Bionic Commando(2009) Thoughts

I have never played a game I have so desperately wanted to like. Bionic Commando 2009 has a number of things going for it well mainly just it's movement and moveset.

The game's grapple hook and swinging mechanic is rather unique even to this day. What if Spider-Man 2 the movie tie in game's swinging and Just Cause 2-4's grapple hook ever combined together? You get this game's grappling hook system. It's a very unique combo. At first it's a little hard to get used to but the more you play, the more you start to get used to it. How you can can swing and it's based on the physics and the momentum of the player's movement on top of being grapple and zip on to almost anywhere in the game world much like the Just Cause games' grappling hook. It's a decently well thought out and well made movement system and what's even more surprising is that it's in a linear game not open world.

However one big issue is that when it comes to precise swinging, the system isn't the most graceful. When you try to grapple and swing on to the balloons and there is nothing but water or a death put with nothing to grapple on to save yourself, and you have to grapple on to specific parts of the environment to get through the level, the game can get frustrating since there are times where I swing and it feels like Nathan's grapple SHOULD be able to grab on to it but it doesn't.

Some more good things about the game before I get to more negatives is that you get a decent moveset outside of guns and grenades in a shooter like this Death from Above is very similar to the lightning drop from the Infamous games, you can also launch objects into air and punch them towards enemies and killing them with it is very satisfying and makes the player feel creative for using the mechanic. You can also grapple ammo pick ups to yourself instead of walking up to them which is a really nice and quick way to get ammo. You also get an area of effect whip later in the game and it can come in handy at even the odds...at times.

This is where I start to lean more into what I dislike. The level design is at it's best tolerable but it's worst utterly obnoxious. There is radiated areas that can kill you if in them for too long and these are easy to avoid at times but then there are other times where I get into them by accident and I'm given little time to escape and regain my barrings. There is also other issues with it like how the game can't decide whether it wants to be a 6th gen game or a 7th gen game. I say this because there is hallmarks of 6th gen action game level design where the player has to complete a level that clocks in at around 5-6 minutes with no checkpoints bookended by a loading screen. Then there are longer levels that do to have checkpoints all though not as consistently as one would like.

Next issue is the health system and enemies. A regenerating health system is used and much like Just Cause 3 since all the enemies are using hitscan weapons this means that a game that should be about you letting out your cool action movie hero fantasy is instead a game of running around, hiding and waiting for health to regen. The last one robs the player of any agency since the ONLY thing you can do when on critical health with a regen health system is to just wait and hope no enemies are hitting you or in this case, hope they don't have line of sight since it's a hitscan game.

The player often doesn't have enough ammo to take down enemies. Sure you might need to be more creative and use objects to beat them but some areas don't have that either and even then since enemies are hitscan, can home in on you pretty quickly and the regen health on top of taking a good few seconds to actually smack an object with the punch, you could be at critical health if you do this.

Now this leads to my final big issue and that is the enemy roster, they range from tolerable to terrible. The basic infantry and chaingunners are fine since they can be taken out with concentrated gunfire but the snipers and especially the Biomechs are awful. The Biomechs are some of the worst enemies I have faced in a game like this, they can fly and home in on you, have a powerful area of effect of effect ground slam attack, can grab you, shoot you with various attacks and can bring you to critical health and due to the regen health, most of the time is spent running away from them. The kicker to all this? You often don't get a powerful weapon to thin out the Biomechs until you kill one out of 3.

Some improvements I could make to the game is have a Lost Planet style health system where enemies drop health upon death and you can regen if at critical, spawn more ammo and objects to kill enemies with and give the player the ability to hold a pistol, a rifle and a power weapon like a grenade or rocket launcher.

Overall, I wanted to enjoy this game but instead all it does is give me some casual enjoyment and then I get pissed off and annoyed. I really do wish this game got remade.