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Crucial Classics - Bionic Commando
1up.com has another entry in its 'Crucial Classics' series, and this one features a truly excellent NES title, Bionic Commando. From the article: "Most of Bionic Commando's innovations came in its hero's bionic arm. While the lead-footed character could not jump, a tap of the A button sent a moderate length of cable zipping out at a 45-degree angle, in hopes of attaching to anything vaguely resembling a platform. From there the player could perform a Tarzan-like swing to cross distances or simply retract the slack, allowing their commando to hang from the ceiling or even climb up to the next tier. The arm could also be sent straight up or horizontally, but Capcom's designers wisely made the useful angled shot the default."
I still wish Capcom had done some better sequels. The GB versions were neat, but never quite as cool as the original.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Heheh, play Liero, or any of its decendants (NiL, LieroXtreme, Soldat), to experience the ultimate extrapolation of ninja-rope combat. Nothing like dropping a nuke into a small room and cabling out through a hole in the ceiling.
Oh, and Bionic Commando rocked. iirc, it was originally released in Japan as some twisted "return of Hitler" game, but for America release they took all the Nazi stuff out. I could be wrong though.
But yeah, grappling hooks are hella-cool in gaming. Too bad Quake 2 mods ruined them for FPS gaming by constantly making them a) pointlessly overpowered air-rails, or b) horribly overcomplicated.
I love this game. I used to be able to sit down and beat on a whim, although I tried it recently and got my ass kicked. The key was to hang out at the bottom of the first elevator and just rack up points form the endlessly spawning canon fodder until you had a full health bar. It made the rest of the game a lot easier.
What a great, great game.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
Surely the original arcade machine that inspired the home console versions is the definitive Bionic Commando? I say 'inspired' because the NES and GB versions were siginificantly different from the original.
Whilst the NES game was fun the original machine was the superior version for me. Obviously the arcade was more technically impressive, but what really stands out is the game play. Frustrating true, more so than on the NES even, but it had that instant playable thrill that was essential in good arcade machines, something that wasnt quite there on the NES.
Frankly I don't even think that the NES game is the definative home version. Several others stuck much more rigidly to the original game and I think that worked in their favour. The ZX Spectrum conversion (admitedly probably not well known in the US) is of this school and it manages to be a better game despite the Speccys limited capabilities, putting it ahead of the Nintendo title in my book.
I think it's particularly interesting how the shift to 3D has changed which producers make good games. It used to be that all Konami games were awesome. It didn't matter what you bought, as long as it was made by Konami, it ruled. Even the "bad" Konami games were great compared to some of the other stuff.
On the other end, you had companies like THQ which produced crap. All of their games were crap. As far as I can remember, they had not a single good 2D game on any console.
The shift to 3D has changed that. Nowadays, Konami games are hit-or-miss. Most 2D games from Konami are still great, but the 3D games generally suck (see Castlevania...). THQ, on the other hand, has published some really great games. They still make crappy movie adaptions, but even these are generally at least playable and moderately entertaining, unlike their old stuff.
I think it's a pity that Konami isn't what it used to be, I love their 2D games.
I don't know the NinjaRopeLaucher mod for ut2004 is pretty balanced. It even uses spring physics to determine how well you can pull something.
The game plays a little differently than Bionic Commando, and has much more sophisticated physics, but the concept is the same. You use an elastic fishing line to grapple onto objects and swing yourself around. Because the line is made of rubber, it's stretchable and bendable, allowing you to pull off some crazy maneuvers, such as swinging your line underneath a platform, then retracting the line to fling yourself up onto the ledge. The learning curve is sharp, but once you learn how to play it is a tremendously fun game. I highly recommand this quirky little game to any fan of Bionic Commando (or video games in general).
If you wanna see what I'm talking about, you should check out this video of the game being played to its full capacity.