Bionic Commando (XBOX 360)

Gamecow’s Price	RRP $109.95     Save $12.00 $97.95
Availability
Genre	Action Adventure
Platform	XBOX 360
Release Date	21/05/2009
Rated

Bionic Commando is a swinging good time.  Outstanding graphics and a great soundtrack make this a truly exciting game.  It doesn’t take long and you will be swinging better than spider-man.  Gamers have waited a long time since the last Bionic Commando game, but the wait has been worth it.

All we need now is Nathan’s have brother, Steve Austin, to make a video game and we are set.

Bionic Commando (XBOX 360) Product Information

Arm yourself! The 20-year wait is over as the first true sequel to the classic 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System original, Bionic Commando™, sees the return of the bionically-enhanced Nathan "Rad" Spencer. Time has not been kind to Spencer. Ten years after his heroic defeat of the Imperials, he is betrayed by the government, and sentenced to death for crimes he didn't commit.

But then, terrorists detonate a massive experimental weapon in Ascension City, unleashing an intense earthquake that turns the city into rubble, wipes out the population, and results in the city's air defence grid in the control of a massive terrorist force. There is only one option left, a behind-the-lines assault by a Bionic Commando.

Features:
• Explore anywhere: Bionic Commando transposes the swing-and-shoot gameplay of the 8-bit original to a stunning 3-D environment of towering buildings, suspended roadways and monorails, deep canyons and sheer rock faces, where every environment is scalable using swinging, scaling, climbing, and wall-walking techniques.
• Bionic arm: Use the bionic arm to swing between towering skyscrapers at breathtaking speed, hook onto distant objects, zip up on hanging girders, and choose your own route through the game.

Bionic Commando (XBOX 360) Review

A considerable gap exists between the time that Nathan “R.A.D.” Spencer’s last mission ended and the beginning of Bionic Commando. In the in-game decade since R.A.D. took down the Albatross (a project meant to, quite frankly, resurrect Adolf Hitler), there have been many additional soldiers enhanced with bionic parts. One of Spencer’s follow-up operations involved orders for killing two rogue bionic test subjects—an assignment that he refused. This led to a court-martial and a subsequent death sentence—a sentence that would have been carried out if R.A.D.’s services were not in demand for other matters of national security: namely, an earthquake that is traced back to a WMD constructed by a worldwide terrorist group known as BioReign. Nathan ends up getting a new lease on life, provided that he helps the government take down BioReign before something more drastic than a quake occurs.

R.A.D.’s left arm is the central focus of the BC IP, as well as this 3D version of Bionic Commando. Its most common use is as a grappling hook, which enables attachment to just about any surface in Bionic Commando’s expansive (but deftly linear) maps. Being attached to a fixed point and subsequently creating momentum with the left stick will cause Nathan to swing like Spider-Man. Let go of the hook and the man of (half) steel flies through the air with a satisfying ease. Extend the hook once again and successive swings can be linked together, not dissimilar to the dynamic in any of Treyarch’s Spider-Man games.

Once mastered, the grapple-then-swing dynamic of Bionic Commando is nearly flawless and feels completely natural. After awhile, this action feels almost organic, to the point that you can plan out routes of map progression well in advance. One downside to the system is that, looking up for the next connection point can, at times, become discombobulating. There’s also a fair amount of load time/load screens to contend with that are a result of the system’s complexity.

When not using the bionic arm as the world’s most advanced vine, it can be put into action as an offensive weapon or general tool of destruction. The grappling hook has the ability to latch onto an enemy and reel him in for a swift kick, or it can even send a foe airborne for a “kite” whip maneuver. Since the hook can basically latch onto anything, it can also grab crates and other environmental objects.

When the hook is not in use, the arm functions more like those donned by Jax from Mortal Kombat. Any punch from R.A.D.’s left mitt sends bad guys airborne, where they can be hit again and sent into the future. Additionally, leaps of faith from any tall edifice can be turned into a left-arm ground pound that creates about a five-foot radius of lethality. No matter which function it is serving, there’s a lot of fun to be had with this bionic arm. Attribute that to GRIN doing such a fine job of making the brunt of its functionality technically sound.

Bionic Commando’s overall presentation value benefits from great SFX, a solid soundtrack and decent voice acting. The sound effects created by Mike Patton are actually better than his voice-acting work (not surprisingly, the former Faith No More singer can scream really well), although his delivery isn’t unacceptable to the point that it’s distracting to the plot. Some of the supporting voice-acting work is a bit sketchy, however, but the story is compelling enough to pull through some of the more tedious reads. Soundtrack-wise, there’s a feeling of quality that exudes from each track—almost like it wasn’t done on a single computer, for use in a video game. The tracks sound more like those plucked from a movie than in many other action games. Each entry seems to shift intensity right along with the given action sequences, too.

Did GRIN do the original game justice? Definitely. GRIN has put Bionic Commando back on the map—with both of its titles, actually. Now let’s hope that Capcom keeps the cyborgs a-comin’. Two decades is too long to wait for a follow-up from such a compelling franchise.

Full review TEAMXBOX