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Bionic Commando Rearmed

by Gus Lanzetta August 26th 2008 12:14 AM CDT0 Comments

Some say that the age of challenging games is gone and gamers today are spoiled with multiple saves, forgiving AI and walkthroughs all over the internet. I say: If all games were as hard as Bionic Commando, I would play chess instead. But that’s not to say the game doesn’t have a lot of entertaining factors.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed is a remake of the classic NES game where Jonathan “Rad” Spencer has to, single-handedly defeat the Imperials and rescue legendary soldier Super Joe. And when I say single-handedly, I mean with one hand, one bionic grappling arm and no ability to jump. But who cares, right? Dude’s name is Rad.

The gameplay has remained the same for the most parts, but there are some extra tweaks that don’t make it feel as dated as it could. Still, the game’s controls show their age, especially to those (like me) who haven’t played the original game. It’s a side-scroller where you have to shoot and dodge bullets, but having to use the grappling hook to swing or grapple your way out of danger proves itself to be hard to learn and almost impossible to master. That being so, the game never feels as instinctive as other 2D adventure games, but is still quite enjoyable.

The graphics are all 3D and very colorful giving the game a great visual style that is hard to come by in this day of grey/brown worlds and petitions against the color palette of Diablo III. The drawings of characters that show up in dialog scenes are very cool and very identifiable as the modern Capcom look, but seeing the same two soldier pictures talking in every level, twice, left me with mixed feelings of nostalgia and just wanting more funny faces on screen.


Weapons are a big part of your progress in the game and acquiring them after the boss battles gives you a good sense of achievement (although not giving you any achievements). You start out with just a simple pistol, but you’ll find a lot of new weapons that actually feel different and unique. Rearmed also introduces upgrades for the weapons that help to make the game’s repetitiveness be less apparent.

Your battle to rescue Super Joe has you go through a twelve levels that you may explore without a specific order, but certain levels can only be reached after completing a number of previous ones and even when reached, some of them require you to have an item you must acquire from a base somewhere else. The levels themselves are pretty varied in both look and design. The best thing about the level design is the lack of backtracking and never actually feeling lost, something that a lot of modern games seem to not be able to do.

If there is one thing that prevented me from playing the game for biggest chunks of time each sitting, it was the difficulty. Bionic Commando does not reach stupid Battletoads levels of humiliating you, but it is difficult and its controls don’t help. This part really detracts from the playing experience, because reaching a boss at the end of a 6 minute level only to die and repeat is irritating, but it will happen to 99% of the people that play this game. It is hard to see why the developers thought this was something best left unchanged, when the audience of today’s games (especially console games) simply does not accept being tortured by a game anymore.

In the end, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is a fun action game that appeals most to the fans of the original game and people that really like old 2D action games of the late 80s/early 90s. If you’re not in the mood for multiple retries of the same levels and bosses, give this a try, but if you are, Rearmed is most definitely a must-buy.