The Game Druid

U remember the good old NES game? It came out recently on XBLA also..here’s our old post on Bionic Commando…Like the original, you’ll swing across chasms and make death-defying leaps, except in glorious 3-D. Along the way, you’ll blast evildoers and tackle giant robots in what could be one of 2008’s most addictive games.

Once again, you don the combat boots of Nathan “Rad” Spencer, an FSA operative that was given the shaft by the government. Five years after defeating those rascally Imperials, his country betrays him and locks him up for crimes he didn’t commit. To add icing on the proverbial “this is crap” cake, the higher ups sentence him to death for kicks. Little did they know that terrorists planned an attack the day of his execution, and in thrilling fashion, turn a fictitious city upside down by unleashing a massive earthquake, killing everyone. With the terrorists in control of the air defense grid, and with little options, an embarrassed FSA calls on Spencer to single handedly save the world.

As expected, Spencer isn’t pleased with the situation. This isn’t the happy looking and dorky guy in the NES game (though you can unlock that costume if you purchase the downloadable Bionic Commando Rearmed). This guy has a nasty attitude, enormous muscles and dreadlocks. He still, however, possesses the mighty bionic arm, and he uses it to latch onto things and swing throughout the environments. Unlike in the Activision’s Spider-Man games, though, he can only grab onto certain objects, so mastering the swinging mechanic relies on locating connection points, which glow blue whenever you position the targeting reticule onto them. From there, you press and hold the left trigger, and Spencer easily grabs onto something and swings like Tarzan. Once you get the hang of things, you’ll be able to chain swings together to easily move around.

Overall, swinging works well, and the only trouble we ran into came from our experience with the aforementioned Spider-Man video games. Instead of trusting the bionic arm, we immediately pressed the trigger hoping to latch onto thin air, only to watch as Spencer plummeted to the ground. As we grew more comfortable, using the left analog stick to build up the swing and searching for the best possible swing times, designated by the reticule changing shape, we quickly traversed the post apocalyptic city and later, a forest, making all sorts of impressive maneuvers.

On the ground, we clicked in the right analog stick to zoom and pressed the right trigger to fire Spencer’s hand gun, automatic rifle and a rocket launcher that let us target up to four enemies at once. In addition, we chucked grenades and used the bionic arm to grab enemies, yank them towards Spencer and make short work of them. We even tackled a marauding robot, hitting it with grenades and watching it explode into scrap metal.

After playing the demo twice, we can happily report that Bionic Commando isn’t broken and should be a fun video game, but it’s obvious that the developer, GRIN, still has tons of work to do. For starters, the game is too easy, which is in contrast to its impossible predecessor. Enemies often stand around, oblivious to Spencer’s presence or that their buddy died. As for that robot, we managed to get it stuck on a rock and safely tossed grenades at it. With that said, not only does the artificial intelligence need an intelligence boost, but we also recommend throwing more enemies into the mix. Swinging around a huge post apocalyptic city and running across two to three guys at a time doesn’t get our adrenaline rushing.

Furthermore, the ammo drops don’t make sense. Whenever Spencer needs supplies, he calls on his buddies, who immediately drop them onto the playfield. However, instead of giving him a full arsenal, it’s one gun at a time with minimal ammo. It’s silly.

We also need to test Bionic Commando’s multiplayer mode. Playing as different teams and swinging all over the place looks like a fun time, but we’ll have to get our hands on it to determine whether all that flying around will make shooting guys a chore. For now, however, the game looks solid and we can’t wait to play more at the upcoming E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) this July. Until we do, we’ll go a few rounds with the original, just to see how pathetic our video game skills are.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under upcoming games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.