Bionic Commando

When you see a game like this you think something like "this could be a great idea." I thought that same thing, but when I actually played the game, I found myself disappointed. Now that's not to say that this isn't a good game, but the faults overshadow the good parts of the game.

You start out in a building in Ascension City and you have to navigate through the level a bit until you find your bionic arm, and that's where the fun begins. After swinging around for awhile, I started to feel like I was playing Spider-Man. Swinging from buildings, lampposts, etc. That was probably the best part of the game, however, the lack of freedom to roam around levels, due to radiation, really took away from the enjoyment. I also found the game to be very unforgiving. If you were swinging around and just happened to run into a large amount of radiation and die, you could find yourself pretty far back in the level. Not to mention any enemies you might have defeated had to be killed again, which is pretty normal in a lot of games, but when you've just got done taking on a large amount of enemies and then you die and have to kill them all again, your morale goes down a pretty big notch.

The combat was interesting at first, but over time it began to be repetitive. There's no large variety physical attacks, and the only ones you really  use are your bionic arm moves, such as grappling onto enemies and then zipping in and kicking them (which I found myself doing a lot.) There is an evasion button in the game that allows you to roll out of the way of incoming attacks, but I only found use for it 2 times throughout the game, both in boss fights: The Mohole and Groeder. The boss fights were fun, but once you found out how to defeat them, you just stuck with the same old strategy. As for the multiplayer, it's just like playing the game, but with other people. I know that sounds simple, but that's the best way I can think to explain it. There were no surprises, just the same old thing I felt the entire time I played the story.

The game really did have it's ups and a great concept, but they made it too limited in both exploration and combat for me to thoroughly enjoy what I was hoping to be a good experience. There was also the loading screen deal. At first it seemed pretty cool, but got old just as quick. All in all, Bionic Commando is not a bad game, but it's pretty rough around the edges.