Game Review: Bionic Commando

20 Years Later — Clunky and Disappointing

Release Date: May 18, 2009

Rating: 6 (don’t rush off and buy it)

Developer: GRIN

Publisher: Capcom

ESRB Rating: M (not really all that mature though)

Platform: 360, PS3, PC

I so wanted this game to be good. The original Bionic Commando for NES in 1989 was an instant classic. The side scrolling action packed adventures of Nathan RAD Spencer were wondrous to see and play multiple times. And the bionic arm — oh the joy. Sure you couldn’t jump but whatever, you had a bionic arm that worked as a grappling hook! C’mon! Flash forward to 2009 then get GRIN, the folks behind a couple of other clunkers this year (Wanted: Weapons of Fate and recently released Terminator: Salvation) to develop the modern version of this game and what you end up with is a game that should have been great but instead is often frustrating and frequently absurd.

Swing Into Inaction

For any of you who have had the pleasure of playing one of the Spiderman games that were released since the first film came out, it goes without saying that one of the coolest things to do was to swing around Manhattan with wild abandon. Well take away the wild abandon and the cool and what’s left is the experience you’ll have playing Bionic Commando. A bionic arm that can grapple and allow you to go up and down well it should be exhilarating right? The problem is that for every one time you get the mechanics of swinging right there’s at least 10 times you get it wrong and:
a. Fall to a sudden death
b. Swing into a radiation area and die
c. Fall into the water and drown (it’s a great appendage but it’s so heavy you sink)

For a device that’s designed to be the core gaming experience it’s simply falls flat. Sure who doesn’t mind picking up a boulder and tossing it about or watching people swing all over the place in the somewhat interesting multiplayer but it shouldn’t be this much of a pain. There are times during gameplay when you wish you could just swing around but the game levels are designed in such a way that you are limited to where you can go. That plus having to be more accurate than necessary makes having a bionic arm a bit of a drag. Unfortunately for this game that’s not the only thing wrong with this game. Far from it.

So Much Potential — So Little Game

With beautifully rendered visuals you look at the landscape of Acension City and think to your yourself, “Yeah I could swing there.” Alas, you can’t. Add to this as the Bionic Commando you don’t really have any protection, meaning you die real easy in a shootout. For your defense you start out the game with what amounts to a dart gun. Other weapons become available but none of them pack the power you expect them too. Plus there is that dying easily thing. And in what can only be described as a videogame WTF — at the beginning of the game you go through a tutorial that shows off what you can do with your arm. But guess what? They dole out these features in an agonizingly slow process throughout the course of the game.

Did I mention that the story is absolutely ridiculous. Not only will you not care but you will wonder why Nathan is even doing what he’s doing after being imprisoned for five years sans arm. It’s the kind of apathy that doesn’t really give you provocation to awkwardly grapple your way to the next level. If you have the patience to make it to the end well get ready for the ridiculous. I’m not going to bother telling you what it is but I will tell you — it makes absurd seems normal.

So An Arm — What Else You Got?

After reading this you have to wonder, is this game any fun at all? Well yes and no and that’s what’s frustrating. There are moments in the game that are really fun like when you do actually get a good swing going with the arm. It’s almost thrilling because of how cool it looks when it works. The same goes for doing things with the arm like picking up foes and then kicking them or picking up cars and boulders and chucking them at enemies. There’s even this nifty trick where you can pull down an object like a car or an elevated train and have it drop down and crush your foes. It’s totally fun and cool. Props to coming up with a sequence where  you take down aircraft with your arm but that being said there aren’t nearly enough of the aforementioned elements  consistently working together to give this game chance to be better than it was.  With poorly built levels that go from having a bunch of enemies to absolutely nothing going on, there is a general lack of continuous enjoyable gameplay. Disappointing at best,  here’s hoping that the next classic oldie Capcom hands off to be redone does a better job than this one did.

Game Review: Bionic Commando