Plagued by fundemental flaws Bionic Commando never quite recovers
Remakes are becoming more and more popular these days. With publishers struggling to come up with new and exciting IP’s its not hard to see why they also take a look back at what old IP could strike it big. Bionic Commando is an example of Capcom doing just this. Along with the remake of the classic NES game, they decided to reboot the IP entirely with a current gen release. For fans of the good old days, you might want to think that they succeeded in this endeavor. But Bionic Commando isn’t a good game by today’s standards and even those who liked the original may find themselves wishing that Capcom hadn’t meddled with things they couldn’t deliver upon.
If the devs did anything right it was the most important gameplay element, the bionic arm. It is incredibly satisfying to swing from place to place, snatching up ammo throwing various things at enemy troops and just having a good old time being a bionic. The controlling takes a while to get used to and on top of that there is an adjustment period to learn each new attack as you get them, but once you have mastered all there is to the arm, it is just fantastic.
With the most excellent arm controls lies the first fundamental flaw with Bionic commando, the area of play. This problem is really broken up into two parts, the first being the extremely limited scope of where you can actually go in a given level, and the second how long a given level is. Now it may be that the developers were trying to deliver a more accurate depiction of how the game played back in the 80’s but there is a reason games don’t play like that anymore.
The amazing swinging mechanics are infinitely hampered by the scope of an unforgivably linear path. You are never able to explore the best way to get from point a to point b in a level, your are basically led by way points and if you stray too far, you die and have to start over again. It is puzzling that someone would give you such a great gameplay element like a swinging mechanic and then not allow you to really let loose with it. There are some many points where you could see a better way to get somewhere or a real opportunity to sneak up on an enemy but you can’t simply because it is not where the game wants you to go. This really takes away from the whole point of playing a game like Bionic Commando and with this ability often being well executed in many (not necessarily good) spider man games, there really is no excuse for it.
Along with the linear scope of the game, the story is also riddled with load screens. You almost always start in a tunnel, swing through a 15 or 30 minute section, and end in a tunnel. Now this could be the developers trying to channel the ancient art of platforming game levels but this only succeeds in bring you out of the experience. The loading screens aren’t really that long, maybe 10 seconds, but the point really is that it is an all brakes stop in the motion of the story. Games work so much better when they flow and when you are trying to get a story across, it is detrimental to give your audience so many chances to do something else.
However, as stories go, this one is not that bad. It is probably more so for those who have played the original but there is a nugget of goodness in this tale. All of which culminates in some really good levels and an epic end game. The story, hand in hand with one of the best musical scores for a game that can be recalled in recent years, serve to remind you if only the game was just a bit better, it would be an awesome game. And at this point if a sequel were ever made, however doubtful that might look right now, it would most likely turn this whole hearted but half realized franchise into a truly memorable one that everyone would have to play. As it stands now the game can only really be recommended for die-hard fans of the original who, after reading all the faults the game has, still feel the desire to see the game through. 4 out of 10 for an experience that is lacking.
