 Snastron. Operation C is the often-forgotten third game in the Contra series, coming to the original Game Boy less than a year after Super C was ported from the arcade to the NES. Operation C is so forgotten that even the developers of Contra 3, The Alien Wars for Super Nintendo, just skipped over entirely and declared itself the third game in the series. Weirdly, that wasn't always the case, as the Super NES Player's Guide had Contra 3's original title as Super Contra 4, which would make sense since that game wasn't released until more than a year after Operation C, but instead they decided to just forget the Game Boy game existed. And that's too bad, because Operation C is a damn good game, especially considering it's a measly little Game Boy release. The game features five original stages, although many have similar features to Super C for the NES. Stages 1, 3, and 5 are your classic Contra side-scrolling levels, while stages 2 and 4 are an overhead view. The downside of the overhead view is that you can't jump, so that's a bummer. I gotta mention the Konami Code real quick, it does work in this game, but instead of 30 lives, it allows stage select, so you can start on any of the five stages, so that's pretty cool. Operation C has all the usual Contra weapons, but this is the game that introduces the Hunter or Homing Gun, which is easily the most satisfying weapon to use in the game. I especially like that the default gun is the machine gun, so you can just hold down the button instead of tapping like crazy. Also, the spread gun can be upgraded from 3 to 5 bullets at once. That's awesome and very useful. While this game is really enjoyable and features the kind of gameplay you'd expect from any other early Contra game, Operation C is pretty easy. I will say stage 4 is pretty dang tough, kinda similar to stage 6 of Super C. Otherwise, the game doesn't present too much of a challenge. The levels aren't that long, and the inherent limitations of the Game Boy dictate that there can't be very much going on the screen at once, so that's a caveat you have to keep in mind. Anyway, Operation C is a very short but solid game that kind of got ignored in the grand scheme of things. It goes for an average of about $9 on eBay, so if you have a Super Game Boy or even a Game Boy Advance, I recommend checking it out.