Review: Bionic Commando (Xbox 360, PS3)
There was a time, not so long ago, when I trusted Capcom to deliver high quality, fun to play games. That trust, however, has been betrayed by the Grin Studios developed Bionic Commando sequel for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The unnatural, frustrating control scheme and environments that force the player on a single, linear path teamed up with the simply brain-dead A.I. make Bionic Commando a painfully broken experience.
The part of the game that should be the most fun, the swinging, is most often the source of frustration. The control scheme feels cluttered and imprecise, which is especially frustrating in a game that asks far more precision than the controls allow. Another complaint I have about the swinging is how little of an effect your momentum has on how fast you swing. Regardless of where you jump from or how fast you’re going, you will always swing at the same speed using the same animation. This takes a lot of the fun out of jumping from the top of a building and swinging from a pole at the very last second.
Bionic commando clocks in at around five hours which, by today’s standards, is not nearly long enough to warrant a sixty dollar purchase. The short campaign makes the single player experience feel gimped, especially since by the time you learn all of your combat abilities, the game is over.
The combat is mediocre at best. The bionic arm spices things up a little bit, letting the player grapple an enemy, then swing in for a quick kick to the face. The gun play is simply bland and feels like any other third person shooter. The weapons are uninspired and really bring the combat down as a whole.
The levels are incredibly linear and if the player tries to break from the path, they are faced with instant death. The game rationalizes this by calling the area that you can’t enter “irradiated zone”, but this really just comes down to lazy level design.
Bionic Commando boils down to a short, shotty game that feels like it was rushed out the door. I don’t understand why Capcom would allow thier name to be afixed to this game. I sure know I can’t stand having it affixed to my game history.
Tags: bionic commando, capcom, Grin Studios, ps3, Xbox 360
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:They should have made a 2D sequel. BC: Rearmed is awesome.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:I thought this looked cool, mostly because of the swinging. But the linear level design and static swing speed I’ve heard everybody talk about really turns me off the idea of playing it.
July 18th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Bionic Commando (2009) | Game Glist says:[...] Bionic Commando (2009) wingdamage.com [...]