Early Look At the New Bionic Commando

G4 had a chance to try out the upcoming Bionic Commando title due out in May. The game is a sequel to the NES version from 1988. Their impression is mostly positive: "The gameplay is fast and exciting, but a little light on combat, at least during the first level. There are also challenges that unlock upgrades for Nathan. These could be as simple as doing five zip kicks or as complex as killing a specific enemy with a specific move. It's a great way to add depth to the game and encourage the player to use all of the moves available to them." However, they do criticize the game's linearity, where movement is often restricted by arbitrarily placed radiation clouds. Capcom recently announced that a demo for the game will be available in the coming weeks.

Comments

360 and PS3?

[AuMatar]

Come on, this game is begging to be Wii only. Use the wiimote to control the bionic arm. Their lack of vision here disappoints me.

Re:360 and PS3?

[Anonymous Coward]

But that pretty much sums up the Wii.

Lots of great potential, but it's all used for crappy party games and such for the most part. I'm not sure if it's lack of innovation on the studios part or if it's to do with Nintendo not fostering an environment where these sorts of games can thrive.

Perhaps it's just because the Wii really can't deal with decent sized and decently detailed game worlds that people have come to expect, who knows.

One of the games I liked on the Wii was ghost squad, which I picked up for like £5 or something because it's fun for a quick blast. It's not even particularly a new idea - games dating back to the spectrum light gun had that sort of thing.

Re:360 and PS3?

[El Gigante de Justic]

So exactly how do you explain the following Wii titles:

Resident Evil 4
No More Heroes
Madworld (one of the violent and profane games I've played in a while)
House of the Dead: Overkill - which just got the Guinness World Record for most swearing in a video game.

The problem isn't that Nintendo is unwilling to approve mature content, it's that many publishers aren't willing to try putting mature content on the system, and because they've been stalling on doing so, many of the gamers who would have bought those games have started to bail on the system. Just because the system has family friendly titles doesn't mean there aren't some dads out here who also want to play more mature games after the kids go to bed. At least Sega and Capcom are keeping that category alive.

Re:Wii? Are you serious?

[tacarat]

If you can only notice how the game looks, the game isn't fun enough.

Re:Wii? Are you serious?

[AuMatar]

You see, I don't play games to droll at pretty pictures. I play games to have fun. Have good gameplay mechanics, a good control scheme, and an interesting idea and you can have atari 2600 level graphic for all I care. I've been gaming for 20 years, and I've had more fun with my wii than I have on any platform since the super nintendo. For that matter I can find a lot of little flash games with sprite graphics that are more fun than most AAA games that come out these days- developers have almost killed gaming by putting flashy graphics over fun.

Re:Stop making remakes

[Kell Bengal]

Actually Bionic Commando wasn't crap - it was a tour-de force of its day. If anything, because so few kids today got to play it, it's a perfect opportunity to bring that fun to new gamers. BC: Rearmed was exactly that, leveraged well.

I was an original BC player and Rearmed rocked my world, even after having played through it again on Rocknes merely a month beforehand. If you didn't enjoy BC the original maybe it's not for you, but give it a chance and perhaps you'll find something that rocks your world too?

Games are like dames. Some are cheap and you get what you pay for; some look pretty but it's just cosmetics; and some are classy and only get better with age and experience.