Under the Knife- Bionic Commando Rearmed

By Kaiserhawk
(No pictures? Lifes a bitch deal with it)

I’m going to be blunt here; August was a shit month for gaming. With a lacklustre line up of sports titles, or Hellboy to satiate the rich and the stupid there really hasn’t been anything of value to play. However August has made up to some degree with the best consistent line up of Xbox Live Arcade titles from the likes of Braid, Bionic Commando Rearmed, and the hotly anticipated Castle Crashers (Which is released on the 27^th). And while everyone’s socks have been blown off by Braid I opted to buy the revamped Capcom classic, Bionic Commando Rearmed. Keep in mind that I’ve not played the original Bionic Commando for the NES because I never actually owned one.

Right now with that out of the way, Bionic Commando Rearmed is a close remake of the original with new graphics, physics, and modes. The game looks incredibly smooth and the action is fluid, however don’t think that this is a shining gem. Oh yes this diamond is speckled with dirt and feces.

So the “story” goes you are an FSA Commando “Rad” Spencer, who has a prosthetic biomechanical arm and under developed leg muscles that prevent him from jumping. Rad’s mission is to find and rescue another Commando named “Super Joe”, a character from the Arcade version of Bionic Commando as well as the arcade shooter “Commando”. Along the way Rad is accompanied by his helicopter pilot Haley. Haley often explains the relevance and importance of the equipment that you pick up during the game. As you progress through the map you uncover the insidious plot by the Imperial army to build an ultimate war machine as well as resurrect a 20^th century Fascist Leader, I’ll let you guess who that’s meant to be.

Back in the day Bionic Commando was a unique platformer because you couldn’t jump at all. Not to worry though because you make up for your underdeveloped legs with a giant mechanical grapple arm. This arm can grab onto most objects and allow you to swing over gaps or climb up to higher ledges. Also you can grab hold of barrels for a shield or throw them at your enemies. As the game progresses you gain an upgrade to grab onto enemy soldiers and throw them as weapons. This however is marred by somewhat finicky controls, as at times you’ll accidentally do something that you didn’t want to do in the first place. For example you may try to try to latch onto a ledge to pull yourself up to accidentally vault yourself away off the ledge, with results varying from nuisance to death, and while some may say that the increased difficulty of the game is by design I doubt control flaws are part of the design.

The looks of the game is really polished, it probably stands as one of the best looking arcade titles in a long time but that’s not really saying much. The game runs off the same physics engine as the current Bionic Commando that is currently in development. Speaking of the next Bionic Commando game, there is a cheat code that is available to play as the same character model as the one in the remake, this is a nice incentive to buy the game but I fear it may be a bit futile since after three hours after I downloaded the game the code made it’s way onto GameFAQs. There was also an exclusive trailer for Bionic Commando but again futile since someone will upload it to youtube or somewhere. Of course there is also the other glaring flaw of the game, the load times. They are just uncomfortably long for an arcade title, and since the levels, or the game itself are not overly long it’s just a little frustrating when you just want to get into the action quickly.

While some of the levels transfered over practically the same from the NES the ending has a few new levels such as the ending levels, which can go suck a massive cock. For instance in one you have to climb to the top of a some ledges, only at times they fold down so you have to time stuff. Now thats fine, I’ve no problem with that, but remember those funky arm controls I was talking about earlier? Yeah that’ll come back to bite you in the ass. There are times when you reach a certain point and instead of grabing the ledge you’ll swing off creating a massive inconvenience or death. Of course speaking of level design I feel compelled to bring up the worst offending level of the game, the final one. It’s so damn dark I couldn’t see where I was going, where the ledges to swing off were. Oh and it has a timer, so you have to navigate the dark room in a small space of time or else you die, and if you’re on your last life then oops back to the maps screen for you to do the whole stage over again.

Overall Bionic Commando Rearmed is a pretty cool game, I am not even going to bother recommending it to the fans of the NES version since most likely you’ve already bought it by now. But if like me you didn’t play the original I’d try it out. It may be short but it’s satisfying and since it only costs 800 points I’d recommend it. Of course it would be wise to download the trial before you buy but the trial is so damn short it really hard to truly grasp the game for yourself. Sorry this review isn’t as in depth as other ones that I do, but hopefully that should change since we’re approaching the end of August when a few decent games should be released such as Castle Crashers and Too Human, what? I liked the demo.

Extra notes for a few days later: I’m bored with it now. Man I thought it would have more depth to it, I’m kinda finding it hard to justify the price argument since I’ve paid 800 points for a game I played for much longer than this!

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