Bionic Commando... Again...

A few weeks ago I was in The Exchange, perusing the Xbox 360 games.  I had been tempted into playing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.  Surprisingly enough, I didn’t hate it, so I had gone to The Exchange in the hopes of finding another cheap music game.  I picked up Rock Band for $5, and was still looking around when I saw another cheap game:  Bionic Commando for $5.

Those of you might recall in one of my earlier Bionic Commando posts that I was a huge fan of the original series, and was lamenting its move to 3D.  When the game was released last year, the market seemed to agree with me and it flopped spectacularly.  I felt that I could get in the mood to play a 3^rd person shooter, and decided to pick it up, if for no other reason than to say that I had every American version of the game.

GRAPHICS: They’re pretty good.  This is one of those rare Xbox 360 games that doesn’t use the Unreal Engine, instead opting for a custom engine called “Diesel.”  This gives the game a steady frame rate and detailed environments, but also allows it to make good use of depth-of-field effects (when you’re zoomed in, things in the distance become clearer while objects that are closer to the camera become more blurry).  The animation on the characters is a little stiff, but only so much that it looks like a video game.  It would be a stretch to call this game realistic-looking, but some of the environmental effects are pretty nice.  This game has some of the best looking water I’ve seen in awhile. 

SOUND:  Anyone who has played the original game will appreciate the music in the game – it’s pretty much all remixes of the classic NES score, and most of them are movie-quality instrumentals (Nintendo take note: THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT).  The bionic arm makes a satisfying noise every time you deploy it, and it never really becomes too old too fast.  Because of the nature of the game, there isn’t a lot of ambient environmental sound (see STORY) but the rubble you walk on does have different pitch so even walking doesn’t become tiresome on your ears.  The action moves that you’ll perform have gratifying crunches, cracks, whooshes, and zips, but the guns sound generic for the most part.  The voice acting isn’t terrible, but it’s nothing to write home about, either.  “Faith No More” front man Mike Patton voices Nathan Spencer (the Bionic Commando), if that matters to you.  He mostly just growls a lot and says action-hero type things.  That’s really all there is to say about it.  The sound is sparse, but when no-one is talking it’s okay.  Extra points are granted for the Wilhelm Scream in the opening cutscene.  Come on though:  have you really read this far to hear me praise the graphics?  You want to hear me complain about…

CONTROL:  This is one thing that can make or break this sort of game.  When you are navigating a 3D world, you need precision control.  You know what?  For the most part, Bionic Commando delivers. 

The control scheme as a whole is pretty simple.  You have one trigger for your Bionic Arm, another for your gun, the bumpers are for evasive moves and quick selecting firearms, the “A” button jumps and retracts the arm (when grappling), “B” punches and extends the arm (when grappling), “Y” punches objects into the air so that you can use them in devastating combo attacks, and “X” picks up weapons (if you don’t want to use the grappling arm) and “looks,” though it is used so sparingly that like me you’ll likely forget about it.  Clicking the right stick allows you to zoom in and out for precision aiming (assuming that the weapon you have equipped will let you do it).

The arm works amazingly well: a target beacon will appear on the heads-up display (HUD) so that you can fire your grappling arm and swing, rappel, and climb the environments throughout the game.  You can use the directional pad to change your view quickly 90 degrees, which doesn’t seem that impressive until you need to use it.  One of my original fears was that the game would only let you attach the arm to certain things in the environments, thereby ruining a 3D version of the original’s 2D gameplay, and… it kind of does, but because the more traversable parts of the environment are pretty large, it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.   It isn’t quite like swinging Spider-man style in the Treyarch-developed Activision games, but it gets the job done far better than I thought it would.

SHOCKING:  My only gripe about the control is that you can’t deploy the arm while precision aiming.  Even if deploying the arm took you out of precision mode it wouldn’t be as bad when you’re in a tight situation – you can’t turn around quickly enough while in it, and some enemies will sneak up on you and kill you before you can react.

GAMEPLAY: The gameplay is as straightforward as you can get without being Final Fantasy XIII (aw, snap!).  You’re given mission objectives which appear on your radar and HUD, and you navigate to them, fight some enemies, then go to the next objective.  That’s the basics of the game in a nutshell.  There are a few boss fights (very few), and a few areas where precision swinging comes into play, but the game is fairly forgiving on normal difficulty. 

A LOT of reviewers are complaining about the blue radiation zones in the destroyed city, as it gives the game an open-world look while limiting most of your movement to a specific area.  I really don’t see what all the fuss is about really; all games don’t have to be open world games, and the radiation only caused me to fail a couple of times.  If you keep yourself focused the chances of this killing you very much is slim.

In the very last levels of the game it tries something irritatingly new:  quick-time events. For those not in the know, a quick-time event is when a game eschews normal gameplay in favor of making you press specific button combinations before time runs out.  Not only is it somewhat unsatisfying to have to complete these annoying distractions, but the very last battle is practically nothing but quick-time events, making the last cutscene feel unsatisfying.   Still this is a minor gripe when compared to…

STORY (SPOILERS AHOY!):  This is the single worst thing about Bionic Commando.  It’s not too bad if you’re not familiar with the franchise, but if you are a fan then there are things that will make even less sense here than they did in the 8-bit game.  Then again, if you’re not familiar with the franchise, some of the other stuff isn’t going to make sense either…

I guess that my main problem with the story is that people with bionic implants are considered dangerous and are being hunted down by the very government that gave them the implants in the first place.  This is just incredibly stupid.  It’s like the racism that X-men (Days of Futures Past, specifically) parallels with mutants, but instead of being something that they’re born with, they’re just amputees who are trying to get their lives back but end up being used by the government.  Why don’t they just hunt down amputees before they give them bionics?  It would make just about as much sense.

So, apparently there are enough “bionic sympathetic” people out there who are so pro-bionic that they start a terrorist militia, and then proceed to drop a nuclear bomb on the country’s largest city (Ascension City, in the Bionic Commando universe) and kill millions of people.  It’s true that the BioReign Militia is being used by its leaders for nefarious purposes, BUT COME ON – HOW STUPID IS THIS AS A PLOT DEVICE?

So Joseph “Super Joe” Gibson (the main character from classic Capcom games Commando and M.E.R.C.S., and the person who you have to rescue in every other version of Bionic Commando) has Nathan Spencer (who is in military prison for treason because he’s bionic, or because he killed some bionics, or because he failed to kill some bionics – the story’s never really clear on that point) released from death row to go into Ascension City, survey the situation, find out what the terrorists are really after, and stop them.  As a carrot for completion of the mission, Joe promises to give Spencer information on the whereabouts of his missing wife.

During the mission Spencer is reunited with another bionic super solider called MAG.  MAG has bionic legs that allow her to run really fast.  No, she’s not from any of the previous games, so him meeting up with her and arguing over her motivation makes no sense.  There might be backstory here, but the game doesn’t seem too keen on expanding it.

It turns out that the terrorists are after something called “Project Vulture,” the key to which is located in Ascension City.  Spencer fights his way through legions of enemy combatants and their cybernetic enhanced armored suits to regain the key to unlocking Project Vulture.  After he gives it to Joe, Joe reveals himself to be Silver, the leader of BioRegin.  He has his minions try to kill Spencer and leaves with the device.

Joe’s motivations make no sense to me.  I could understand if he didn’t know where the device was hidden that he’d have to stage the disaster to find out where it is, but as soon as they “discover” the enemy’s target he directs Spencer there to recover the device, even though he has thousands of troops and mile-high walking mechs at his command.  BUT HE’S THE ONE WHO TELLS SPENCER WHERE IT IS.  Maybe he was just using BioReign to get Project Vulture and then not share it with them, but then why does an untrustworthy a**hole like Gottfried Groeder (one of the bosses from Bionic Commando: Rearmed) follow him?  It just seems out of character for Joe, who has been portrayed in all previous versions of the game as a hero, albeit one who is aging and near retirement.

AND ANOTHER THING: at one point, Joe tells Spencer that he was there, developing bionics at the very beginning.  Excuse me?  Joe was a soldier, not an engineer, and it is established in the previous games that he and Spencer meet for the very first time near the end of the game.  So how was Super Joe involved in bionics?  The military’s going to send a bionic engineer into enemy territory to spy on the empire (Bionic Commando Rearmed and the original Bionic Commando)?  It’s never satisfactorily explained.  He makes the argument sound like he’s been the one fighting for the rights of bionics, then proceeds to brutally kill MAG.

AND AND ANOTHER THING: I know that there are some of you out there who are all like, “dude, the website and character profiles have all of these motivations and explanations in them.”  To them I reply, “SO THE FUCK WHAT?! QUIT USING OUTSIDE SOURCES TO PLUG OBVIOUS PLOT-HOLES!”  There’s also a sniper character that’s not from the previous games that shows up for no real reason, like we’re supposed to be awed by him or something.  You don’t fight him, and he doesn’t really help you, so who cares?

DANGEROUS MASTERBATION OR HAZARDOUS SEX?: So you find out that Nathan Spencer’s bionic arm is his wife.  How is this possible, you might ask?  It’s never really explained.  It’s implied that in order to get bionic parts to sync up to their users, they need to use the consciousness of a user’s loved one.  It is further implied that this kills the “donor,” but the method, parts used, or where that part is located in the mechanical casing is never explained.  This is simply a twist of Shamalan-calibur stupidity.  Why does this even have to be in the game?  THEY SINGLE-HANDEDLY RUINED BIONIC COMMANDO WITH THIS INCLUSION. 

Plus, it opens up a whole bunch of questions:

If the public is clamoring for the destruction of bionic people, do they even know how they are made? 

How is this even being covered up?

If Nathan Spencer gets a girlfriend, is that cheating on his arm? 

If his wife’s brain is in the arm, then which one of MAG’s legs has her husband’s brain in it? 

If this is the future where they can do that type of surgery, then why can’t they just clone the bionic soldier’s brain to put in the bionic part?  Wouldn’t that be more “in sync?” 

Who the hell thought this was a good idea?  I’d expect that kind of schlock from a Japanese company like Capcom, but this was developed by GRIN, a Swedish company.

OVERALL: This game wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but I still don't feel that it was worth the original $60 price tag.  I have to admit that a great deal of my enjoyment of it was that I put in the secret code to unlock the Bionic Commando Rearmed skin, which looks like a 3D version of the 80s sprite, complete with radioactive red hair, RayBan sunglasses, an upturned collar, and hi-top sneakers.  Because all of the cutscenes use the game engine, seeing this testament to uber-cheesy 1980s action movies spout angst-ridden drivel gave me a warm feeling inside.  If you see it in a bargain bin somewhere for $20 or so, give it a spin - it's well worth the time for the gameplay if you can ignore the idiotic script.

Retrospective: the ORIGINAL Bionic Commando

This is a review of one of the absolute worst games I have ever played, Capcom's Bionic Commando.

Not the 3rd person, action game for the next generation systems, that's not out yet (though I suspect it will end up here before too long).

No, not the recent remake of the old Nintendo Entertainment System game. Although it has some minor flaws it was an overall satisfying experience.

No, no. Not the Game Boy Color version. I dislike it, sure but even its unforgivable flaws don't make the game unplayable.

No, no, no. Not the one for the Nintendo Entertainment System - I love that game. I'm talking about the other one.

It's the version you've probably been fortunate enough to have never played. I'm talking about the ORIGINAL Bionic Commando, in the arcade.

What? You never realized that there was an arcade game, and that the NES game is loosely based on it? Then let me give you a history lesson.

In 1985, Capcom of Japan unleashed the top-down arcade game Commando upon the world. Despite being an unbelievably mediocre-to-sub-par video game, Commando is remembered by many as a great game, probably not in the least because many people confuse the game with the Arnold Schwartzenegger film, which came out the same year and has absolutely nothing to do with the Capcom property.

In the game, players take on the role of "Super Joe," an elite one-man army cutting a swath of destruction through enemy territory. Joe has his machine gun and some grenades to deal with this menace, and never gets any other power-ups throughout the entire course of the game. Odd that it is considered classic when games like Ikari Warriors do the same thing only better.

In 1987 Capcom followed this up with a side-scrolling platform game entitled Bionic Commando. Players reprise their role as Super Joe, though this time he is outfitted with a robotic grappling hook to negotiate platforms with. Unlike many similar and later games, Joe cannot jump - he is totally reliant on the grappling hook to move.

Anyone who has played any of the other Bionic Commando games will recognize this as the mission where Joe gets captured, so one could call this the first game in a trilogy, followed by the NES game (and its remakes), and the new game on the Xbox 360. You can find this game on the Capcom Classics Vol. 1 compilation disc, and MAME ROMs are fairly common too, so feel free to check it out - but don't say that I didn't warn you first.

STORY: Story? You play a nameless commando, later decided by Capcom that it would be Super Joe, the soldier from the original Commando. Joe is out to get his ass kicked and to chew bubblegum... and he's all out of gum. No, seriously - Joe is air-dropped into enemy territory under the auspices that he will stop their super weapon at all costs (which at $0.25 a game usually comes to about $10). This is as simple as a military shooter gets.

GRAPHICS: Not too bad considering when this game was made, though everything is kind of washed-out. The lack of definition sometimes makes it difficult to figure out which background elements will hurt you (there are many) and what elements you can grapple onto with Joe's hook. Longtime Bionic Commando fans will recognize some better-rendered enemies and backgrounds that turn up in the later games, giving a sense of nostalgia to otherwise unremarkable art.

SOUND: Also a treat for BC fans. The familiar theme song is here, though other sound effects are sparse.

CONTROL: Again, anyone who has played the NES sequel will know what to do. The grappling hook fires at diagonal angles and straight up. Diagonal will send you into a swing, allowing you to cover more distance (in theory; see GAMEPLAY) faster. The other button fires the gun horizontally. That's all of the control that there is.

GAMEPLAY: This is one of the ABSOLUTE WORST-playing games I have ever picked up. Your quarter will buy you three lives. You will lose all of those within the first thirty seconds of playing, because enemy troops spawn way too fast, and you have no hit points.

Once again: YOU HAVE NO HIT POINTS. One hit, you're dead. Remember in the NES game how you started with no hit points, but by vigorously collecting the little green-tipped bullets that the enemies dropped you could get more? There's nothing like that in this game. Any combination of three hits or falls off-screen result in another quarter to continue. Often times, you will find yourself in the position that there are enemy soldiers on a platform slightly above or below Joe, so that the gun will not affect them; since the bionic claw can't grip a platform that your sprite is overlapping, the end result is that you can only stand and watch as enemy troops kill Joe.

What's more, the enemy soldiers can jump from platform to platform, above or below, meaning that even the lowliest grunt in their army is more mobile than the supposed super soldier that you're playing. Adding ammunition to this theory is the fact that most enemies take more than one bullet before going down even with the upgraded weapons (which you lose when Joe dies), which effectively makes Super Joe the weakest character in the game, and EVERYTHING kills him! If you swing into an enemy soldier, Joe dies and the Soldier lives (and given that there is a constant rain of enemies coming down from the top of the screen, this happens EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SWING). Bees come out of honeycombs and kill Joe, giant robots in the background will kill Joe just by touching him. Falling off of the bottom of the screen, even one pixel above a platform that you've just climbed up kills Joe. Enemy soldiers tap Joe on the shoulder and kill him, then walk away totally unscathed!

OVERALL: My theory was that the story originally involved Joe getting his spine blown out by enemy fire in the last game and that he was confined to a wheelchair for this one, but Capcom changed the sprite for American audiences because it was dishonorable to our veterans. I believe that the original Japanese title was Permanently Disabled Fun Super Yankee Joe Commando... I would love to see the 1986 concept art for that one...

Capcom balanced out the difficulty in the game by giving it only four stages, but you'll need deep pockets to see them all and get the "Gongratulations, you won!" screen. It is definitely not worth it, and if you're picking up the compilation collection just for this game then skip it - its not worth your frustration and doesn't add anything to the franchise.