Man, do I love Bionic Commando. The original game on the NES is easily in my Top 10 NES games ever, and the remake on XBLA is easily the best game on the marketplace. So, to say that I was excited for the brand new 3D version is an understatement. And while the game is far from terrible, it just doesnt meet the incredibly high standards of the original game.
Starting with the presentation, Bionic Commando gets off to a bad start. The cutscenes are poorly directed, the voice acting is dry, and the story is incoherent. The graphics themselves are very nice, but the game doesnt run that well on the Xbox 360, with some V-sync and framerate issues abounding. I think it will look and run much better on the PC version, when that comes out. The platforming gameplay is excellent, and the controls for swinging are great. The main problem is an extremely linear level design, terrible enemy AI, and repetitive boss battles. The shooting also feels like Crackdown, need I say more? However, that game was open world and had a lot of awesome weapons, even if aiming them at idiotic enemies sucked, I cant say the same thing about Bionic Commando.
Very deep in, about 3/4 of the way through, I had enough and put it back in the gamefly sleeve. Shame really, and its not even that the game is that bad. Its fine. Its very old school in an endearing sort of way. But it just didnt make me want to play more. (SPOILERS) The story sets up a showdown between Bionic Commando and Super Joe, who has now apparently turned evil halfway through the story. Besides this making no sense, it just doesnt fit with the original game. It feels wrong. Its just another one of many aspects of the game which were completely butchered. Overall its hard not to feel disappointed, 25 years in the making should have come out better than this.
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