Super Contra

This level is the hardest level in my opinion, i say this because i could clear level 5 only dying purposely at the final boss to kill it quicker. But this level gave me so much trouble on my way to the 'Master' achievement.

Now dont forget this level needs to be completed in Single Player for it to unlock.

To start with if you are skilled or perhaps lucky enough to start the level with rockets or a spread gun, you can easily clear this level maybe without even dying. As long as you take your time and dont stop shooting!

But in most cases you will be starting with the machine gun, you need to be really good at hammering your 'X' button. This sounds obvious but i mean you need to be turbo pad type good for this level as the enemies come flying at you constantly. The aliens are slightly stronger then the soldiers you wiould have been fighting which is understandable as they dont shoot any weapons. Even the skulls that fly at you take a few shots to be destroyed, so when you have both flying at you at the same time things can turn bad relaly quickly!

At the start of the level all is peaceful for about 10 seconds, a weapon pod appears just before then enemies do so be quick to grab it if you want it. Its only the Grenade launcher but id use this over the machine gun, not over the Spread Gun or Rockets though.

Then instead of running and gunning, edge and gun! Take your time, as well as the aliens charging at you there will be some type of flying... things slowly coming at you that you will see explode at the top of the screen. Easy to destroy but there is sometimes a part of the enemy that goes below the screen that you cant hit until it comes above the ground enough for you to hit. That can be an awkward moment if an alien charges you at the same time so be quick to destroy the flying enemy.

As you progress there will be flying skulls coming at you from all sides, they seem to come at you from awkward angles and require you to jump and shoot sometimes. But again this causes problems becuase the aliens will STILL be charging you. You can jump over the aliens if you need to, but usually because of how crazy the level appears to be you may end up miss timing the jump and osing a life.

Before the mid level mini boss appears, there will be a bunch of weapon pods that appear almost at the same time. These contain much needed wepaons but they also serve as a bit of a trap at the same time. Its very easy to panic and quickly try to move up to shoot the pod down, this causes enemies to spawn quicker and without the firepower being shot at them theres a high chance you will die again! So again edge your way forward slow enough and only 1 pod will appear at a time and not too many enemies at once.

The boss its actually pretty easy to kill, even with the machine gun. I normally would have jumped onto the middle ledge and hammered away at the boss so fast that the red dots it spawns and the skulls that come out never even had a chance to move! Plus being stood on the ledge means you are safe from the aliens until you come off of it.

The boss doesnt have to much energy so as long as you shoot fast and efficiently you will make quick work of it. Carry on moving forward slowly, this last section is easy as there are only aliens coming at you. But be careful for the ones that spawn behind you and try to spot if there are two aliens almost stuck together. When two aliens are running close together you may not notice in time and therefore see the one alien die and not even think about jumping to avoid the 2nd one.

There will also be a few eggs on the floor that you will come across, just keep a bit of distance and go prone to quickly take them out. Then when the boss fight starts quickly take out the one in the corner underneathe the boss. Now if you are not on a run for the 'Master' achievement and have lives to spare, the best way to finish off the boss is to stand directly underneathe it and jump and shoot up at the same time absolutely hammering the shoot button. Yes you will die if not quick enough but when you get back up you will have a few seconds of invincibility that you can use to your advantage.

If you prefer not to die then shoot away but keep to the middle of the screen. If he lunges with his tounge attack you will have plenty of time to fall back and avoid being hit. If he fires the red circles you need to quickly run to the left and then jump to right back over the dots and repeat until he stops firing. Dodging the red circles can be really tough as they home in on you, so if you were standing on the left side of the screen you wont be able to avoid them as there will no room to react or move.

Once the boss goes down your character will jump down to start level 5 and there you go! Achievement unlocked.

Good luck!

Use these videos to help you reach level 4 and also show you some tips for beating level 4, helped me out a lot.

(Credit to Xplict911 for the video)