Customer Reviews

Bionic Commando

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had been anticipating this release for quite some time. I saw a gameplay trailer for it almost two years ago and had been waiting anxiously for it ever since. I'm not disappointed, but some gamers might be.

There's a lot of ground to cover, so I'll try to be succinct.

Unfortunately, if you're not into this game for the nostalgia factor then you're probably going to grow tired of it somewhat quickly after you complete the story mode once or twice. The multiplayer may grab your fancy and keep you coming back, but if you're a CoD or GoW or Halo (later referred to as "The Big 3" in this same review) online player than likely you will find yourself putting your "drug of choice" back in when you need an MP fix.

If you played the original Bionic Commando for the Nintendo Entertainment System this game will have lots of retro flare for you (the Title screen music is the original title music from the NES game redone on piano) and many references to the 1988 game. For those of you who never played it, you're still in for a fun 3rd Person action/adventure/shooter.

I myself am the type to flip through the game manual for a few minutes before I take the game itself for a spin. And at first glance I have to admit I thought the controls would be rather complicated, but I was wrong. Most actions in the game are simple and can be completed with one or two button presses. Use of the Grappling arm (that pretty much IS Bionic Commando) is extremely simple, and fun as well. Some swinging tricks take a little getting used to, but anyone who's played a Spider Man game on 360 will likely have no trouble at all adapting. But fear not if you haven't, it still really simple to get the hang of.

The game looks impressive. The colors are vivid, the shading is nice, and water and shadow effects are pulled off nicely. Sometimes it looks a bit fuzzy, but I blame that on my TV. The levels/areas themselves, unfortunately, feel somewhat restrictive, and life-threatening radiation often prevents you from swinging to an enticing perch.

When it comes to achievements, Bionic Commando is probably a pretty easy completion (1000/1000 GS) for most avid gamers. The achievements are based around the game's Challenges, which require you to perform certain actions throughout the game and reward you with weapon and armor upgrades. Most challenges are relatively simple, but progress in difficulty throughout the game.

The weapons in the game are diverse and fun to use. Enemies die with satisfying replicated agony, and Spencer (your character) makes many little wise-cracks and quips throughout the game. Sure, it's nothing original in that respect but always amusing when done well. I think it was done well in this case.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't really offer much in the way of replay value. There are 3 difficulty levels, and many collectibles stashed throughout the games areas. There are achievements in the game centered around finding all of the collectibles and completing all of the challenges, but you must find/complete them all in one play-through to unlock the completion achievement. That is really the only replay value I see in the game for those just looking for something new to play.

The multiplayer is nothing new or innovative when it comes to game-type selection. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag are available. But, if you're looking for something a little different than the aforementioned "Big 3" than this might grab your attention for a while. The grappling hook can make battles very interesting.

So, if you really liked the original 1988 NES release of Bionic Commando, you're going to like this game as a matter of principle alone when it comes to content and story. The gameplay mechanics and vivid scenery will keep you playing. There's even and old friend or two who pop up to say Hi.

If you never even knew there was a 1988 NES Bionic Commando until you read this review, you still may enjoy this game if you like 3rd person action/adventure/shooter games with a few unique mechanics and quippy dialog.

Bionic Commando would've been good....if:

-There weren't COMPLETELY random toxic areas to limit your exploration and to punish you for no apparent reason.
-You didn't pretty much die every time you fell into water. (Seriously,in some places it's maybe a foot deep-just stand up for goodnessake!)
-The controls weren't so completely unforgiving at times when you need them to be accommodating.
-Swinging from floating mine to floating mine was actually nuanced and smooth instead of insanely aggravating because of poor attach detection and doofus swing mechanics.
-You didn't have to re-play huge chunks of the game over and over again because the save spots were in such stupid and unintuitive places.
-If the story was little more than truly ignore-worthy.
-The main character was less of a tool-shed.


Of course it really would've sucked if not for:

-Really great graphics.
-Fun grappling mechanics.
-Decent combat.
-Taking enemies out by throwing cars and debris with your mechanical arm (One of the game's ONLY saving graces)
-A couple of cool bosses and some really great larger enemies.

I wanted to like this game. I really did. There are some really great moments in it, but man it was hard to get through with all of the frustration. A poorly designed game, with deeply flawed controls a good experience does not make. Play something fun instead.

It was a well put together game, I couldn't put it down. The story line about spencer's wife was a little far fetched. And I had expected more in the ending then there was. The bionic swing was probably my favorite thing in the game. My fav weapon, throwing stuff at my targets. The thing I would change would be the story line about the wife. (My wife is still confused about it). Look forward to a second one (Hint hint)

I loved this game. I think a lot of people that gave this game negative reviews just did not get it.
I found the controls as good, if not better, than most Spider-Man games. And it is like playing Spider-Man with a weapon arsenal. It's just awesome to fling yourself off a high rise, falling, then at the last moment hitting your grappling arm to a light pole swinging up in the air, taking out your gun, firing at you enemies below, then before you even hit the ground throw your arm again into an enemy, fling him in the air and empty the last of your rounds into him.
There are great moments like this throughout the game. The environments are wonderfully built around the grappling mechanic, and surprisingly diverse, from destroyed cityscapes, to jungles, to vast underground caverns.

The one downside is the story. Utterly ridiculous.

You have to stand up and Take Notice and give Capcom some credit
for a Unique Re-Launching of A Somewhat Forgotten Classic

The Original Bionic Commando was Ahead of its time in the 8Bit Area

CAPCOM & GRIN did a ***** Job on this title
It's Fun it seem to me now more Game aren't made to be fun
More like going through the motions

The Low Price alone should make any XBox360 Owner jump on it
Stick with it for a hour and master the controls and you'll Enjoy and Appreciate what Capcom tried to do

Controls 8.5/10 (Once u get the hang of the how to Play it Does work Not Flawlessly But, pretty Good
Graphics The game runs on Grin's own 'Diesel' engine 9/10
Audio 5.1 Dolby Digital is a Great Audio mix along side the V/O Casting for Nathan "RAD" Spencer (voiced by Mike Patton, The Lead Singer of Faith No More) is Such a Great Idea he does a killer job! 10/10
Over All A Must Play title 8.5/10
It's A Very Good High Profile title that got Lost or Over Looked in the Shuffle
Not All games are gonna be Call of Duty, Gears of War, Bio Shock, Assassin's Creed, Halo, Mass Effect!

I bought Bionic Commando with the knowledge that it was not the best game. I had heard that some people had fun with it, and that maybe the critics had been too harsh. I can safely say that this game earns every harsh word that comes its way. Not because it is a flat out bad game, but because what should have been a truly fun game seems to go out of its way to be the exact opposite.

First the good points.
1. The graphics are down right beautiful.
2. Using your Bionic arm is super fun once you get the hang of it.
3. It is fun to swing.

Wow. That was short. Now for the bad.
1. Those beautiful graphics that I mentioned only show ugly, delapidated buildings.
2. Your arm is limited throughout the first part of the game. You are shown how to do everything at the beginning of the game, but for reasons that are never explained, you aren't allowed to use your attacks until your never present commander reminds you how they work. Suck.
3.While swinging is fun, you are only allowed to swing in certain places. Even though the levels look huge, most of them are covered in nearly invisible radiation that kills you almost instantly. You won't know where these places are until you swing right into them and die. Super Suck.
4.The achivements are time consuming given how sporadicly the enemies are sprinkled throughout the levels, so you have two options. Try and have fun, or get the achievements. There is no in between.
5.Water is another near instant kill. Good luck finding something to latch on to in the 2 seconds you're given before you drown.
6.The snipers in this game can hit you from anywhere in the level. Tres unfair.

It seems like the developers of this game made two different versions. the first is a game with huge levels that you can use your super cool arm to zip around in while killing your enemies with style. the second game was put over the first one, and its only purpose it to limit how much fun you can have at any one time. Having fun swinging? Here take some invisible radiation that you can't avoid. You like the bionic arms combat functions? Well then, for the enemies that the style of combat would be affective against were not going to let you use any of the cool moves. When can you use them? When the snipers who can see from anywhere come into play and your melee options become pretty much zero seems like a good idea to us.

In short as well made as this game is, it goes out of its way to kill any fun that you could have had with it. If you want something like it, but fun buy Just Cause 2. Play now, thank me later.
Just Cause 2

I bought this thinking it would be a mindless action game. I was surprised at how engaging I found the story, and especially at how fantastic the voice acting was. Seriously! I don't normally care about the voice acting, but this really made the game for me. Anime fans will immediately recognize Steven Jay Blum (Spike from Cowboy Bebop); the rest of the cast is top-notch as well. Even better, the voice actors actually had interesting, frequently funny things to say. I was shocked.

The story is unique and mostly unpredictable. There's a twist at the end that a lot of people have complained about; I thought it was pretty neat, personally. The only thing I didn't like about the story (which extends to the game as a whole) is that it felt like it ended somewhat abruptly. It gives you the feeling that it's building up into some epic tale with a bunch of interesting characters, and then it suddenly wraps things up sort of half-heartedly. It felt like the designers ran out of money and gave up on the second half of the plot.

As for gameplay, I think this is a lot of fun, but it's definitely not perfect. It's amazingly fun to swing through an environment once you get the hang of it, but there's seldom enough space to indulge that impulse for long. The combat is fun, but the boss fights include some pretty egregious cheap shots.

Besides the voice acting, I think the biggest strength of this game is the level design (apart from the lack of swinging space, I mean). Some of the later environments are downright beautiful, and they're all laid out in ways that are actively interesting. A lot of people complain that it's not a sandbox and that the radiation will kill you if you leave the path, but I don't mind linearity in games if the levels are well-designed, and I really didn't have much trouble with the radiation. I thought the radiation was a clever move on the designers' part, as well -- it doesn't break immersion nearly as much as invisible walls do. The designers had a lot of clever ideas like that. One of my favorites is the communication relay. You get a lot of information about enemy weak spots and your character's back story by intercepting enemy communications instead of just having an ally tell you things like in most action games.

All in all, I think this game is better than most reviewers give it credit for. It has some genuinely frustrating elements (like the "challenges" system -- most of the rewards aren't worth the effort), but I think its originality and attention to details other games skimp on make it worth playing.

Let me start by saying I love old school games. I've owned my nes for twenty plus years and I enjoyed the original Bionic commando and thought the remake by Grin was an awesome. I bought this game relatively cheap and at first I really hated it. The swinging was awkward and frusterating but I kept on playing and before I knew it I was swinging around like a pro.

The main problem here is that the learning curve is really steep and I would miss a swing and fall to my death. I want to compare this to a recent spider-man game but unlike those games where you fly around on your webs latching on to invisble things in the sky, this game requires skill. You really have to carefully plan your jumps and master the controls or this game will straight up rape you. But there in lies the beauty of the game, it really is rewarding once you get the hang of it, pun totally intended. After some practice, the controls feel very natural and the game slowly introduces more and more abilities which become indespensable towards the end of the game. Before I knew it, I was slinging cars at giant robots and travelling all over with my swings.

The gunplay is well done and for this style of game, they give you tons of different weapons. You have the pistol, a sniper rifle, a submachine gun, a powerful grenade launcher, and a really sweet rocket launcher that homes in on flying enemies. All this really adds a level of strategy to the game as you can only carry three at a time and each has it's distinct usage. Another cool thing is that the achievments are tied into powering up your character which is awesome and I'm really surprised other developers don't do this as it rewards you for trying new things.

The graphics are really nice despite the fact that Rad spencer, the main character looks kinda ridiculous with
dreadlocks. The cities are well rendered and the park and garden section of the game is really a sight to behold. The storm effects and background nuances are all really well done. My favorite part is the music which deftly switches between the original music of the nes game to full blown action movie orchestra. Seriously, the music really makes a solid impact and all the nods to the original are awesome.

The only real issue I have with this game is that the environments appear to be really vast and open but the game goes out of it's way by putting radiation barriers that limit where you can go. This wouldn't be too bad except that if you land in a bad spot, the game will kill you for crossing the boundary which really sucks. Landing in water is also really deadly but honestly all of the environmental hazards make sense in a way. You have a heavy metal arm so you sink, the cities are bombed out, so therefore, you have radiation but it all feels like an excuse.

I have to say that I really loved this game despite the rocky start and I'm glad I stuck with it. The game is pretty long although I would have liked more boss battles because the ones you do get are pretty sweet. The enemy variety is a little lacking too. All these complaints are really minor and don't hurt the overall enjoyment. It's a shame more people didn't give this game a chance, it sold really poorly and Grin, the developer that made this went out of buisness. I'm really sad that there most likely won't be a sequel and I hope it doesn't stop capcom from producing more games like this, after all, a new reworked Strider or Captain Commando game would be the best thing ever. In closing, Buy this game and show your support for the old school and really there isn't any excuse, you can get this game on the cheap and it's well worth your gaming dollars.

For the record, I still think the 1988 NES original is one of the best action games ever made. I *still* play through it every couple of years, and most of what it does still feels fresh and original. (Note that technically the NES game was based on an earlier arcade game, but other than having a bionic arm and the same name, that game is nothing at all like the NES game, and absolutely terrible.)

I wasn't expecting much from this sequel, as I thought NST's late 90's sequel was severely flawed, and I didn't even like Grin's remake much from last year (Rearmed). I thought it was okay, but in every area where it deviated from the original, I thought the original was better. (Even the graphics and music, which sounded like a generic techno remix.)

So the worse reviewed, and 3D sequel? Not very hopeful. And for some reason, the game took a LONG time for me to get into. There are a lot of times I had to replay a section multiple times to get through it. (Luckily there are fairly frequent checkpoints.) On top of that, while the weapons are fun to use, I dislike the use of a generic post-Halo "can only hold two weapons and grenades" system this game uses.

But those end up being fairly minor quibbles for me. It's true that the game artificially restricts your path (mostly with blue "radiation"). Perhaps because of the freedom the bionic arm gives you, that feels more obvious than in most games. But after a point, the ability to quickly scale obstacles, avoid attacks, etc., becomes second nature, and the game controls beautifully for the most part. I also like that the bionic arm has become much more of an offensive weapon in this game than the original. It has me wondering (much like the original, actually) why the Bionic Arm mechanism isn't copied in other games.

I love everything else about the game. The slightly larger than life characters fit the theme and setting perfectly. It somehow FEELS right to me, despite a 21 year gap, and a new team on the other side of the planet developing it. The plot, voice acting, and writing/characterization feels like a valid take on things.

I feel similarly about the graphics. Normally I dread post apocalyptic settings. They all look alike, and look depressing and generic. But not here. Somehow Grin made this world bright, colorful, and often beautiful, even despite the ruin-it's anything but a normal looking post apocalyptic setting. The music's fantastic too. Where Rearmed felt like a generic techno remix, this game's original music and riffs on the first game are exciting and often beautiful (if-like most modern games-probably too infrequent). I'm astounded at how the original 8-bit game's music sounds like it was always meant to be played on piano, violin, trumpet, or electric guitar (etc.).

In short, despite some very frustrating moment, on balance I loved the ride Bionic Commando provides. I just wish Grin was still around to provide us with some sort of sequel. I love these characters, and would love to spend more time in this world-there seem to be so many possibilities. I'd love another 3D game that perhaps provides a weapon, upgrade, and stage select system that's closer to the original (and more in-depth than we get here). I'd also love another 2D sequel!

This game is currently one of my favorite games, I'm actually on my 13th playthrough.

You basiaclly play as a guy with a bionic arm and you have to swing to places to move anywhere. Unlike any spiderman game, you have to actually look for where to swing. Honestly nothing beats the feeling of dodging rockets in midair while trying to find a ledge to swing on with your bionic arm. The game has tough learning curve but in reality its not too harsh
I love how you can cause great chaos control with your arm.. oh man its so satisfying to throw two soldiers up in the air and headshot one on the ground and to later jump and zip kick on the two soldiers on the air. You don't get rewarded for styling combos but damnit its so cool!

obviously there are some hard parts to the game where you can drown because of a bad swing or die because you didn't go for enough cover but overall its a great game. massively fun and at a very cheap price. (12$?)

oh and i forgot to mention that Mike Patton did a great job voicing as Spencer, so did everyone else as voice actors! mmmm Steven Blum