Bionic Commando

The original Bionic Commando, released in my birth year of 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, was a part of the glory days of classic Capcom along with Mega Man and a number of great Disney-based games and other original properties. It featured a rippin’ soundtrack, a creative gameplay hook (your character couldn’t jump, but rather had a grappling hook that he had to swing around with) and some of the most absurdly awesome story scenarios (namely, fighting a reanimated Hitler at the end…what???).

I was a huge fan of the original game. It was challenging, consistently creative in its level design, and had some fantastic weapons and enemies. So when Capcom announced that it was bringing back the much-neglected franchise in a huge way, I was understandably excited. The relatively-unknown Swedish developer Grin was to create and release two different titles – Bionic Commando Rearmed, a download-only reimagining of the original game, and Bionic Commando, a full-on series sequel/reboot with a much grittier and more serious tone.

While Rearmed was a fun throwback (that I didn’t much care for) this game is a different beast entirely. Set ten years after the original game, Nathan “Rad” Spencer, the original protagonist (now sporting inexplicable brown dreadlocks in place of the classic red flattop) is facing execution for being a bionic I guess. The game quickly falls into a rabbit hole of bland, gruff military yammering, forced military attitude and extremely bizarre and unwarranted plot twists. I had trouble following who was who and what exactly I was trying to accomplish at any point. Clearly the guys at Grin have played a little game called Gears of War and wanted some of that rough-and-tumble war action into their game, but it just feels silly and overwrought.

The core gameplay, however, is something special. Or at least, it would be if it had any room to really grow and express itself. Right off the bat you are eased into the swinging mechanic with your magical bionic arm, and though it takes some getting used to it mostly feels great. Navigation becomes a real breeze and has a nice flow to it…until the designers decide to arbitrarily gate your path in very limiting ways by putting deadly radiation all over the place. Another problem is water. Since Spencer is really heavy, with that big mechanical arm and all, he sinks like a rock in any water you come across...and it's all over the place.

The frustrations inherent with ending up in the wrong place and dying wouldn’t be so bad if the checkpoints and reloading were reasonable, but I can honestly say I haven’t played many games this long generation that have had such baffling loading screens and inconsistent checkpoints. Often I’d die in some easy way after ten minutes of carefully swinging around the environment, taking out some tough enemies and fulfilling some objectives, only to be reset way back in a really jarring fashion. It really took the wind out of my sails on numerous occasions.

There is an in-game optional objective system (i.e. like kill this many enemies with your grappling arm, take down a mech by throwing cars at it, etc.) that would be a lot more compelling and fun if they didn’t reset upon death if you didn’t reach a checkpoint after earning it. Other games with similar systems keep those objectives permanently unlocked even if you die before a save point, but that’s not the case here.

There are countless times as well when I was excited by the prospect of scaling a large building to reach my next objective, only to have the game cut to the ugly instructional loading screen and immediately place me at the top of the building. In other words, the times when the navigation could really shine are taken away from you and done automatically.

Also, combat scenarios are generally pretty bland. Ammunition for the more-powerful weapons is scarce, so you’re generally relegated to using your weak peashooter of a gun. If you played enough Rearmed, you are able to enter a unique code and unlock the classic handgun which has a lot more kick to it, but it still didn’t make it fun to use. I’d generally just run around an area aimlessly while spamming the trigger until all the enemies were dead since the auto-aim function is remarkably generous. The best option, when you have enough breathing room, is to throw rocks or other objects at your enemies, or to just straight-up pick up enemy soldiers and throw them. There is some satisfaction when that works, but there are often times when Spencer feels overly fragile and every enemy is firing at you at once, so it’s not always practical. Also, many back-to-back combat scenarios have you fighting incredibly obnoxious enemy mechs that can magically pinpoint your location even if they haven’t seen you. Poor, cheap enemy AI really spoils the experience.

The visual design of the game, when it holds up a steady framerate, is actually pretty nice. There’s some varied jungle, cave, and industrial areas that can be impressive. The performance of the game is awfully weak a lot of the time, unfortunately, so it doesn’t always work. But when it does, this is a nice-looking game.

The soundtrack is worth mentioning. I think on its own it would be a great nostalgia trip for fans of the original game. Often the emotional, full-symphony style feels completely unearned by the boring, awkward events happening around you. I’d definitely recommend purchasing the soundtrack separately though since it’s really got some nice orchestral arrangements and has some good emotional depth to it, something the game is sorely lacking.

Also, I guess there’s a multiplayer mode. I think. I dunno. That seems really unappealing but I didn’t mess with it outside the game demo to find out.

So did I like this game? I sure harp on it a lot in this review because it has countless flaws. I really wanted to like it more than I did, and there are glimmers of brilliance here and there that make it all the more disappointing. There is the framework for a good game in here, and some of the good ideas come to a certain level of fruition, but I don’t think Grin really had the chops to pull off their lofty ambitions. The bizarre, incoherent story combined with the strangely limiting gameplay and awful loading times/checkpoints really does it in, and that’s really too bad. I doubt we’ll see much from the Bionic Commando series for a good long time after this.