Bionic Commando
It’s a compelling story: an ex-bionic war hero is rescued from death row by his executioner and tasked to prevent terrorist attacks; ‘Ex bionic’ because Nathan Spencer (aka ‘Rad’) is living in a world where bionically-enhanced humans have been stripped of their machine augmentations and are living as fugitives.
Your first mission is to find your arm – and it’s an arm worth finding – because it enables you to grapple and swing from tall buildings like King Kong, except with less hairy biceps – and pick up cars and hurl them at people.
The swinging mechanism, made possible by an uber strong metal rope that shoots from your left arm, is very tricky to master. But once you’ve finished the eighties-neon-style training level and you’ve got your monkey moves down, there is no better way to see the city. You can sway from ledge to ledge, grasping at an array of surfaces in sprawling cityscapes and jumping off skyscrapers. And you can smash a great deal of what you see, picking up trucks and chunks of masonry to use as weapons.
He’s lost an arm and replaced it was a huge gadgety one. Is this Commando, living Jason’s dream?
Bionic Commando is a game that takes a while to get going, but once you make it into the graphic novel hell of the broken and burning megalopolis, it has a scale to it which only the latest crop of cutting edge games can match. You follow a number of goal and object retrieval objectives and as you swing you can target a number of attractively eight-bit collectibles, which unlock things in the game’s extras menu like concept art.
The fights are intense and you’ll need to master a number of weapons as well as some trick manoeuvres with your gadget arm. But for me, it’s the visual styling of the game that K.Os. I particularly like the generous use of pulled-focus and dramatic lighting which are extremely effective within an environment with so much depth. One thing I’m not enamoured with is Rad’s tendency to voice obnoxious machoisms; I want my heroes to be cool and understated, not high school jocks who keep yelling hackneyed phrases like ‘I’m back!’ But this is small fry. You play this game for the pleasure of connecting consecutive swings together, its dexterous fight-as-you-fly engine and the vast landscapes.
Bionic Commando isn’t every gamers cup of tea, but it is mine and if I’m permitted to continue the ‘tea’ metaphor, I’d say it’s an extra-strong, extra-large cup of steaming hot builder’s tea with five sugars and an unexpected free biscuit.
Jason’s writes a popular blog where he rants & raves about even more games, gadgets and miscellaneous geekyness. Check him out at: www.jasonbradbury.com
