Bionic Commando PC Game Review & Rating

Bionic Commando earned a place in video game history as one of the toughest games of all time when it debuted on the NES in the eighties.  The game was essentially a gimmick game, a platformer whose mechanic relied upon the use of the main character (Super Joe) having a bionic arm he could use as a grappling hook. 
Unfortunately, 20 years later, gamers are a little savvier and gimmick games have a hard time catching on.  Grin and Capcom learned this the hard way when their reboot of the franchise, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, launched on next gen systems.  While the game is visually stunning and the gameplay is solid, the lack of a strong story and the complete reliance upon the bionic arm make the game a bit tedious.  Most players will be bored with it long before they reach the end.
In this game, players jump into the shoes of Nathan “Rad” Spencer, an ex-military operative who has been disavowed because of backlash against the use of bionics who, as it handily turns out, is the government’s last best hope against a new group of terrorists.  You’ll run into Super Joe who makes an appearance as a sort of mentor who takes you under his arm and tells you that he’ll help stop the terrorists and find Rad’s wife—who apparently went missing some time back.  From there, it’s all about the swinging and gunplay.

Gameplay

The swinging mechanic is a bit difficult to get used to after first and doesn’t feel as fluid as it does in say a Spiderman game.  Players have to actually aim for targets to latch the arm to, which the aim assist helps greatly with sometimes and sometimes misjudges where you want to go by a long shot.  However, with a little practice you can zoom through the vast landscapes speedily and with ease.  That’s kind of unfortunate in a way because so much time went into designing the levels and there is so much detail to behold that the effort is lost unless you take time to breathe it in.
The arm also functions as a weapon later on and you can club enemies with it, toss them about like dollies, and throw debris at them like a cranky child on a sugar bender.  It’s fun but unfortunately not unique.  Other games like Spiderman, Prototype, and even Half Life 2 give you the same opportunities with better enemy AI with which to contend.

Taken in pieces, the gameplay is really quite good.  The weapons are flashy, useful, and plentiful—though the ammunition for them is a bit scarce at times.  The levels are incredibly well detailed and the soaring heights and grand vistas make it a whole lot of fun to climb up skyscrapers and wrecked and decimated buildings just to get to the top and site-see.  The character models are unique and genuinely feel like they belong in this dystopian world of convoluted politics and bionic enhancements.  However, the enemies are a bit dumb, sometimes really dumb, and Grin doesn’t seem to understand the value of scaling enemy difficulty to match the playable character as his skills are upgraded.  Instead of sending smarter enemies, the game just throws more of the dumb ones at you in a feeble attempt to overwhelm you with numbers.

Even the boss battles are repetitive and you’ll only have to “learn” a handful of new techniques to take them all down.  With such a cool premise, it’s kind of disappointing to come up against enemies that really don’t challenge you.
There are a ton of unlockables and hidden loot that most players will want to grab but the design of a great deal of the missions forces players to zip through levels as fast as possible to avoid enemy attacks.  Players can attempt to use stealth and flank enemies but the mechanic just doesn’t really work.  As it turns out, Rad’s mobility is his most deadly weapon.  With the arm, players can keep ahead of gunfire and maneuver around to the weak side of an enemy entrenchment fairly easily and then slaughter them with the bionic arm.

While the environments are fairly large, it wouldn’t be right to call the game an open world platformer.  Through the tricky use of landscape and architectural elements, not to mention unhealthy doses of radioactivity, Bionic Commando manages to keep players in fairly constricted corridors within the world map.  Fortunately, there’s so much to see and do within those confined spaces that it never feels claustrophobic.
There are a few instances of old school top-down fights which trigger when Rad stumbles across an enemy gun emplacement while flitting about the map in his chauffeured helicopter but they are so boring, outdated, and simple that I won’t even mention them here.  Oops, I just did, didn’t I?

Unfortunately, there’s no real story to hang the gameplay on.  And what snippets we do get feel uninspired.  Yeah, the original hero pops back in for cameos, yeah the big baddy is bad (but almost entirely absent from the action), yeah there is a certain emotional investment with the fate of the world and the life of a loved on the line but it never really develops into anything cohesive.

Graphics

The game, as mentioned before, is visually stunning and a far cry from the 8-bit NES equivalent.  In fact, the game could stand on its own against even the most graphics-intense game on the market today.  However, graphics aren’t enough to carry a game—especially not a gimmick game, which is what the Bionic commando amounts to.

Sound

The audio isn’t bad but it isn’t spectacular.  The high point is the voice acting which is actually very reminiscent of a good Hollywood movie.  Other than that, the effects are pretty standard and the score is okay at best.

Value

There’s really not a whole lot of value to this game.  In fact, even during one play through many gamers might get a little bored with the repetitive action, annoyingly moronic AI, and absent plot.  There are the unlockables but chasing them all over the place wears thin after a while.

Final Verdict

While the Bionic Commando is a huge leap forward from its predecessor, it falls short of actually becoming a world class game on the next generation systems.  With a little more attention to enemy AI and plot mechanics, the game could have actually been much better but the ball was dropped leaving Grin and Capcom with a mediocre offering at best.

Pros:  Incredibly detailed environments, Solid combat mechanics, a freakin’ bionic arm!

Cons:  Repetitive gameplay, dumb AI, weak storyline.


Overall Score: 7/10