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Going Commando: Bionic Commando (2009) By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman The Bionic Commando series is one of CAPCOM's neglected franchises. While most if not all of the games in the series are great, CAPCOM has only released 6 Bionic Commando games in the last 20 years and one of which was a remake. Though 6 games is nothing to scoff at, compare that to the 30+ Mega Man games CAPCOM has churned out in the last 25 years and to the 10 or so Resident Evil games (not counting remakes) during the last 13 years. Aside from the innovation of using a retractable prosthetic arm to transverse and explore the in-game locales, the Bionic Commando series was also known for its punishing difficulty. In fact, many developers at CAPCOM argue as to whether if Ghosts n Goblins or Bionic Commando was the hardest arcade game they produced. One good thing about CAPCOM is the fact that they never slack in the difficulty department; and things are no different with this installment of Bionic Commando. The game is relatively short; you can probably beat it in about 15 hours on normal, if you know what you’re doing. However, during your first time through or if you’re going for a run through the game on “commando’ difficulty, you’ll find that you’re game clock time is going to display a time that’s a lot shorter than the time you’ve actually spent playing (for me it was like a 1 to 2 ratio).
The story is pretty bad, but it’s not crammed down your throat. This makes the cheesy, over the top dialogue and cliché situations bearable, as they feed you the story in bite sized morsels. However, occasionally you’ll be forced to hear your last bit of dialogue/radio chatter ad nauseum if you find yourself dying a lot in any specific area (I swear, I can pretty much quote the mock Hitler speech at the beginning of the canyons level, since I kept dying at there). This ended up working out for me, since I started to use not wanting to hear the same snippet of dialogue as motivation to stop sucking so hard at this game. In every other review I’ve read, I constantly see this game being compared to Spider-Man 2, 3 and Web of Shadows. Unfortunately, I haven’t played either of these games. I will say that swinging on the wire does take a bit of time getting used to. Once you do get the hang of how use your bionic arm, swinging comes very easily. The one function of the bionic arm I really like is the auto-grab function that will grab the nearest object in sight. This helps you out in a huge way, especially after misgauging a jump or if you find yourself falling into a watery tomb. The level progression is pretty formulaic; you start off following waypoints throughout a level taking out baddies along the way, your main objective is to find a relay (or data transmitter) for you to hack into so you can deactivate whatever electronic/mechanical barrier that impedes your progress and the pattern begins anew. Normally, having pattern based levels is detrimental to the game. However, this works for Bionic Commando, since there’s really no feasible way to make this a sandbox type game with its story unlike the Spider-Man games it’s compared to. Your main in-game objectives are to infiltrate the besieged Ascension City and get out with your target, ASAP. One thing I must disagree with is the use of the radiation boundaries. You’re handed a somewhat lame explanation that as a bionic prototype, you’re highly sensitive to radiation where even small amounts of fallout will kill you in seconds. This would work in any game that doesn’t make your main mode of transportation the classic Tarzan swing. Often you’ll be caught like a bird on a wire, dangling and waiting to die. Reversing your swing momentum merely leaves you with just enough time to watch yourself die as you swing away from the fallout. Invisible walls, albeit kind of cheesy would have done just fine here.
Aside from being just a way to transverse each level, your bionic arm now functions as a weapon. Not only can you latch onto an errant grunt and shoot along your grappling wire for near 100% accuracy with your handgun. You also can use your bionic arm to grab and slam enemies into the ground (thus killing them instantly) or you can fling your human anchor (or any reasonably sized piece of debris) into a charging group of enemies to take them all out. This isn’t just a cool way to kill the bad guys, but also an essential way to beat tank mechs, as often times in the later game you won’t have easy access to support weapons. Speaking of support weapons, you get a wide array of weaponry to use along with your bionic arm and pistol. One thing I find cool is the way the developers explain having random weapons scattered across the levels. Each weapon that’s offered to you is flown in by a homing missile carrying your new gun instead of an explosive payload. It’s a very smart way of telling the player “I know what you’re fighting and you’re going to need a rocket launcher to kill it” rather than saying “it just so happened there was an RPG lying near where you got jumped by a flying tank.” I must admit, there are 2 flaws with the gameplay that I absolutely must address. The first is a problem that has been plaguing action-adventure game players for a long while; and that is the fact that you progressively learn new attacks as the game progresses. This wouldn’t be a problem aside for the fact that they make you play a 20 minute tutorial showcasing all your potential moves at the beginning of a new game and that the first couple save points are hard to get through because you can do little more than just latch on to a grunt and shoot them from afar. I also find only being able to use your coolest looking moves for 40% of the game a bit lame as well. The second problem is a problem that I’ve started to see with a lot of games of the current gen, where they offer unlockables that are only accessed by purchasing another game. While I first noticed this in the Pokemon series, it never really bothered me as collecting them all wasn’t all that paramount (I mostly liked breeding whatever cutesy pokemon available). However, I was very shocked coming up on a large purple door in the underground ruins of Bionic Commando requiring that I get the purple matrix from Bionic Commando Rearmed (the remake of Bionic Command NES) and I really wanted to see what’s on the other side of the damn door. Stop trying to nickel and dime people with intrigue; even though I have the remake to Bionic Commando, I don’t feel I should be forced to play it to get something out of its sequel (aside from backstory).
For the most part, the visuals are very nice. The environments are beautiful and most of them make Ascension City look like a very beautiful and glorious place, despite being ravaged by heavy military air strikes. I also enjoy the variation of locales in the game from towering skylines to dark dank caves and tunnels to a sort of jungle theme which they call a city park; however, everything does eventually go back to industrial/city scenery in sort of alternating levels, but it still is pretty cool to look at as a whole. Swinging on a wire at high speeds always takes my breath away no matter where you are, that blur and tunnel vision effect really impressed me. If I can nitpick, I must say that they do a pretty sad job at rendering hair. Nathan Spencer’s dreadlocks barely move while he flies through the air and they just kind of gently bob as he darts and runs from the enemy. If they had trouble realistically animating long hair, then why not keep Spencer’s hair a crew cut like they did in the old Bionic Commandos?
As you know, normally I don’t like video game music unless it’s super catchy and simple or some sort of awesome licensed tracks. I really like Bionic Commando’s music. The main reason for this is because nearly every (if not every) track is a remix of a classic Bionic Commando song. Imagine hearing Sector 2’s song played as a solemn military march. It’s really great. As for the voice acting, they really should have gotten guys with more distinct voices to play Super Joe, Spencer and Colonel whatever his name is. A lot of times I just can’t tell who’s talking over the radio and it really frustrates me. The sound effects are all done effectively, but nothing really wows you. Guns sound as they should, people dying sound like gravel bags falling, and air tanks sound like an old Mustang trying to start as they’re struggling to regain lift. Due to the discount price drop at Gamestop ($20 new), I’d recommend this game to nearly anyone with a PC, 360, PS3. If you go in not expecting a decent story, you’ll find the game is actually a really fun play through.
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