Contra Force is an run and gun game released by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992 in North America.
The game was scheduled to be released in Japan under the title of Arc Hound (アークハウンド, Āku Haundo), with no ties to the Contra series, but was cancelled.
[4] Stages in the game are the Warehouse, Harbor, Mati Building, Aircraft Rumble, and lastly, the Blue Group Headquarters.
[6] The player must pick up briefcase-shaped power-ups, which are hidden within the destructible environment of each stage, to move the cursor on the indicator by one increment.
One day, the team's leader, Burns, receives a phone call from their informant Fox, who tells him that the Head of Intelligence is being threatened by a criminal organization known as D.N.M.E.
[12][13] Despite the cancellation of Arc Hound in Japan, the game was still localized for the North American market as a spinoff of the Contra series.
Allgame editor Brett Alan Weiss criticized the slowdown and flicker that the game suffers from, but praised the added strategy of being able to select from different characters each with their own unique skills and weapons.