Capcom has had a rough go of things with its recent multiplayer offerings. The wildly inventive but noticeably unwieldy Lost Planet failed to gain traction except for with the most chaotic-loving among us. And the company is still reeling from the outcry that Resident Evil 5 brought about when it was announced that its multiplayer would be $5 extra within weeks of its of the disc's release. There is speculation that perhaps the Japanese juggernaut just didn't "get" multilayer, that the decidedly Western form is as of yet out of their reach. So, along comes GRIN -- an established developer from Stockholm, a Western locale -- to deliver a reboot to the fabled Bionic Commando franchise. And while the game's single player remains out of reach the gaming public until later this month, the company has let loose a taste of the other half of the game onto Xbox Live. Even so, while a bulk of the content is still locked away, the initial impression the game makes is that of an arcadey thriller eager to please but short on substantial ideas.
The core of the experience is played out through the grappling mechanic that was seared into gaming culture some 20 years ago. Here, redesigned for a 3D landscape, the grappling is just as frustrating as it was the first time on the NES. But that initial bewilderment soon gives way to a greater sense of control in a 3D space, as it did on a 2D plane. Once you connect your bionic arm to an object, you can either drag yourself toward it or use it to swing yourself forward. Spider-Man is the easy touchstone, but instead of grappling off-screen for some unknown objects, here you have to be more judicious with your forward propulsion because in this world, what you see is what you can you use. It mixes Spider-Man's liberating sense of swinging through the sky with more skill-driven, risk-reward aspects. In the demo, simple deathmatch rules reign, and with them come simple deathmatch weapons. There's a sniper rifle, a machine gun, a shotgun and a grenade launcher. All of them are completely adequate weapons, though in my plays the shotgun was clearly the go-to gib machine.
But none of the weapons is particularly well suited to airborne combat or even very fast-paced combat. Where the game likes to mix things up is with the hand-to-hand fighting. If you come upon a situation where you're clearly outgunned, your bionic arm becomes a more substantial offensive tactic sheerly by the speed and surprise it gives you against an opponent who is clumsily aiming. You can swing right in out of nowhere, use your butt stomp to shatter your foe's concentration and then use a hard wallop to end his life. But where the single-played game is promising to use the arms in all sorts of ways aside from transportation -- like throwing huge objects around -- it's ability to act as a weapon in the multiplayer is woefully limited. It almost makes me wish they had concentrated on more anti-air guns. As it stands, the game feels like it guides you toward horizontal play, but the real fun only comes out when you start to think of yourself as a dive bomber.
The fact the bionic arm is downplayed as an offensive tactic makes the game seem like it's just Unreal Tournament in which you can fly around a little bit. For something that should be so off-the-wall, there's no sense of speed or impact. Nothing shakes or snaps quite the way you hoped it would when you fall a couple stories or swing a couple miles in the air. Add to that a bare-bones graphical presentation, and you have the quintessential played-it-for-a-night multiplayer. Perhaps the other modes and maps no doubt intended for the full release will open up the true potential of the form. The company is promising 16 maps in the full release. Capcom's style of loose, arcade multiplayer experience has a place in the gamut of gaming.
Want more detailed information? You will just probably have to decide for yourself if that's something you're really all that into. Stay tuned for our full review of Bionic Commando later this week, until then get out there and download the demo, which is available on Xbox LIVE as of right now.
