Beat the game on Easy, Normal, and Hard today (there is also a Nightmare difficulty level that unlocks after you beat it on Hard).  Suffice it to say that this is by far the easiest Contra game I have ever played (even easier than my personal favorite, Neo Contra).  For $10, you get a middling throwback, but then it's only $10 and it is a new Contra game.  Although this game is much more accessible and much less frustrating than Contra 4, there is nowhere near the amount of love that went into WayForward's effort (there are only four weapon types and five short stages).

The story seems to be intenionally half-assed non-sense.  It lacks the WTF charm of Neo Contra's story and makes a lot of references to the manly cheese of Contra 3's story (giant letters scrolling acorss the screen).  If nothing else, at least the game finally explains exactly what a "Contra" is, not that I ever asked.

I know that this was out for a while on Japanese Wiiware, and that it just hit Europe last week.  Did it just come out for the U.S. today?

If so, work can't finish soon enough tonight.

Yeah, it was released here today.

I didn't really care for the Gradius Rebirth music, but the Contra Rebirth score is wonderful. It has tunes from Hard Corps, and like the only original tune from Operation C.

I just beat the game on both Easy and Normal myself, and yeah, the game is a laughable cakewalk.  With the exception of the Area 3 bosses and the final boss, I was able to tear through with absolute ease.  It's also really, really short; I didn't think the game was going to cap off at Area 5.  I'm hoping the Hard and Nightmare modes put up more of a front, and with infinite continues, I suppose it's good that most people will be able see the game through to the end. 

The pacing feels solid, hearkening back to a good arcade pick up and play.  They pretty much stripped away the more superfluous weapons, instead opting to give us the three very best ones, as well as the default. (The Homing gun is absurdly overpowered -- almost to the point of game-breaking.)  I was playing the game on the Classic Controller, but I'm wondering: how on earth does one configure the controls on a horizontal Wiimote setup to comfortably have access to the fixed position and weapon swap buttons?  Would seem impossible to play the game on anything but a CC or GC controller. 

The voices are campy-awful, and those pink robotic dinosaur herds are probably the silliest things I've seen in the series since, well..... NeoC's Animal Contra. ;p  Also, did they actually change Browny into a female?

In addition to those, I caught the Jungle and Alien Lair themes from the original Contra, the first stage theme from Contra III, and what I believe to be a track that was featured in Super C.  Not bad.

Really?  I thought the homing gun was weak.  I only used it when I really needed to home in on stuff.  The normal gun was actually the most useful for me, and the laser shoots so slowly as to be completely pointless.  I missed the flame gun the most, though.  Especially the Contra III flame gun; I love that one.

As for the remote-only controls, I think you have to hold the shooting button to activate fixed position (presumably removing auto-fire from running), and I believe weapon swap is handled by shaking the controller.

You put change weapon on A, and fixed position on B, this way your left major (midde?)finger (a little hardly) press B while you have every other finger free to go.:)

Try Hard or Nightmare with Plissken and 3 lives!