Remember the time when we used to spend entire summers vacations mashing the buttons on the controllers of our Sega Little Master consoles? And do you remember the pure feeling of delight you felt when you finally landed up with a game cassette which had in its contents, amongst the 99999 in 1, any version of the legendary game Contra? Nothing came close. Here are the signs that say, loud & clear, that Contra was your (and my) favourite video game.

1. That epic opening tune…

2. Contra pretty much introduced multi-player in India. Playing with a friend was the best thing ever. But you always wanted to play as the blue guy.

3. Losing a life in the first stage meant restarting the game all over again.

4. After a lot of attempts, you finally mastered the art of crossing over this exploding bridge without falling down.

5. “S” was your favourite power. Eat Spread bullets bitches.

6. And you really hated “F.” Useless piece of shit.

7. Base 1 and Base 2 were the most frustrating rounds for you. But you still kept at it.

8. The waterfall stage was easily one of the game’s most epic levels.

9. You could never understand how it was even possible to clear all stages with just 3 lives.

10. Then you finally found that version of the game which had 30 lives. Awww yeah.

11. It let you play levels you had never played before.

12. This round had you puling out your hair in clumps.

13. Killing the Bosses at the end of every stage was the bestest thing ever.

14. Coming face to face with the final boss was the ultimate adrenaline rush.

15. The final shot of you leaving the Island was the closest your childhood got to ‘Bad-ass’.

16. And lastly, playing with your best friend made the Contra experience even better.