Bionic Commando

Getting back into the swing of things...

Personally, I think the biggest surprise to come out of the Bionic Commando series is that protagonist Nathan 'RAD' Spencer dyes his hair. How he ever managed to put one of the little plastic gloves on his humongous, metallic bionic arm I'll never know. He's gone back to his natural brown hue for this game, a direct sequel to a twenty year old NES classic, because I doubt bright red colouring is standard prison issue. He's been banged up for years because, like in real life, nobody knows exactly what to do with him. He's kept himself busy in the clink, though, growing a set of dreadlocks massive enough to make Dave Lister green with envy.

The game starts with the destruction of Ascension City by a terrorist cell, miffed because society considers mechanical augmentations a little bit weird. The public unease towards these 'bionics' is what caused them to chuck Spencer in prison to begin with, but they let him out so he can go into the ruins of Ascension City to give the terrorists a good slap. And he does, obviously.

Inspirations are clear to see. This is Bionic Commando by way of Crackdown and Spider-Man, a third-person action game where inertia-defying swinging takes precedence over a refined, functional shooting mechanic. Spencer's bionic arm can be fired to attach to almost any surface in the game, including enemies, and whilst he can wield an array of high-tech future weaponry it's the basic bionic arm movements that have the most functionality. They're the core mechanic of the game, and rightly so. GRIN's last attempt, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, was an entirely pedestrian shooter. Bionic Commando's unique niche seems to have propelled creativity, and it's clearly apparent from early in the game that there's plenty of substance under the surface.

There are plenty of nice tweaks to make sure it all works like it should, too: the arm is extended by the left trigger, and the game allows you to hold it down to automatically attach to the first viable point you come across. GRIN's finest achievement with the game is in the hugely successful integration of the bionic arm, creating a system tactile enough to feel intuitive whilst demanding sufficient input from the player to ensure the game doesn't fly past on auto-pilot. This same philosophy carries over to using the arm in combat, where performing a standard zip-line move on an enemy automatically centres the aiming reticule over them. The fluid, accessible controls of the bionic arm provide a sharp contrast to the fussy aiming of your weapons, and an over the shoulder viewpoint, accessible with a click of the right trigger, appears to have been thrown in from a sense of obligation as it provides no real use throughout the game and gives you no real aim advantage.

While the engine does not provide exceptional graphics, there's plenty of detail in the ruined, radioactive architecture of Ascension City. Unfortunately, the dystopian trek is frequently marred by loading screens, punctuating the swing of the game and forcing you into periods of constant downtime. The intermittence makes Bionic Commando feel like a connected series of sections rather than full-blown levels, and it's all the worse for it. And whilst its deftly crafted landscape might look the part, the gameplay feels as barren and lifeless as Ascension City itself. Extravagant bosses, a staple of the 1987 original, fall largely by the wayside, replaced with an endless stream of identical, mostly unexciting henchmen. A couple of interesting sections towards the end of the game do little to stop the bland levels merge into one another, ending up as a homogenous blur.

Enemies remain the same for the whole game, occasionally receiving minor upgrades. They are, for the most part, either regular grunts, an array of cyborgs that look like they've just come from an ED-209 convention and some basic aircraft. To fight them, and as you progress through the game, Spencer recalls a variety of abilities from his time prior to incarceration. Chief amongst them is his ability to kite objects, including people, into the air and fling them at other targets: a move that proves essential for the second half of the game. Spencer's bionic moves help make up for the generic enemies by providing satisfaction throughout.

The biggest problem is that Bionic Commando occupies some kind of hazy middle-ground between restriction and freedom. The original Bionic Commando worked so well because its composition consisted of tight, restricted levels and an obnoxiously difficult linear path: a series of objects that must be overcome to reach the end of the level. GRIN's modern sequel takes a different route, eschewing frequent instant death drops and jumping puzzles and offering you the idea of roaming through an open-world. This, in itself, is a fine idea. But the execution is faulty. Any area marked as 'radioactive' will cause a Geiger counter to start clicking and a warning icon to appear on the screen. Keep going in this direction and fail, essentially. Invisible barriers are the scourge of most open-world games, but Bionic Commando feels remarkably closed. What's surprising is just how restrictive the world is and, often, venturing even slightly off the beaten path will cause an immediate death: there is rarely enough time to stop your momentum and retreat before the game bumps you off.

Couple this with the stingy waypoint system and the natural inclination to try to perform explorative acrobatics is quickly replaced by playing it safe in the name of progression. To further matters the abysmal storyline, dialog and cut-scenes add distance between the player and the game: nothing this bad is going to provoke an emotional response. And I'm not even trying to think about how the game ends with enough loose threads to knit an XXL sweater.

An update of Bionic Commando was always going to be a colossal task, and GRIN's ambition is clear to see. It's an adventurous project, and whilst its flaws get far too much in the way it's still good to see it released. A couple of years back at the drawing board and there could be an exceptional sequel. GRIN have successfully created the right tools, but failed to provide the proper playground to make you want to play with them.

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By Martin Gaston