X360 Review: Bionic Commando

What isn’t there to be excited about, when thinking of a 3D sequel to the 1988 classic? Beautiful visuals, loads of action and (of course) your bionic arm to swing about Ascension City are all good points when talking up BC – unfortunately, nearly everything else slips through the pavement cracks. What isn’t there to be excited about, when thinking of a 3d sequel to the 1988 classic -  a lot!

Developer: Grin
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: 3rd Person Shooter
Rating: M ( Mature)
Price: $59.99

Nathan “Rad” Spencer is betrayed, imprisoned, and sentenced to death by his own government. All bionics are to be terminated in what the government calls “The Great Purge.” Fortunately, for Spencer, an evil group of “BioReign” detonates an experimental weapon that crumbles Ascension City into a pile of radiated ruins. The FSA needs a “hero” to fix their situation; who do they turn to? Who else, but Spencer?

Bionic Commando seems to have been designed to be a great swinging 3rd person shooter – minus the great. Grin’s attempt, while definitely competent, screams average at the top of its lungs. Weapon design, environment design, objective design, and voice acting all seem to take a back seat to the polish of Nathan’s swinging. If you’ve turned to Bionic Commando for anything more than a standard shooter with a swinging mechanic, I suggest you lower your expectation. It will help soften the blow.

Weapons are as standard as they come. Environments are not to be explored and restricted to a linear path with the help of radiation that kills “RAD” if he gets to close. 90 % of the game is swinging over to floating “air-mine” controls, killing all enemies in its vicinity, hacking the control to deactivate the mines and, only then, using the mines as means for your bionic arm to swing you over to the next way point. A handful of bad design decisions plaque Bionic Commando – and many of them seem like they were made due to time restraint.

Yes; the visuals are very appealing and the overall sound design are great – but those are a few out of a bundle. Even as a fan of Faith No More, the voice acting made “Rad” feel like a cliché action hero. Constant “hooting” when diving of high locations really pulled me away from Nathan as a character. Maybe I was expecting something other than cliché and sly dialogue and character remarks?

While the swing mechanic feels great, once you get a handle on it, the shooting feels average – and those are your two major mechanical aspects of BC. Shooting and swinging need to feel top-notch here and only a portion of it actually do. The aiming reticule is very forgiving, which is never a bad thing – but the swinging mechanic isn’t. Missing a swing, usually, means meeting another load screen – trust me; there are plenty of load screens to be met.

Multiplayer wasted, about, 20 minutes of my time before I dropped out of the game and went back to the single-player. It’s to easy to just add multiplayer to anything – and that never makes it fun or appealing. Much like Bionic Commando in general; some people will get some enjoyment out of the play modes – I moved on.

In the end, after I pretty much bashed Nathan Spencer’s experience the whole way through, I find myself leaving slightly satisfied. Kind of like a lap dance but with clothes ON the stripper. The overall experience, around 9 hours, was on the brink of dragging and satisfying. A few more hours would have hurt this title, for me, in a big way. Loads of collectable items and in-game challenges give fans, of the game, a reason to return once they’ve completed the title; I left them behind.

I had set high expectations for Grin – especially after BC: Rearmed – and those expectations fell along with the building in Ascension City. Can I recommend this to anyone? Yes; as a rental or half of the retail cost. Repetitive and average is a perfect sum of words for BC, but still decently fun and never awful. It’s kind of like Assassins Creed, but with radiation directing you to your next way-point and a bionic arm to swing around with. I turned every corner looking for a new objective and only got more of the same, and that’s a damn shame. (B)

- Jeffrey d