Because you demanded it somebody expressed mild interest!
I rented the new Bionic Commando and, while there's several gripes I definitely have about it, it's fun! It's good! It's...perhaps not worth a buy, unless you really like the multiplayer.
The core gameplay is good stuff. Unlike many games you'd want to compare this too, like the Spider-Man games, you need to manually select your grapple point through the sight in the center of the screen. The timing is a bit odd at first, but is easy to acclimate too and sensitivity adjustments can be made as well. However, it doesn't seem like you gain much momentum, so you could be grabbing pretty well, need to make a long swing (say to a collectible or something), but if you don't release at exactly the right point you could miss--you can't rely on momentum to get you where you need to go. If nothing else, it keeps the grappling-centered gameplay intact and pulls it off extremely well, but it feels kind of slow compared to more modern takes.
Combat is a mixed bag. There's no shortage of easy to kill mooks, and often the grapple arm is a good way of taking them out quickly. Oddly, your default gun has limited ammo, sometimes forcing you to waste ammo on more powerful guns when you run out (which you will, likely). The shooting controls are pretty responsive, though, and I found even the oft-criticized library battle fun (though I wasn't playing it on hard).
Graphically, it's pretty much average at best. Framerate is a generally solid (but low) 30 fps. There are some good looking environments at a distance, but when getting in close they look pretty ugly--especially foliage.
A nice touch in this game that you can get certain enhancements (additional armor, ammo capacity, etc.) by completing challenges (which also happen to be achievements/trophies, conveniently), so you have actual incentives to work towards them, but certain windows for getting them are very narrow due to the linear nature of the game. Nice idea--but it works much better in a sandbox game, where you have a free roam where you can complete most of them any time.
Also, the treatment of collectibles is pretty evil. Some of them you can't even see until you're very close to them, and when you miss one, you miss one. Now, you can't come back and replay that section, no you can't replay that stage even and get it later. Once you complete a section of a game and reach a new checkpoint, you can never go back and collect a missed collectible without starting a completely new game. The level select only lets you replay a stage, and you cannot earn missed collectibles or gain any achievements in them.
While story/writing doesn't matter to the gameplay, it kind of hurts a game like this based on such a revered classic. Bionic Commando Re-armed reveled in 80s cheese, included several fourth-wall breaking in jokes. This tries to be too serious. It couldn't have been easy trying to balance the humor/goofiness of something like Rearmed and a more "serious" story. For the most part the humor is just tidbits here and there ("Is that a LONG life bar, or are you just happy to see me?"), so if you're counting on a lot of it, prepare to be disappointed. I recommend using the Re-Armed skin, at the very least.
Also, something that is going to turn off a lot of people is the abundance of the water/radiation hazards early on in the game. When you land in water, you are going to drown unless you're close enough/quick enough to grapple yourself out. Also, rather than invisible walls, the linear levels force you to stay without safe zones surrounded by radiation. If you stray into radiation, you get a warning and you take damage. After a few seconds, you die. This discourages much exploration (which would have been great considering the tools you have), plus sometimes there's not much you can do. A higher section of a building may be irradiated while a lower portion may be safe. However, you may not fall fast enough/climb high enough quickly enough to get to a safe zone--if you can tell what's safe at all, and suffer a lot of unnecessary death. While generally there's blue fog to indicate irradiated areas, and a geiger counter noise to indicate when you're close, it's still very erratic.
Combine that with some occasional weird glitches (I had a checkpoint not activate, some challenges that are unmissable not shot sometimes, etc.), the first appearances of snipers, and the game tends to leave a really iffy first impression. Once you actually get past the flooded city section and move on to the caverns it starts to get really fun, though.
Achievement whores may find it worth a look--most of the achievements are fairly easy, but you need to focus on the challenges or some of them won't even activate. Most of the achievements don't "count" unless you have that challenge available to take a crack at.
I've heard several positive impressions about the multiplayer, although I haven't really tried it myself (I'm silver). Some people on another board I visit really like it, though.
It's a bit hard to recommend this as a buy, and big fans of the original and Re-Armed are going to have a lot of criticisms about it, as it's pretty much just an average game versus the exceptional original/remake already available. However, it's at least fun while it lasts. The design of level replays essentially murders replay value, because you have to get it all right the first time, or start the entire game over from the beginning. Even for a short game, that's pretty damn annoying for a 2009 game.
I rented the new Bionic Commando and, while there's several gripes I definitely have about it, it's fun! It's good! It's...perhaps not worth a buy, unless you really like the multiplayer.
The core gameplay is good stuff. Unlike many games you'd want to compare this too, like the Spider-Man games, you need to manually select your grapple point through the sight in the center of the screen. The timing is a bit odd at first, but is easy to acclimate too and sensitivity adjustments can be made as well. However, it doesn't seem like you gain much momentum, so you could be grabbing pretty well, need to make a long swing (say to a collectible or something), but if you don't release at exactly the right point you could miss--you can't rely on momentum to get you where you need to go. If nothing else, it keeps the grappling-centered gameplay intact and pulls it off extremely well, but it feels kind of slow compared to more modern takes.
Combat is a mixed bag. There's no shortage of easy to kill mooks, and often the grapple arm is a good way of taking them out quickly. Oddly, your default gun has limited ammo, sometimes forcing you to waste ammo on more powerful guns when you run out (which you will, likely). The shooting controls are pretty responsive, though, and I found even the oft-criticized library battle fun (though I wasn't playing it on hard).
Graphically, it's pretty much average at best. Framerate is a generally solid (but low) 30 fps. There are some good looking environments at a distance, but when getting in close they look pretty ugly--especially foliage.
A nice touch in this game that you can get certain enhancements (additional armor, ammo capacity, etc.) by completing challenges (which also happen to be achievements/trophies, conveniently), so you have actual incentives to work towards them, but certain windows for getting them are very narrow due to the linear nature of the game. Nice idea--but it works much better in a sandbox game, where you have a free roam where you can complete most of them any time.
Also, the treatment of collectibles is pretty evil. Some of them you can't even see until you're very close to them, and when you miss one, you miss one. Now, you can't come back and replay that section, no you can't replay that stage even and get it later. Once you complete a section of a game and reach a new checkpoint, you can never go back and collect a missed collectible without starting a completely new game. The level select only lets you replay a stage, and you cannot earn missed collectibles or gain any achievements in them.
While story/writing doesn't matter to the gameplay, it kind of hurts a game like this based on such a revered classic. Bionic Commando Re-armed reveled in 80s cheese, included several fourth-wall breaking in jokes. This tries to be too serious. It couldn't have been easy trying to balance the humor/goofiness of something like Rearmed and a more "serious" story. For the most part the humor is just tidbits here and there ("Is that a LONG life bar, or are you just happy to see me?"), so if you're counting on a lot of it, prepare to be disappointed. I recommend using the Re-Armed skin, at the very least.
Also, something that is going to turn off a lot of people is the abundance of the water/radiation hazards early on in the game. When you land in water, you are going to drown unless you're close enough/quick enough to grapple yourself out. Also, rather than invisible walls, the linear levels force you to stay without safe zones surrounded by radiation. If you stray into radiation, you get a warning and you take damage. After a few seconds, you die. This discourages much exploration (which would have been great considering the tools you have), plus sometimes there's not much you can do. A higher section of a building may be irradiated while a lower portion may be safe. However, you may not fall fast enough/climb high enough quickly enough to get to a safe zone--if you can tell what's safe at all, and suffer a lot of unnecessary death. While generally there's blue fog to indicate irradiated areas, and a geiger counter noise to indicate when you're close, it's still very erratic.
Combine that with some occasional weird glitches (I had a checkpoint not activate, some challenges that are unmissable not shot sometimes, etc.), the first appearances of snipers, and the game tends to leave a really iffy first impression. Once you actually get past the flooded city section and move on to the caverns it starts to get really fun, though.
Achievement whores may find it worth a look--most of the achievements are fairly easy, but you need to focus on the challenges or some of them won't even activate. Most of the achievements don't "count" unless you have that challenge available to take a crack at.
I've heard several positive impressions about the multiplayer, although I haven't really tried it myself (I'm silver). Some people on another board I visit really like it, though.
It's a bit hard to recommend this as a buy, and big fans of the original and Re-Armed are going to have a lot of criticisms about it, as it's pretty much just an average game versus the exceptional original/remake already available. However, it's at least fun while it lasts. The design of level replays essentially murders replay value, because you have to get it all right the first time, or start the entire game over from the beginning. Even for a short game, that's pretty damn annoying for a 2009 game.
