Life Force
- $82.99
- Regular price
-
$93.99 - Sale price
- $82.99
- Unit price
- per
Box, manual and game — all original, all in the photos. Game condition guide →
Ships in 1–2 business days·Tracking on every order·Signature required on orders $250+
Item Condition
Complete in box: the cartridge, the manual and the box, all original; anything beyond that is included only if you can see it in the photos. The box includes its cardboard insert tray. The cartridge has a clean label with light cosmetic wear, and the manual is complete and legible. The box is in fair condition, with noticeable shelf wear and its top inner flaps/tabs missing, though it still displays well from the front. Look over the photos for condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.
Item Description
Gradius sent the Vic Viper into deep space. Life Force sends it somewhere much stranger: inside a living thing. Zelos, a planet-sized organism, is devouring worlds, and the only way to stop it is to fly into its body and blast through pulsing tissue, grasping tendrils and the creatures that guard its organs.
Konami built the game from its 1986 arcade shooter Salamander, a Gradius spinoff, and its six stages alternate between horizontal and vertical scrolling, which keeps every level feeling different. Walls of living tissue grow back as you shoot through them, fiery stages send flames arcing across the screen, and each stage ends with a large guardian, starting with Golem, a giant brain with eyes and tentacles that reach for your ship. The NES version uses the familiar Gradius power-up bar: collect capsules from destroyed enemies and choose when to cash them in for speed, missiles, the ripple laser, the standard laser, options and a force field. Building and protecting that loadout is the heart of the game, because losing a fully powered ship hurts.
The headline feature is simultaneous two-player co-op. A second player joins in the Lord British ship, and having two pilots on screen at once was a big deal for an NES shooter in 1988, especially one with Konami's polish. Working out who takes which power-ups and who covers which part of the screen turns a hard game into a great couch experience. It is also one of the games where the famous Konami code earns its reputation, raising your stock to 30 lives when entered at the title screen.
Life Force sits right beside Gradius and Contra in Konami's NES lineup, and plenty of players rank it the best shooter of the bunch for its visual variety, its driving soundtrack and that cooperative mode. For a shoot-'em-up fan it belongs on the short list of NES cartridges worth owning, and its organic body-horror theme still looks wild on original hardware.
Fast factsgame data via IGDB
- Released
- 1988
- Publisher
- Playtronic
- Developer
- Konami
- Players
- Single player, Multiplayer, Co-op
About the game
Life Force is an action-packed shooter where there are six levels which alternate between side and vertical scrolling, each of them ending with a powerful guardian. Throughout the game, destroying certain enemies will release power ups which can be used to equip your ship with more powerful weapons, extra speed, and shields. Gameplay is for one player or two players simultaneously.
Summary from the IGDB community database — the condition and contents of this listing are described above and in the photos.Watch gameplayLife Force on NES
Make an offer
Request more photos
Ships in 1–2 business days (Monday–Friday, excluding major U.S. holidays). During the holidays and big sales, allow one extra business day.
- Live USPS and UPS rates at checkout. Every order ships with tracking.
- We ship to all 50 states, U.S. military addresses (APO/FPO/DPO), and Canada. Canadian orders may owe duties and taxes on delivery.
- Orders of $250 or more ship with signature confirmation.
- Delivery dates shown at checkout are estimates, not guarantees.
Read the full Shipping Policy, including holiday order-by dates.
Most of what we sell is one of a kind, so all sales are final unless something goes wrong on our end.
Contact us within 14 days of delivery if your item doesn’t work, arrived damaged, is the wrong item, or isn’t as described. We’ll send a prepaid return label and make it right with a replacement or a refund. Orders placed November 1–December 24 can be reported through January 15.
Not covered: change of mind, compatibility issues, and opened sealed trading-card products.
Email support@coolection.com with your order number. Read the full Refund Policy.
NES
Life Force
$82.99
Offering on several items? Build an offer list →
Submitting an offer does not guarantee acceptance. Items aren’t held while an offer is open, and prices can change until then. We reply within 1–2 business days.
NES
Life Force
$82.99
Real photos of this exact item: we’ll photograph what you ask for and email them to you, usually within 1–2 business days.
