Bionic Commando: Killing Off a Franchise

Review written by Zikron on 5/31/09
Last edited on 5/31/09

Reviving old franchises seems to be all the rage amongst developers this year. This has been done with mixed results as there have been huge successes with Street Fighter 4 and horrible failures like Golden Axe: Beast Warrior. Capcom's latest attempt at reviving a franchise is Bionic Commando. Originally released in 1988 on the NES it sold well and became a classic 8-bit hit. The franchise then disappeared until 2008 with Bionic Commando: Rearmed on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network it featured the same game with updated graphics. Sadly, the same can not be said for the newest Bionic Commando.

Bionic Commando seems to have all the tools needed for an awesome game. You get a giant fucking robotic arm, guns and explosives as you explore a city that has just been devastated by a terrorist attack. It seems like a great combination for disastrous fun, however, it doesn't take long before you realize the games falls flat on its face and isn't worth the 25 cents it cost to manufacture the disc it resides on.

The levels in Bionic Commando are quite detailed, the developer GRIN did a great job making the gamer feel like they were in a bairn, unstable unstable land that is constantly changing. The problem with the levels is that they are small, poorly designed and very linear. Ascension City is a large area but it is not an open world. Each area you have to explore is extremely small, only taking a few minutes to get from one side to another if swinging with your arm. To make matters worse, the loading times between areas is unbearable. It is very tempting to turn the game off during these loading times but you may hold on to a hope that the game will turn around. Unfortunately for Bionic Commando, there is no hope.

Another problem with the level design in Bionic Commando is the linear paths you are forced to take. If you want to swing from the beginning of an area to the end there is usually only one path to take. Alternative paths either either devoid of any areas to swing from, water or my favorite a wall of blue radiation that will kill you in a few seconds. Alternatively, you can decide to walk or scale buildings but this will only make your hated for the game grow to the point of ejecting the disc and snapping it in half.

Level design is something that can be overlooked as long as the combat is fun. As you might suspect from the tone of this review thus far, the combat is not fun either. You start off dependent on your firearms and explosives but as you progress through the game your bionic arms gains new abilities and soon you find yourself using it as your weapon of choice. When you gain a new ability with your arm it is fun for awhile but it slowly wears off and you see how shallow and repetitive the combat is in the game. So even if Bionic Commando has open levels to swing about, the game would not have been any fun without a decent combat system.

To anyone considering buying this game, please do yourself a favor and at least rent it first. Don't allow yourself to be fooled by the videos which look amazing. Even if you were a fan of the original game there is little here to enjoy. GRIN had a chance to do something great with this franchise but instead they drove it into the ground with poor level design, shallow combat, a horrible story and a tacked on multiplayer.