"Contra: Hard Corps, released in Japan as Contra: The Hard Corps (魂斗羅 ザ・ハードコア) and in Europe and Australia as Probotector, is a side-scrolling run and gun-style shoot-'em-up game released by Konami for the Sega Genesis video game platform in 1994. It is the only installment in the Contra series that was released for Sega's platform.
Set five years after the events of Contra III: The Alien Wars, an elite team of commandos called the "Unified Military Special Mobile Task Force K-X", also known as the "Contra Hard Corps", has been assembled to combat the rapid spread of crime and illegal activities following the war. When an unknown hacker infiltrates the city's security system and reprograms a group of unmanned robots to cause havoc, the Hard Corps are deployed to handle the situation. As the game progresses, the player will uncover a plot involving Colonel Bahamut, a former war hero, who seeks to overthrow the Government by developing new types of weapon using a stolen alien cell.
The multiple weapon system from Contra III has been revamped. The player can now carry up to four different weapons, as well as a supply of bombs. Like in previous games, weapons are obtained from flying capsule pods. This time the weapon items are now labeled "A", "B", "C", and "D", which will vary depending on the character controlled by the player. Each player begins with a standard semi-automatic machine gun, which will be replaced by the character's A-type weapon whenever it's picked. When the player loses a life, their current weapon will be lost. Unlike Contra III, the player's supply of bombs will remain the same when a life is lost.
Another unique feature to Contra: Hard Corps is the addition of branching paths that allows the player to play through a different set of stages depending on key decisions made during key moments of the game's story. There are four possible paths in the game, each with its own ending, as well as hidden bonus stage for a total of five different endings."
Source: Wikipedia, "Contra:_Hard_Corps," available under the CC-BY-SA License.