Obviously, I finally landed on the idea that I didn't care for it. And this isn't just because it's not my Bionic Commando from the NES days. I didn't even like Bionic Commando as a kid, and I didn't come to appreciate the game until much later in life, so there's no real sense of nostalgia driving my disapproval for the new direction. Instead, I just feel like the story tries way too hard to be a serious action game, but at the same time it tosses so much at the player that's way out of this world concept wise, and tries to tie in with the plot of the original game which wasn't exactly plot heavy to begin with. Maybe the developers would have been better off making this a standalone game, or an actual remake story-wise of the original, rather than toying around with cardboard characters that were never all that developed to begin with, and trying to add layers of emotion and story without actually accomplishing those goals.

Story gripes aside though, I think Bionic Commando plays fairly well. We've seen swinging and grappling mechanics in various titles in the past five years or so, obviously with the Spider-Man games from Activision, but also with Capcom's own Lost Planet, but Bionic Commando actually manages to feel different from both franchises, and does a pretty good job with the idea overall. Spencer is equipped with a bionic arm, hence the name of the title, that allows him to grapple onto various surfaces, enemies, items and so on, but it's mostly used to either propel yourself forward or upwards, by swinging across broken down signs, tram cars, walls and overhangs, etc. It's not an automatic thing either, you can't just hit the left trigger and be attached to whatever is nearby in your surroundings, instead the game forces you to aim your shot with the right stick, and will highlight available things to grab on to, making the game a bit difficult at first. Even swinging comes off as obtuse when you first start, as there's a sweet spot to hit when you're going back and forth, requiring you to time your release if you actually want to propel Spencer forward instead of losing your momentum. It took me a good hour or so to really get the hang of it, but once it clicked I found myself liking the whole grappling mechanic a lot. I feel like I'm more grounded in reality by having to place my shots instead of just swinging out in mid-air, and placing my grapples gives me a bit more precision than I had originally thought.

Combat is fairly standard though, and while certain boss fights and mini-bosses do make use of the grappling mechanic, for the most part the action stuff in Bionic Commando is standard run and gun style gameplay. You're equipped with a pistol at all times, but it does have a finite amount of ammo. There are secondary weapons that can be found in pods that the government shoots down at you, consisting of a rocket launcher with lock-on ability, a shotgun, a grenade launcher, and a machine gun that Super Joe references as being the one he used to use. They're all pretty effective, and definitely useful for the bigger firefights, but the rocket launcher is easily the one you'll want to bring into most of the fights against the larger mechs and bosses when possible. There's a dodge button to use but no cover system, along with a heavy punch attack that's used to launch debris into the air and then bounce it out towards enemies. With no real lock on ability this only seems to work half of the time, and can be frustrating to target enemies that move around a lot. Your arm does have some offensive abilities, allowing you to hook onto the basic soldiers and drag them towards you to finish them off, along with some of the mech fights that make use of particular weaknesses so you can drop kick them by using your arm as a zip line. Neither attack feels very inventive, and outside of a "super move" that you can get access to around the midpoint that allows you to spin your arm wire around really fast, I'm mostly disappointed with the use of the grappling hook in fights.

The levels that Spencer gets to swing around in do a great job of making use of your arm, allowing you to connect to just about any object you can see, and there's plenty of overhanging structures you can swing around on. However, while the game might appear to be open-ended, you're generally tunneled along by the use of radiation that keeps you confined to a particular path. If you veer off of the path too much, you'll get a small warning symbol that pops up, and if you go way off the path, you'll be dead in seconds. It's a pretty lame use of an invisible wall, especially considering that some of the darker stages make it difficult to figure out where the boundary is until you've already hit it and died. Another annoyance was the use of water, and Spencer's inability to swim. I understand why he can't, obviously his bionics are going to be heavy, and having iron boots to allow for long falls aren't exactly going to be proper swimwear attire, but you can die in some relatively shallow pools too, which just seems odd. You're given a few seconds of time to try and grapple your way out of danger, which is generally possible, but you'll hit a few areas that once you hit the water it's a guaranteed death. These sections can really piss the player off, and the whole use of water in the game seems pretty unnecessary to me.

Finally, there's a multiplayer mode tacked on, but it's hardly worth writing about. There are three modes to pick from, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. While there's a certain novelty to using the bionic arm to navigate the stages during firefights, it's almost impossible to hit or kill anyone while they're moving around unless you're using some explosive weapon, so a lot of the firefights are still contained on level surfaces or the ground, which doesn't do much to differentiate the combat from any other shooter on the market. Also, the only mode that makes any unique use of the arm is Capture the Flag, and it would have been nice to see a few other unique modes to Bionic Commando that made better use of the mechanic instead of your run of the mill deathmatch battles. Still, it's not particularly broken or horrible, just not worth buying the game for or getting all that excited about.

And that's pretty much how I feel about the entire experience. It's not a horrible game, and it does provide some fun for the 8 or so hours of gameplay, but it's not particularly exciting or noteworthy either. The grappling mechanic is handled well, and swinging around is fun, but the combat feels very ho-hum and by the numbers, and you'll end up doing a lot of it later in the game. On the whole, the entire experience is very average, and because of that it feels like more of a disappointment due to being an attempt at revitalizing a franchise, especially compared to the excellent job done with Rearmed prior to this. It's worth playing on a rental, sure, but I can't say that I'd plop down full price for it either.

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