shaowebb
Member
Recently after a strong curiosity overtook me to study camera mechanics in various games I picked up Bionic Commando wondering not only how they handled the mechanics in a game involving swinging, but also wondering in general about the series. Turns out the camera was wonderful, and it always made certain to keep emphasis on the horizon so as to allow you plenty of screen to aim at with your swings, and I never once got the camera pinned or banged by buildings and I play around a LOT with cameras. The rest of what I experienced in Bionic Commando can be summarized in one sentence.
After playing this game all I can say is it felt like a triple A title...for about 15 seconds at a time.
While the swing felt wonderful, and play mechanics were easy to learn this game could've become so much more. For those wondering if the swing felt wrong the answer is "no". This was the greatest joy in the game. Simply hold down the left trigger, and look around with the right thumbstick. If you see any gray "x's" then these are things you can grab and will automatically grab the moment they become blue so long as you hold the left trigger. That means if you see an x and dive off of a building all you have to do is dive off and keep it generally viewed with the right thubstick. The moment it comes in range you will grapple it automatically. To let go you simply let go of the trigger. Just that simple. Momentum takes care of the rest. Though minefield swinging is difficult since Nathan is often placed with too little an "x" zone at too far a distance to make these areas feel as good as they could've been. Not really bad areas, but you can still screw up in them if you mess around, or aren't careful.
So why didn't the game make it if it's main mechanic felt as thrilling as I hoped?
The problems that occurred in this game are really a rotating cycle of "Lets introduce a great element", followed by "Lets cripple it somehow unintentionally through bad game balance".
Here is my general impressions.
- Your health, and ammo drops are ludicrously small.
- To balance this they make your arm incredibly powerful to enforce the mentality of "Use the arm more" to players so the game will feel more like what it was meant to be and not just a generic 3rd person shooter with a few extra mechanics.
- They gimp your arm, however, by making your enemies have a ludicrously long range aim. 200 yard kill shots from grunts with a pistol sucks early on.
- To try to balance this they give you radar, and an incredibly speedy way to change camera direction and where you face with the d-pad
- This is gimped by the fact that your enemies have NO indicators over them until they are within arm range. This means that you can be killed by guys from 200 yards away with a pistol who, when you turn to face them, you cannot find in time. Your radar says they are behind you, but they could be below you, or above you on the terrain and you cant see them. Early on, before your maximum health increases this is a nonstop issue.
- LONG load screens between waypoints staged too closely together break game flow. They should have done what Unreal does in games, and use placeholder imagery of environs that are replaced when you get within range of them. This would have prevented the game from needing to load EVERYTHING at the start of each waypoint, and potentially could have allowed for far longer levels before each waypoint to exist since it would only need to load textures, and rigs that you were close to, and it could merely generate very low in size placeholders for more distant areas you couldn't reach.
- Collectibles in this game are awesomely addictive to find since they are large glowing pixel-stylized sprites from the classic games that hover tantalizingly in the air. These provide excellent incentives to make the player explore stages more, and to try to make time to just use the fun swinging mechanic more so as to allow you to have an excuse to just play around.
- Collectibles are pointless to attempt since 155 exist, and once you hit a waypoint you CANNOT go back to attempt to find the ones you missed in the last area. Also, if you die before a wapoing (which is often) you lose every collectible you had grabbed and have to get them again.
- Revisting earlier stages using a "section select" on the load screen will take you back to these areas...minus any moves, upgrades and weapons you earned at anypoint beyond these areas.
- Earlier levels are REALLY hard compared to the later levels because the game essentially makes you attempt them with next to nothing to use to fight with. You only get the tungsten and its limited ammo in these earlier levels. It takes a bit before you earn any of the essential combat abilities, or get any of the decent weapons. Until you get the Zip line attack, the throw, and the ability to punch and launch objects about the stage the game just feels broken in balancing combat with fun. Ammo drops aren't really that short supplied later on because weapon pods are launched in EVERY LEVEL later on for quick ammo, and weapon grabs. Plus, by this point you have enough arm abilities that your main tactic is to use guerilla warfare to 1) Swing about so they cannot hit you easily 2) drop down on one with "Death from above" 3) grab another and throw him into more enemies 4) zip line a guy 5) repeat
- Sniping is retarded in a game with so little health, and enemies that can spot fleas 2 counties over and shoot their wings off. Just swing in, and zip line people. You can even combo this move several times since so long as you are in range of a grabable enemy your aiming reticle will try to hover on them.
- The game gives you challenges to try in combat that will award you bonuses, health, more challenges to try and ammo limit upgrades and these are addictive to try.
- You often do not have the liberty to attempt challenges on purpose, in order to progress since for a large period early on all you will be able to do is die, until the game hands you your arm abilities after scripted story moments. This means you upgrade by accident as you flail at enemies begging them not to blow your face off. It's kind of degrading to die with only 3 enemies to fight, but its easy to do in this game until your arm is beefed so challenges are too risky to shoot for early on. Plus, the lack of being able to play through older levels once a challenge is unlocked means you can't revisit areas that would've been perfect to attempt them in.
In general, this game feels incredible once you have all the essential moves to play it, and the promise of a pod refill on guns and ammo per level. The graphics look great, and even though Nathan is a twat and dialogue is early 90's action hero it does have decent voice actors portraying them. There is only so much you can do though with some of these lines is why the dialogue seems off to me.
What would have saved this game would have been more balancing of computer AI, more abilities early on , a better training area to learn abilities since mine field swinging is often a source of death and a radiation meter.
I forgot to mention that didn't I...radiation kills you so quick that one high swing into a cloud means your dead before you can even begin to plummet out of the cloud.Problem is since radiation is blue, and so are good things in this game like grapple reticles, and collectibles your mind doesn't subconsciously make you aware of these colors half the time since radiation streaks of blue on buildings and in the sky often do not even have similar ranges of danger zones. You only get a radiation symbol when your right on top of radiation, too. A meter similar to the ones in Metroid would have been better. For that matter a HEALTH BAR would've helped a lot as well to keep my alive. Red screens only go so far as to make me guess how close I am to dying.
In the end, the game felt so fun to play when I had my arm pulling off insanely addictive moves like grabbing enemies, and throwing them over the horizon, or into buildings way off in the distance while Nathan screamed "Sucks to be you!". However, too many load screens, lack of enemy aiming ai balancing to coincide with the limitations placed upon the player, and terrible balance earlier in the game serve as a decent reason this game flopped. This was my first experience with this series, and while I love the moments I got I hope this series gets a Bionic Commando sequel with more attention paid to the issues I mentioned.
If I had all of my arm abilities during the early stages on a new game, and enemies couldn't kill me from 200+yards away I would probably have a much better time. I know if I had started with the ability to fling bodies, and objects around like I do in later levels I would've been hooked VERY early. Until then, this game is just one long load screen from how often you will be dying.
nly Multiplayer Despite the focus of development being single player.