Here’s another one of my “updated as I play it” reviews. You can’t read that name without trying to say it in a dramatic voice. The first thing my better half said when this game arrived in the post was “What is this game? Is it something from the 80′s? Has to be, with a name like that!”. You’d forgive this as the name does come from a simpler time of gaming. The original of this game, a 2D platformer, was released in 1987, and now, 22 years later, fresh out of original ideas it would seem, we have a 3rd person next-gen remake.

Update 1 – 28/05/09: Now I’m the king of the swingers, a jungle VIP

I’ve been ploughing loads of free time into Little Big Planet and Street Fighter IV lately, but decided to give those a break to give this a whirl. Initial impressions are good, the dialogue is 80′s camp (I don’t know if this is on purpose or not) which is actually humorous, and the gameplay is interesting. To keep with the Bionic Arm theme of the original, a bomb has gone off in some generic city which means you can’t just walk right up to the bosses door, you need your extendable swing arm to grapple onto signposts, girders and broken bridges to swing from one checkpoint to the next. The swinging makes up the meat of the gameplay, the bones comes from what is at the checkpoints when you get there. You will usually have to fight a bunch of baddies to progress (on occasion you can go around them) but how you do so will govern what upgrades and trophies you will receive. It is usually in your best interest to see what challenges have been unlocked and complete them as soon as possible. The variety of challenges keeps the fights fresh as you are not just running and gunning. Thought has to go into how you plan to attack the next squad or outpost.

At this point I still like it. The swing mechanics can feel rather stiff at times, but I’m getting used to it. Hopefully, as more abilities unlock, the game will continue to get better.

Update 2 – 29/05/09: Doin’ it for da bling

Well I’ve decided I’m going to try and get a platinum trophy in this game. I purposely played through it on my first run in the hardest difficulty to get the Trophy for it, and after having a look at the list of Trophies (thankfully none of them are online grind trophies) it should be easily possible. Playing through it in Commando mode is tough. A lot of the time I have to resort to exploiting glitches in the levels to progress. For example I encountered 3 Biomechs blocking my path, I couldn’t go around them, and fighting all 3 of them at once at this difficulty would be suicide. So I found a ledge that they couldn’t reach and just took pot shots at them, slowly whittling away at each of there healths until I could jump in and pull off a radial move that would take out all 3 of them at once. Also, Snipers at this difficulty are an absolute pain. They track you without mistake, you really have to get used to moving out of cover, performing one quick finishing move, then back into cover before the next Sniper in the area has locked onto you.

The only consolation is that I imagine I will be playing it again now to unlock the rest of the trophies, but thankfully this difficulty level will be out of the way. The easier difficulties should be a breeze.

Update 3 – 01/06/09: Swing and a… hit!

Well I finished Bionic C0mmando over the weekend in commando mode, then finished it again a day later to unlock all of the trophies and get the platinum. In commando mode, the difficulty was insane in some places (particularly areas with snipers) but by the end it felt like something of substance had been accomplished. On my second play through I lowered the difficulty to normal (the lowest allowable setting) and while it didn’t feel like as much of a struggle, it was a whole lot more fun.

Moves I couldn’t even attempt before I now had plenty of time to pull off. for example, there are these flying baddies named “Polycrafts”. In commando mode, I had to constantly be in cover, shooting at them from a distance as they would never come close enough to allow me to grapple them. In normal mode, I was able to swing on a girder and throw myself towards them as I could take a lot more damage, this allowed me to get close enough to grapple onto them and perform an “adrenaline” finishing move, which basically pulls the operater out of the craft thus disabling it.

I thought the story was pretty solid (albeit let down significantly by the pretty bad voice acting) and the ending just made you hungry for a sequel. A few of the levels had a really good epic feel to them, an example being the boss fight against the Mohole. Everything about this was perfect, the size of the boss, the sounds and the music and the atmosphere of the level. But this is just a drop in the pond.

Overall I really enjoyed this game. I thought the musical score was excellent and the sound effects where perfect (plenty of bass used to great effect), gameplay wise it never got repetitive or boring and graphically it was solid, changing environments frequently enough so as to never feel tired. If you’re looking for a challenge, some fun, a feast of eye and ear candy or a bunch of easily obtained trophies for your collection then I highly recommend this game.