Bionic Commando

Bionic Commando brings back to live a 20 year old classic side scroller, thrusting it into the 1st person shooter world of games.  The story picks up 5- 6 years after the events of the original game with Spencer in prison awaiting execution, and bionics outlawed.  Bionics are hunted and either executed, imprisoned, or run and are outlaws.  Without further delay, here is my review of Bionic Commando.  Be kind as this is my first stab at reviewing a game.

The Short of it:
Overall: B
Story: C
Gameplay: B
Graphics: A
Sound & Music: B
Difficulty & Achievments: B

Story  C
My grade for the story B- Wife grade for story C-.
The story in Bionic Commando for me, was fair.  Interesting enough to keep playing the game considering the other variables, but choppy enough that I wasn't anxious to get right back to the game to see how the story unfolded.  Throughout the game, the one liners are horrible.  Granted, I've been playing Bionic Command Rearmed (the remake of the original) and the one liners there are rather cheesy as well, but Bionic Commando's are much worse.  Ad to that the unnecessary foul language in the game is another detractor.  Why oh why can't more games follow Epic's example with Gears of War 2 and allow me to filter out that garbage?!?!  I'm trying to stop that bad habit and hearing it constantly in games doesn't help.
I thought that GRIN did a good job of coming up with a interesting plot twist for why Spencer was put in prison and Bionics are outlawed, but the delivery was very poor, and the time to get to key elements that make it all come together was painfully slow and choppy.  There is a big flaw in the story, where the explained reason that Bionics are outlawed is not made very clear in the beginning, but the secret plot reveal later in the game doesn't mesh as clearly with the original premise for their earlier explanation for being illegal.  These flaws in the story and the choppiness make it feel very much like a port/translation of a Japanese game, so if you love Japanese stories and are forgiving of this (as I am), then take that into consideration.  There are some CG story cut scenes throughout the game that are really grabbing, but to often they end abruptly or leave out too much detail.  This is still a fun story to follow, it's just not an epic AAA game.  As for the other major plot twist and "surprise" event in the game, (SPOILER ALERT spoiler potential is in italic small text), the betrayal plot twist was horribly handled.  To the point of it feeling like a last minute afterthought of... how do we get an extra level or two into the game?  Seriously, this should have been left out it was just too much cheese on the cracker!  The big complaint from people online is the final outcome of the hero.  Which for me, wasn't so bad, I thought it was mysterious enough that there is plenty of playroom for a sequel, but still brings closure to the story, be it not the typical happy ending you normally expect.
The wife did follow some of the game's story plot, but she'd often walk out of the room and missed huge chunks of the story not caring to know what she missed.  She was interesting to hear the ending, but then my wife is one of those crazy people that will read spoilers about movies and flip to the back of a book after reading the first few chapters...go figure.
Foul Language Meter: HIGH If you don't like games  with a lot of cussing and foul language, steer away from this one.

Gameplay  B
The mechanics of swinging around like a mechanical Tarzan are AWESOME!  However, the learning curve and difficulty of mastering the spin around and attach mechanics of swinging are a bit daunting at first.  There is a brief tutorial at the beginning of the game to show you a few of the game play mechanics, that does a good homage to the retro looks of the original game.  Once you grow accustomed to swinging around the city and successfully grabbing on to that last pylon before certain death, that aspect of the game becomes a blast!

Achievement Difficulty  B
Loved
Challenges, challenges, challenges.  The majority of the games achievements are tied to challenges.  In other words, kill 350 grunts.  Swing non-stop without touching any obstacles for 5 grabs.  Often these challenges are accompanied not only by earning an achievement (and I'd assume in the PS3 world a trophy), but with an in-game reward such as a health boost or weapon improvement.  This is a fairly rewarding experience, as not only does achieving the challenges provide the intoxicating boost of gamerscore for all you fellow gamerscore whores out there, but it also improves your abilities in game making the game a bit easier and more fun to play. 
Hated
One particular thing I hated, was the inability to go back and wrap up some challenges that I hadn't finished.  So, if you collect 95% of the collectibles throughout the story, there is no going back to find the last 18 collectibles once your finished.  You can't even go back to an older save of the game, as your save is automatically overwritten at checkpoints.  Which brings me to my next most hated element, and that is checkpoints and the inability to save!  Here we are 20 years later, technology has greatly advanced and CAPCOM can't allow for a saving system?  Playing a game for 5-10-15 minutes, making some incredible progress and then dying to loose it all is incredibly frustrating.  Not only do you lose your progress in the game, but you lose your challenges as well.  So, should you die to some stupid grunt after having beat down a massive Biomech, swung through the air to do a special finishing achievement earning blow, gaining you a boost in your abilities, BAM it's wiped out and forgotten leaving you to have to not only get back to the point where you left off, but accomplish all the sometimes very challenging feats of particular challenges all over again, and then pray and hope you can make it to a checkpoint to save your progress.  These are not elements that make me want to go back and play the game a little more, or do another play through.  I tend to try and squeeze as many achievement points out of a game and extend it's life as much as possible, but the painfulness of playing through the entire game w/ a somewhat weak story again, combined with the pain of having to get every single collectible and not just the ones I missed was too much for me...game is up for trade.
Difficulty  B
This is one of those games that is very unforgiving in the way of death.  Swing to far into radiation BAM dead.  Fail to turn around quick enough to grab that last pylon, DEAD.  However, once you swing up on the mechanics of game play, the difficulty isn't that bad.  It's a challenge that has penalty, but it's not a complete pull your hair out, throw the controller at the wall and walk away from it type difficulty.  In other words it's no Ninja Gaiden 2.  If Capcom were to institude a friendlier game save, more frequent checkpoints, or automatically save after finding collectibles and accomplishing challenges, this would have been an A+. 

Graphics A
The graphics on this game are gorgeous.  Characters have a gritty look and are very realistic.  The city feels HUGE and unending, yet the radiation does keep you confined somewhat from open exploration.  Don't get me wrong, in many locations the playground in which you can swing around is very large and wide open, both vertically as well as for long stretches.  I never noticed any stuttering or sluggishness moving around the maps.  The sense of epic scale was very real, and well presented.
 
Sound & Music  B
The sound effects were well done.  I never heard a noise that didn't sound appropriate, or out of place.  Sound effects should sound as real as you'd imagine these artificial elements would sound if you could be standing next to them, and this game came fairly close to that.  The music paid a very good homage to the original, with updated versions paying a clean and comfortable homage to the classic sounds familiar to Bionic Commando.  I wasn't overly moved by the music where I felt like it impacted me, but I also wasn't annoyed to the point of turning the music down or off.  Often times the balance between Music, Sound Effects, and Voice can be very poorly mixed.  Halo games remind me of this, I've always had a hard time hearing what was said in a Halo game because of sound issues.  I never felt that in Bionic Commando.  You do have the ability to adjust music and other sounds, but voice isn't separate from sound effects.