Bionics at Their Best

Let me show my nerd roots. Yes, my roots, let me...I am a big fan of Bionic Commando, and over the years I've downloaded emulators to keep playing the original NES version.

A few years back, I found out my cousin still had an NES deck, and sure enough, Bionic Commando was one of his games. It's that much fun, that years later with more graphically intense game available, the game play is still addictive enough to demand repeat playing.More than shoot and kill, players have to master the art of swing and shoot. It doesn't sound like much of a distinction until you've tride it for yourself. And by then, you're also an addict.

With the arrival of an updated game through Swedish studio GRIN, (now closed due to late publisher payments) Capcom whet my appetite with the name of the series alone. The fact that it's a sequel instead of a reboot also made me wonder where the story would pick up. Fittingly, it takes place one decade later, and Nathan "Rad" Spencer has been stripped of his arm and sentenced to die for being a bionic person. Bummer. But as this is the beginning, of course Super Joe shows up to clear Spencer and send him out on another mission.

I admit that the training mission, while interesting, was very stupid. Instead of reattaching Spencer's arm and then packing him into a missile, he is packed into one rocket, and his arm is packed into another. You have to first find your arm in a training session on basic running, jumping, and shooting. When you find the arm, you connect to it and swoon from the pain. Honestly, it's not very manly to swoon, is it? Oh well.

This swoon leads to a "flashback" of Spencer in the old-school green uniform, sunglasses and carrot-top red hair. You learn most of the moves possible with your nifty arm...and then you wake up unable to perform any of them besides basic swinging. As you progress through the game, you "recall" these sessions, and then you can use them.

I see the point of this, really. As you progress through the game, new concepts are presented and used sparingly at first. Then you come to rely on them more and more, or you learn to use them in unusual combinations. But the flashback concept is still stupid. Spencer shouldn't have forgotten how to use his arm. It's like forgetting how to trip and fall.

Okay, but the real question is, how does the game play stack up and compare to the original? In a word, the execution is flawless...on a PC. I tried to play this with my X-box controller, and I felt like a complete klutz. However, moving over to the mouse and keyboard, I found my gun accuracy way up. I was also able to strafe and fire at the same time, something that is frankly impossible for me to do with a joypad. I'm sure lots of people can do it, but I can't.

Let's set that aside. Once I found a control scheme that I was comfortable with, the act of swinging in the game is...no, words fail me. At times I found myself clearing an area, and then going back through it, just to swing around some more. The bionic arm has a very natural rhythm to each swing, and once you are into that rhythm, you progress very quickly through areas.

The combat is just as exciting and varied. You can shoot "from the hip" or zoom into a special "combat view" that makes your shots a lot more accurate at the expense of your being unable to jump. This mode also give you a form of tunnel vision, so it is possible to walk into ambushes because your POV is so limited.

There are plenty of guns to pick up from drop pods, like a wide pattern shotgun, a rocket launcher and a grenade launcher. But even the standard issue sidearm here is a good gun. A silenced model of semi-automatic, you can pick off a lot of people without alerting soldiers 2 or 3 rooms away. But, interestingly enough, the gun is not completely silent, and so other soldiers nearby can hear the shot. It's a nice touch of realism that I found myself impressed by.

If I have any complaints, it's a minor complaint with a certain graphics effect prevalent throughout the game. To emphasize the frantic pace, the scenery and character often blur a little bit out of phase with each other. Visually it's very intense, and I thinks it's cool while I'm playing. The problem is, the effect persists for me after I finish playing. So for thirty minutes or so afterward, my eyes are still doing random blurs. This, is not so cool.

Still, taken in short doses of thirty to forty-five minutes, this is a thrill ride with graphical pizzazz, solid background music, and absolutely addictive game play. Whether you're an old-school gamer who played the first installment or a new player looking for a solid action game, Bionic Commando is going to get you swinging into the action fast.