Bionic Commando [360]

18 May 2009 at 11:32:31 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (360)

Your experience with Bionic Commando, if plotted onto a graph, would take an interesting shape. Initially, your interest will be middling. On the one hand it's Bionic Commando, which we've been waiting for for what seems like forever. On the other hand, you start with nothing interesting. Once you unlock your powers and abilities and are set swinging through the streets, your fun level skyrockets. You leap from lamppost to lamppost like a fat pigeon; you slam into groups of enemies and take them out with a few flicks of your bionic arm and shots from your pistol; you hurl objects and debris and soldiers with aplomb. And then, finally, you start to wonder if that's all there is to it, and feel a tad empty.

The arm is undeniably a nifty tool though. One of the questions I asked back when we did the Bionic Commando interview was whether or not they'd taken any cues from Spider-Man 2, and the response was that, much as they'd played it, they wanted to do something that felt “less arcadey and more skill-based.” Here, they've succeeded. When the controls actually click, which takes maybe an hour, you begin to seriously enjoy yourself. Unlike Spider-Man, you don't simply press a button to have your avatar grapple into nearby scenery. Here you actually have to aim in vaguely the right direction, and if you want to build up speed, there's quite a narrow timing window for when you have to release.

The other abilities with the arm are unlocked as you proceed. Post-tutorial, you have the abilities to swing and to punch people. Before long, you unlock the ability to rip prominent pieces off the environment (trains, signs, and the like), knock enemies into the air and send them flying, to grapple onto objects and either hurl them or smash them into things, and to latch onto them and smack them with your iron boots – which, helpfully, also stop you dying from falls. The Rip ability only really sees use early on, but the rest are things that you'll be using most of the way through.

Part of the reason why you're so focused on the arm is that it's the arm - you're the Bionic Commando and it's your defining trait. The other reason is that the guns are slightly ineffectual. The only weapon you really have ammo for at any given time is your starting pistol which, to be fair, isn't a bad weapon. Against the common enemy soldier, it does a decent amount of damage, and if you take the time to zoom and aim, a headshot will drop an enemy quickly. Other than the pistol, you have a slot for grenades, and a slot for a special weapon, of which there are around five.

They're incredibly useful, I admit, but you've never, ever got any bloody ammo. Enemies rarely drop ammunition for these weapons, so your sole ability to rearm is based on the supply pods that drop in every now and then, which usually replace your weapon with one better suited for the next section. What this means is exactly what I said above: you use the arm a lot, partially out of fear that you won't have ammunition when you really need it, and partially out of not having any ammunition in the first place.

This leads onto a surprise with the gameplay, which is that BC is difficult. Despite the arm, the rest of Spencer is fairly squishy, and a few enemies with machine guns can cut him down all too swiftly. Hanging about on the ground doesn't quite work, either, as his running speed is fairly slow. The idea, it seems, is to drop in and dispatch targets very, very quickly, particularly as soldiers have stun batons that on Normal difficulty (the easiest of the three) can kill you in two hits.

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