Iron Meat is a gorehound Contra riff from an alternate timeline

When a Contra game hits, it hits hard, which is why entries like the original and follow-ups like Super C, Contra III, and Contra: Hard Corps are still celebrated today. Konami’s series has inspired countless creators. The latest, which comes from Ivan Suvarov and Retroware, has taken that inspiration and given it a gore-blasted twist with Iron Meat.

In the realm of homages, Iron Meat liberally borrows from what Konami established nearly 40 years ago. Thankfully, they’ve taken the skeleton of what makes Contra work and quite literally put some fresh meat on its bones. From the moment you jump in — an updated demo recently made its way to Steam — you’ll be in territory that’s familiar but eerily different. Iron Meat is like a little window into a timeline in which the main Contra series soaked in all the mid-to-late ’90s trends of over-the-top violence and hurled them right back at the players who were clamoring for it.

Meat’s back on the menu

In the world of Iron Meat, an interdimensional threat known simply as The Meat has found its way to our world and is now running rampant. Players hop into the armored suit of Vadim, who has to carry the run-and-gun traditions of the past on his already-burdened back. In place of your average enemy soldier, you’ll find twisted mutants. Turrets are now a mess of mouths, veins, and vessels. Anything and everything in the background and foreground has been mangled and reimagined like an experiment gone wrong. 

Contra itself has never shied away from body horror. As soon as you entered the alien base back in 1986 you were treated to all manner of nasty sights. It all culminated in Bill and/or Lance letting hell loose upon a colossal beating heart while totally-not-Facehuggers burst from eggs all around it. We’ve seen flying brains, Giger aliens, and whatever the hell that two-faced, spider-legged carbuncle was in the final Contra III boss rush. Being gross is kind of in the series’ DNA to some extent, and Iron Meat picks up that torch and dumps gasoline all over it. 

Hard Gore

Over the decades, the Contra series has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Some love it purely for the challenge, wearing their 1CC victories like a badge of honor. Others just like to shoot aliens that are dumb enough to run full bore in the direction of your rapid-fire Spread Gun. I like both of those things, but I’ve mostly always just loved seeing what each entry is gonna throw at me next. A good slice of side-scrolling action is kind of like a theme park ride, and games like Contra III and Hard Corps pull this off perfectly. One minute you’re roasting a massive kaiju turtle, and the next you’re blasting alien bugs and hanging from a mid-air missile. 

This is also what has me interested in Iron Meat. It’s easy to pretend it’s a lost Contra game when it evokes that same curiosity. Since one of the main hooks is seeing all the ways they turn enemies and everyday objects into meaty monstrosities, there’s a constant drive to progress and see what else they’ve got cooking. The demo lets you plow through the first two stages, which is about all you’ll need to decide whether or not the meat on those bones is substantial enough. The first stage ends with a fight against a pulsating tank called the Entrail Blazer MKII. It’s a simple and quick battle, but the second is the more promising showdown.

All aboard

Stage 2 pits Vadim against Carrionvoy, which takes a long and winding train and turns it into a hideous beast that barfs up corpses. It’s also a pretty straightforward fight, but its various attacks and the way it slithers back and forth, filling the screen all the while, shows more of what Iron Meat has up its sleeves. The level itself is great, too. It takes place atop a train, pulling the camera out to show the bigger picture and make it easier to see all the attacks coming your way. It all goes down to a soundtrack that’s more Doom than Contra, but it works well with all the splatter on display. 

Iron Meat isn’t a revelation as far as spiritual successors are concerned. Its controls, power-ups, and even its overall pacing are all lifted straight from the Contra playbook. The oft-misused saying that “great artists steal” refers to the way one might study the work of others and learn how to make it their own; to imbue it with their own style. If all that ultimately boils down to here ends up being “Contra with blood and guts,” consider my artistic curiosity sated.