Contra 4 review at Gonintendo.

"I think the Contra series holds a spot in many a gamer’s heart. Anyone that owned an NES definitely poured a lot of hours into the game. There’s nothing like jumping into Contra with a friend and fighting your way start to finish. Sure, some of us used the infamous Konami code to make it through the game, but it doesn’t make us bad people! Following shortly after that, Super C gave us more of the same Contra fun, albeit a little more insane. This is actually the highlight of the series for me. Just recently I was at a party where all the guys slowly gravitated towards a Super C fest. We all took our turns trying to make it start to finish without any continues. It may not seem like a hard thing to do, but when you have a crowd of people watching, it’s a bit different! The Contra series continued on, and gave us many more successful entries. From GB to SNES and Genesis, Contra was still kicking our asses…and that’s just how we liked it. Run, jump, shoot, dodge…that’s all we had to worry about. When gaming was officially ushered into the 3d side of things via the PS1, that’s when Contra started to go wrong. When I say wrong, I mean very, very wrong. The developers just lost sight of what the game used to be, and they got swept up in all the new technology. Through that move, the Contra series was ruined. We eventually made it to the PS2 titles which weren’t that great, but they were a step in the right direction. I had long thought that the Contra series was pretty much dead, never to return to its former glory. That is, until Konami showed off the first footage of Contra IV. Old-fashioned side-scrolling action on the DS. I was in retro heaven. I’ve had my hands on the game for awhile now, and it’s been kicking my ass since day one. Contra is indeed back."

Full Source: Gonintendo