Well, there is a train level. This year Konami released the WayForward-made Contra: Operation Galuga, an official entry to the franchise that was big on spectacle but somehow felt inauthentic. Iron Meat looks and plays the part, but too often plays it safe. The closest the game ever gets to real spectacle are the areas where the perspective will zoom-out, leaving our hero looking diminutive as he battles bosses or ascends his way to victory.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not expecting Gunstar Heroes or Metal Slug from an indie game, but we’ve seen that spectacle on a budget can be done with Contra Clones like Blazing Chrome. At least Iron Meat has more variety and substance than something like Orion Haste.

There are dozens of different skins to unlock when you level up, and while you can mix ‘n match different body parts and elements of them to create your own wacky hero, they all play the same so there’s little reason to get excited, other than aesthetics. 2-player co-op is also available but it’s only for local play, which is always a shame in these internet-connected times.

Fans of Contra and its countless imitators are sure to find something to snack on during their time with Iron Meat, but no more than just a snack. This blood-soaked Contra Clone looks great and plays exactly right, and there’s enough variety and things to blast throughout its 9 levels of gory mayhem to keep things fun while it lasts. It’s just a shame it doesn’t last longer. Hardcore Contra vets will definitely want to make some time for this loving homage, though just make sure to crank the difficulty up.