It seems like I’ve been doing this a lot recently, but I have to admit going in that Bionic Commando was one of the classic NES titles that I never actually owned. As a result, I never really got to play that much of it, but I was always intrigued by the unique style of its action/platforming gameplay that cut jumping out of the mix entirely in favor of grappling and swinging techniques used to hoist our hero through the air as necessary. It’s awkward at first, but it quickly becomes intuitive.
Either way, Bionic Commando, developed by GRIN (and published by Capcom) for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3, adds jumping back into the mix for sake of the player’s sanity within the massive 3-D worlds where it takes place. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic Ascension City, which has just been completely leveled by an enormous earthquake caused by an experimental terrorist weapon. Prior to the puzzling and unexpected attack, our hero, Nathan “R.A.D.” Spencer, had been imprisoned for false accusations under failed pretense, and was just about to be sent to his execution. Now, he’s the one thing they’ve got left to wage a war on this rogue terrorist group. How convenient!
I played through a few different levels in the E3 demo, starting with the chaotic remains of the aforementioned city. Gameplay is a little tricky at first, but after around ten to twenty minutes of fooling around, you’ll become well-accustomed to the grapple-and-swing mechanic. Things start out pretty easy, but by the time you reach the second section of the broken city, you’ll be faced with your first jump-then-swing puzzle which, if unsuccessful, lands you right back down in the bottom of the pit, which you’ll need to climb back up to start again. It wasn’t long from this point where the E3 build actually froze on me—but don’t worry; the game actually is very smooth, even in its fairly early state (currently, it’s in pre-alpha).
At least in the city, the gameplay feels a little bit like Spider-Man, except obviously much more beautiful and considerably cooler. Pressing the L Button fires your arm and lets you grapple onto objects—and one you’re swinging, releasing L sends you flying with the resulting momentum. There are some really great innovations surrounding the gameplay that help to prevent the usual wrinkles associated with the 3-D translation of such a formula. For one thing, it’s clearly indicated to you by an on-screen icon when you’re able to grapple onto an object. But even if you screw up and fire too early or too late, the game compensates for your mistake by cancelling the firing of your bionic arm. That means you’re never stuck in a situation where a single misfire takes you out of the action for the next couple of seconds; you’re always ready to fire it off when you need it. Also, when jumping, you don’t have to repeatedly tap the L button to fire the arm at the right time. Instead, you simply hold the button down, and the game will fire it for you at the proper time (if one arises).
But don’t worry—even with all of these conveniences factored in, the game is still plenty challenging. Another level I played, a park in the middle of the city, was not only beautiful and lush (with rolling rivers below you and vivid treetops above), but also quite tricky, providing the choice of routes between either a land path on the side of the river or a daring, free-swinging fast track hanging from the horizontal tree branches directly above the river. If you hit the water, that’s no good, as the arm is far too heavy to swim with. But you can jump back out if you’re quick enough (at least, you could in the E3 demo) by simply pressing the A button. In this park level, you’ll also be scaling a lot of cliffs up the side of the river, so it helps that you can also press A once latched onto the side of a cliff to kick yourself upward.
I almost forgot to mention throughout all of this how the combat works. You can fire your primary weapon with the R button; of course, you can also switch weapons as well. You can also attack enemies with your bionic arm, pummeling them, sometimes quite violently. Once you’ve latched onto an enemy, that serves as a sort of lock, after which you can fire at them as well pretty easily. Of course, you don’t have to latch onto an enemy to attack them, but it helps.
At the end of the park level, you fight a boss. He quickly approaches from another mass of land, and it’s pretty hectic with all the vegetation blocking your view. In my case, though, he actually bugged out and I had to go and find him (again with the E3 build stuff). Nevertheless, once I reached him, the fight ensued. There’s a nifty little kick maneuver you can do by double-tapping A when you’re latched onto an enemy that pulls you toward them and sees you kicking yourself back off. It’s pretty powerful, and four of these lasso-kicks will take down the boss. Predictably, I pwned him, and the demo ended. It left me feeling pretty confident about the quality of the game; it’s moody, atmospheric , and altogether different from most everything else out there.
No date for Bionic Commando has been announced yet, but as soon as we hear one, we’ll let you know. Stay tuned for more details soon.
