Capcom has been on a role lately. Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, and even Flock turned out to be a nice surprise for their 2009 releases. Now with Bionic Commando, one of their key franchises from the late 1980’s, Capcom is hoping for a fresh revival to continue on with their successful year. Showcasing large and expansive levels, enjoyable action elements, and a new art style, Bionic Commando is an interesting addition to the Xbox 360 library. Taking place 10 years after the original game – which you can find remade on the XBLA in the form of Bionic Commando: Rearmed – Bionic Commando picks up with Nathan “Rad” Spencer out clear his name as a bionically augment soldier. His task is to help Ascension City fight off the terrorist group known as Bio-Reign as a one man wrecking crew. The story isn’t the games strong point – the action is.
With an alias known as Rad, Nathan Spencer has a nickname straight out of the ‘80’s when you had Battletoads known as Zit, Pimple and Rash. Even with twists such as the fate of Spencer’s wife, an old enemy joining the good side, and much more, Bionic Commando isn’t exactly a lost cause when it comes to pacing of the plot. What’s clear after a few hours in Bionic Commando is that game hinges on the bionic arm of Spencer. Taking his time to relearn the maneuvers with the arm, Spencer won’t start out as a bonafide soldier. He’ll begin with the ability to swing long distances and traverse open areas without any care of his wellbeing. Grappling itself doesn’t have the easiest learning curve, so be prepared to fall to your doom more often than not in the beginning.
When you do end up losing your grapple and falling to your inevitable death, the game sends you back to the last checkpoint you passed. Beware though; the checkpoints are horribly spread apart. Preferably, the remake of the original has much more charm than this next-gen iteration. Learning the new moves over the course of the game is enticing at times. Button prompts will come up to help reduce any puzzlement on how to perform the move, so there should be no worry on how accomplish the abilities in mid-battle. But compared to the simple nature of the original, Bionic Commando loses all the nostalgia in favor for glitz and attitude – two attributes that are highly overrated. Of the new maneuvers that Spencer can take advantage of, the ability to swing your arm around in a circle to kill enemies that are close in the area is the most enjoyable that translates well into the new iteration.
As a linear title, Bionic Commando doesn’t have a tremendous amount of replay value. There are extras that can be unlocked if you have Bionic Commando: Rearmed, such as new skins for Spencer. The multiplayer isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind away since it’s your standard affair with eight player support in Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture-the-Flag modes. Even with sixteen maps to play on, players won’t be returning to the online multiplayer once they get their kicks out of the title in the first few hours. The graphics department does its part in keeping players drooling for more. The debris and destruction is excellent within the environments to the point you want to keep exploring the city. The character models are clean and detailed, though the art style isn’t to my liking. Along with that, the animations are superb to aid the action.
The frame rate though, does happen to fluctuate from time to time. Thankfully, it doesn’t drop too often to ruin the gameplay. As a big fan of rebooting classic franchises, Capcom did an adequate job on Bionic Commando. The single-player experience is well-worth the time of a gamer, even if the replay value is shallow. The multiplayer experience is nothing special, so the longevity of Bionic Commando is too low for recommendation for online gamers. In the end, the action is more than satisfactory and the storyline is paced well, so Bionic Commando isn’t to be overlooked by fans of the genre.
