by: Chris Vavra

June 04, 2009

The combat itself is nothing special. There are plenty of firefights in buildings, out on the streets, in the park, and even on an oil rig, but none of them are all that intense. The enemy AI isn’t particularly smart and may kill you because of sheer numbers rather than skill. The boss fights look great, but they don’t have any real challenge to them. The bionic arm figures in most of the fights, but it felt more like a footnote rather than something special needed to win the fight. With all of the firefights, the lame cutscenes, and overbearing dialogue, figure the game to be a 5-hour endeavor on normal. A boring 5-hour endeavor. The one aspect that is interesting is how many achievements and trophies you can pick up by utilizing the moves and tricks you learn throughout the game. There have to be about thirty achievements you can earn by doing everything from killing a certain number of bad guys to doing certain tricks with the bionic arm. This might seem arbitrary and pointless to those who don’t care about achievement points, but it does work very well from an integration standpoint. The average gamer will probably grab half of the possible achievements during the first run-through.

Graphics and music are nondescript, by and large. Some of the effects, like fire, look really cheesy. Some of the cut scenes have some visual flair and are fun to watch with the sound off. There’s an awful lot of slowdown, though, and this game isn’t even pushing the visual boundaries. The actors working the voice-overs are trying too hard to make this bad dialogue sound good. The music is a bit repetitive, but the military theme does a good job of staying in the background without being too annoying.

Multiplayer, at least, makes better use of the bionic arm and there is some replay value in the online matches. Achievement junkies won’t find much interest since none of them, near as I can tell, are focused on multiplayer, but the level design is very good and it feels like some of the levels and situations that didn’t work out so well in single player were that way because they were designed for ten people. BC’s online play is nothing special, but it functions well enough to keep the game spinning for another three or four hours.

Bionic Commando doesn’t quite tarnish the legacy left by the original NES game and its 2-D counterparts. Some games were never meant for the 3-D realm (Mega Man, Sonic, Castlevania). The ending leaves the possibility for a sequel. If there is, I hope it’s a 2-D iteration for XBLA because the system Grin put in place for Bionic falls way short of where it should be. Hardcore fans should stay away and drop 15 for the XBLA game or go back to the 1988 classic and relive some great memories of shooting that Hitler wannabe at the end.

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Bionic Commando has too many fundamental problems to gain any kind of momentum. The inspired moments are weighed down by all of the moments that don't work. Some neat ideas, but in the end it's too short, too boring, and the story is too stupid to make anyone care. A rental, at best, for fans of the original (if they'll even bother).

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