BREAKING: Fanboy likes Rearmed!

Bionic Commando: Rearmed hit XBLA last night, and all four of us stayed up late to download it as soon as it became available. And even with all the hype and anticipation surrounding the game, my early impressions are that it does not disappoint. I played for little under two hours and got to get a good feel for the style, some of the additions, and most importantly, the swing mechanic. Seeing as that last item is probably the most important in making a Bionic Commando game work, let's discuss some swinging.

The basics of hitting a button, grappling to a ledge and either swinging forward or climbing are still all there. It took me a bit to get acquainted with the timing and initially found myself flailing away at ledges while sailing down into oblivion. After some practice thoough, the timing began forming a glorious bond with my reflexes and I was making those rewarding grabs that every would-be commando savors.

There are a bunch of fleshed out additions to the swinging in Rearmed as well. The one that struck me the most was the huge difference in the arc of your swing if you hit the button to “reel in” your arm right after you have made your initial grab-and-go as opposed to just letting Rad swing and then have him pull himself up. This can mean the difference between slamming into a spiked wall or landing just short of it. There are some other additions which all seem to generally open-up the gameplay and reward players for spending the time to learn some new skills.

I haven't made it far enough to really put my skills and the system to any real test. I've gone through a couple of the top-down “encounter” levels, and they seemed initially too hard and then maybe too easy? We'll see. The art and music seem to deliver, but I feel like that was a known quantity from all the preview stuff we've seen. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised to find the game was taking me much longer than I had expected. Last year, I went through the NES Bionic Commando in about an hour or two, and I think I spent at least that much time just in the Challenge Rooms this time around.

I can't wait to get back and play more of Rearmed. Sure, I'm a big fan of the original, but I think this game will delight even those new to the series. While there are some things like the seemingly long load times and some strange leaderboard implementation for the Challenge Rooms, this version of Bionic Commando initially appears to be 800 points well spent.