Bionic Commando

"Swing your way to victory..."

Back in the day, I loved to get my hands on a good Capcom game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, stay up all night on the weekends and play them until my head was ready to explode. Years later, the gaming has slowed and my taste in games has changed drastically, though I still have a soft spot in my heart for the games of old. Bionic Commando is one of those games that I just couldn’t put down back then and even now, I still can’t. Featuring some pretty impressive game play as well as constant action and good looking visuals {for the time} I found myself drawn back to this world over and over again.

The story itself has been lost to me, though from what I can still gather {the mind works differently when you get older} is that you are a part of an anti-terrorist unit that is sent to infiltrate an enemy base. You’ll be able to gather weapons, shoot the enemy and use a neat little tool that is attached to your arm in the form of a grappling hook. While the rest of the game story really doesn’t matter, the point of storming a base and using your wits as well as some pretty precise timing is what makes the game a classic. If you can really enjoy the action games that have difficulty and needs to be practiced before mastered, look no further.

The game play of Bionic Commando is of the side-scrolling type in which you take control of your soldier and lead him through several different areas of enemy killing goodness. You’ll be able to storm different areas and find new weapons that will increase your firepower and help you with some of the tougher enemies later on in the game. Stage layouts really aren’t all that difficult to figure out, but you’ll find that the time spent in the game is more or less getting used to utilizing the grappling hook in order to traverse the different platforms throughout the game.

Once you’ve learned how to use the grappling hook, you’ll find that it plays a key element in getting some items, and getting you around the stage considering that you can’t jump. The arm itself is something that will keep you alive in many cases and once you learn the intricacy of swinging with it, you should be able take on anything that is thrown your way. This is not to say that the game isn’t tough, even in the first stage because the enemies are constantly coming at you from all directions, so timing is essential in order to swing and blast your way through the areas ahead.

Control only comes into play when you need to move through the areas, and all of that comes with the grappling hook. Beginners should take a few minutes and learn how use the hook in order to gather items and power-ups as well as swing from place to place. The later stages require some precise timing, so be sure to spend some time getting used to how fast your soldier travels up and along the different ledges on the hook. Another point of interest is to try free falling in open space and then shooting out the hook at the last minute to really practice on the timing of using the hook to your advantage.

Visually, Bionic Commando is your typical action game complete with all of the action in the foreground and nothing going on in the background. There are several different areas that you’ll travel through, but most of what you find really doesn’t have any variation on it other than the color of the rocks or the walls. Items and weapons do have different effects, but the shots that rain down everywhere really don’t have much to them other than the typical glowing variety. Movement of the characters in both the hero and enemy sense of the word are well done and well animated on the screen, though the ugly image breakdown appears when the action gets hot.

The music isn’t anything special, with the same theme repeating through ninety percent of the stages. While this may not bother some, most will probably find that it’s outdated when placed against what we have now with full soundtracks. The theme itself instills the feeling of action and adventure, but it does tend to get old after about thirty minutes or so. The sound effects also seem to fall to the wayside with little or nothing that stands out for anyone to listen to. Gunfire and explosions are set on the back burner, so don’t look for anything too ear-shattering here.

To say that this game doesn’t have its faults would be wrong, because it does in terms of how long it takes to really get a feel for the stage layouts. There are other problems in terms of the lack of variety in the music and even the difficulty being a little on the unfair side, though this is the norm with older NES games. Visual problems appear when the game action gets a little too intense, so you need to be on the lookout for that as well in case the action gets too much and you take an unfair hit.

Bionic Commando is a great game for those of the old-school type who want to blast and swing their way to victory. There isn’t much in the audio department, but the visual presentation is solid and the control is easy enough to get a handle on once you know what the hell you’re doing. The overall game play is pretty straight-forward, though the use of the grappling hook really does put an interesting twist on the way that the game is played from start to finish. If you’re looking for something well worth your time, maybe a couple of hours on a lazy Sunday afternoon, then this is where you need to look and look no further. There is enough here for just about anyone.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/03, Updated 07/15/03