In the European and American version a player who was hit once lost a life. The Japanese version was easier to play, due to the developers programming the game so as a player can get hit three times before losing a life. Like in the previous games, when a player is hit by an enemy, the current weapon will be lost too. In this version the player can now carry and handle up to four weapons, as well as bombs. The character can't be hit by enemies while sliding, and can even harm some of them when touching. A new addition to the game, not featured in the previous versions, was the sliding technique, which can be performed by holding the direction-pad diagonally downwards while pressing the jump button. The player can jump, run and fire, and also fire while jumping or running. A maximum number of four players can play in the same time, but they can't choose the same character. The player can choose between four different characters. All the levels in Contra: Hard Cops feature only side-view perspective, unlike previous games which had some levels shown in '3D view'.

The character has to pass several levels by killing every enemy and fight the boss in the end, to finish the game. The game follows the same gameplay as the other games in the series. The characters will meet Colonel Bahamut along the way as well, who is a former war hero, trying to subvert the Government using newly-developed weapons. The plot is also set around a hacker who, after getting into the security system of the city, programs all the robots to destroy everything around and cause panic. The action happens five years after Contra III: The Alien Wars, when a team of commandos, Unified Military Special Mobile Task Force K-X, or Contra Hard Cops, has to combat the crime and illegal activities which are spreading fast after the war. The game is a run and gun-style shoot'em-up style, or shooter, as we call it today. The game is part of the Contra series, serving as a follow-up to Contra III: The Alien Wars, released two years earlier. Contra: Hard Cops is a video game produced and released in Japan in 1994, and in Europe and Australia under the name of Probotector, and made available for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

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