The first game to really implement the grappling hook mechanic, despite some earlier titles playing around with the idea a bit. It's held back by the difficulty which, like with Ghosts 'n Goblins seems to have been primarily designed as a coin muncher first.
Los dos primeros minutos están bien porque son "EL GAAANCHO", ya luego te das cuenta de que el juego es malo con ganas y bastante feo.
In the Communication Room you can choose "Wire Tapping" or Comunicate" but it is writen in a way that made me think it said "Comuniwire: " with the option to call either your friend Cate or your other friend called Tapping who is always pissed off for some reason.
They had a cool Idea with the Grapple Mechanic and it is executed well enough. Also has amazing music. The game is kinda difficult so I could never beat the final stages
They had a cool Idea with the Grapple Mechanic and it is executed well enough. Also has amazing music. The game is kinda difficult so I could never beat the final stages
CAPCATHON, GAME 2: Bionic Commando (Arcade, 1987)
Despite wanting to finish the game as quickly as possible, I overall felt Bionic Commando was a platformer with much potential, that unfortunately didn't do much with its great mechanics.
Presentation-wise, the game has aged pretty well. The sprites of main character Super Joe, every enemy, and every climbable platform (except some of the ones in the early part of the third stage) are colorful and very well readable, and the music is decently catchy, if a tad repetitive. I also greatly appreciated the little level transitions.
Control-wise, the game fumbles a bit: Bionic Commando's central mechanic is Super Joe's bionic arm, that extends like a grappling hook and allows him to swing off of ceilings, climb them, or to knock enemies away. It initially feels a bit stiff to control, but after a few minutes you mostly get accustomed to it.
This game's real problem is the excessively vertical level design: it's really easy to plummet down one of the many bottomless pits spread about the game after undershooting a bionic swing or after being hit by a stray bullet or coming in contact with an enemy (of course, Super Joe gets tons of knockback when he's hurt by anything). It doesn't help that only one hit spells death for the poor soldier, who will be hurt again and again in pursuit of everlasting peace.
The ending was also a real bummer: after an exciting race against the clock as Super Joe climbs a vertical structure, you are met with the leader of your opponents, but all it takes is a couple of shots to defeat him... cue ending scroll.
Other games in the series would do this gameplay style more justice, but it's a shame that this one came out half-baked.
Despite wanting to finish the game as quickly as possible, I overall felt Bionic Commando was a platformer with much potential, that unfortunately didn't do much with its great mechanics.
Presentation-wise, the game has aged pretty well. The sprites of main character Super Joe, every enemy, and every climbable platform (except some of the ones in the early part of the third stage) are colorful and very well readable, and the music is decently catchy, if a tad repetitive. I also greatly appreciated the little level transitions.
Control-wise, the game fumbles a bit: Bionic Commando's central mechanic is Super Joe's bionic arm, that extends like a grappling hook and allows him to swing off of ceilings, climb them, or to knock enemies away. It initially feels a bit stiff to control, but after a few minutes you mostly get accustomed to it.
This game's real problem is the excessively vertical level design: it's really easy to plummet down one of the many bottomless pits spread about the game after undershooting a bionic swing or after being hit by a stray bullet or coming in contact with an enemy (of course, Super Joe gets tons of knockback when he's hurt by anything). It doesn't help that only one hit spells death for the poor soldier, who will be hurt again and again in pursuit of everlasting peace.
The ending was also a real bummer: after an exciting race against the clock as Super Joe climbs a vertical structure, you are met with the leader of your opponents, but all it takes is a couple of shots to defeat him... cue ending scroll.
Other games in the series would do this gameplay style more justice, but it's a shame that this one came out half-baked.
[Capcom Arcade Stadium]
I didn’t get on with this one. The graphics and sound weren’t appealing and I couldn’t help but think that a jump button would have solved all my frustrations using the grapple hook for everything.
I didn’t get on with this one. The graphics and sound weren’t appealing and I couldn’t help but think that a jump button would have solved all my frustrations using the grapple hook for everything.
Wanted to rewrite this because I felt like I could have done this better. So the game itself kind of feels like someone play Ghost n Goblins and went "What if we made it all about verticality?" and thus has a pretty unique feature with the bionic arm thingy. It may sound all cool but sadly the game is just not fun at all and I mean it's really not fun. The movement just feels so stilted and nothing about the shooting enemies feels satisfying. It also just feels like the enemies can have huge advantages over you. It's pretty short so you won't be spending too long with it but it's still not worth spending money. There is a NES/Famicom version but it's not the same game but I'll give it a look sometime. Also IDK if MAME is just bad but my god the audio is awful.
I feel most of these 'ratings' are for things like the NES version of Bionic Commando. The original Arcade Bionic Commando is absolutely no fun at all. The only reason this gets 1.5 instead of 1 is that the music is pretty darn fun. That I can give it.
Got bored halfway. Stopped playing.
Imagine you protagonice a shitty arcade game yet you somehow are still popular enough to get brought back as a gritty 2009 remake and then they make your bionic arm your wife
You ever have that moment where you can't think of an intro for a review, so you decide to just reuse an intro you used from a previous one? Yeah, that.
Over the many years that they have been a company, Capcom has created many franchises, with them still making entries for a good number of them to this very day. However, there have been plenty of franchises they have made that they let slowly die over the years with a major lack of releases, such as Dino Crisis, Dead Rising, and Strider. And out of all of their dead franchises, Bionic Commando is certainly one that existed at one point.
When it comes to the original Bionic Commando made for the arcades, I can say that I didn't really like my time with it. I can see what it is trying to do, and it does have some value to it when it comes to experimentation, but it didn't win me over with how it was executed.
The story is pretty standard for an 80s action setting like this, the graphics are pretty good for the arcade, the music isn't too noteworthy, but it can be a good listen, the control is somewhat hard to get a grasp of, but you can get the hang of it after a bit, and the gameplay is pretty standard for a 2D shooter, but the gimmicks that it utilizes are unique for the time, but not really what I would prefer.
Like I mentioned, it is your standard arcade 2D side-scrolling shooter, where you move from left to right, shooting enemies, getting items to upgrade your arsenal, and defeat bosses. All of this works as you would expect, and despite the fact that the game is pretty damn hard, it is to be expected because it is an arcade game. The main problem that I have with the game, and the one that makes me not like it that much, is the main gimmick: the bionic arm.
You can't jump in this game. Instead, you use your arm to pull yourself up onto platforms, as well as swinging yourself onto other platforms that you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise. Now, on paper, this is actually a pretty cool idea, giving you a different way of maneuvering around levels that other games at the time wouldn't do. In execution, however, it is extremely awkward and frustrating. The hit detection on most surfaces is clear to where you can grapple onto them easily, but a good number of times, it won't properly detect your arm, or it will throw you not far enough when swinging. With those limitations presented, coupled again with the amount of enemies you deal with and the difficulty, it is more frustrating then anything. Thankfully, the game is really short, so you don't have to deal with it for that long.
Overall, while I do appreciate what it is trying to do, it just does not work with me, and without too much else to make it stand out, it doesn't seem like it would be worth your time. I just hope that future games in the series executes this idea better.
Game #91
Over the many years that they have been a company, Capcom has created many franchises, with them still making entries for a good number of them to this very day. However, there have been plenty of franchises they have made that they let slowly die over the years with a major lack of releases, such as Dino Crisis, Dead Rising, and Strider. And out of all of their dead franchises, Bionic Commando is certainly one that existed at one point.
When it comes to the original Bionic Commando made for the arcades, I can say that I didn't really like my time with it. I can see what it is trying to do, and it does have some value to it when it comes to experimentation, but it didn't win me over with how it was executed.
The story is pretty standard for an 80s action setting like this, the graphics are pretty good for the arcade, the music isn't too noteworthy, but it can be a good listen, the control is somewhat hard to get a grasp of, but you can get the hang of it after a bit, and the gameplay is pretty standard for a 2D shooter, but the gimmicks that it utilizes are unique for the time, but not really what I would prefer.
Like I mentioned, it is your standard arcade 2D side-scrolling shooter, where you move from left to right, shooting enemies, getting items to upgrade your arsenal, and defeat bosses. All of this works as you would expect, and despite the fact that the game is pretty damn hard, it is to be expected because it is an arcade game. The main problem that I have with the game, and the one that makes me not like it that much, is the main gimmick: the bionic arm.
You can't jump in this game. Instead, you use your arm to pull yourself up onto platforms, as well as swinging yourself onto other platforms that you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise. Now, on paper, this is actually a pretty cool idea, giving you a different way of maneuvering around levels that other games at the time wouldn't do. In execution, however, it is extremely awkward and frustrating. The hit detection on most surfaces is clear to where you can grapple onto them easily, but a good number of times, it won't properly detect your arm, or it will throw you not far enough when swinging. With those limitations presented, coupled again with the amount of enemies you deal with and the difficulty, it is more frustrating then anything. Thankfully, the game is really short, so you don't have to deal with it for that long.
Overall, while I do appreciate what it is trying to do, it just does not work with me, and without too much else to make it stand out, it doesn't seem like it would be worth your time. I just hope that future games in the series executes this idea better.
Game #91
Weird in very fun and frustrating ways.
A very bland 2D action game that needed to be re-designed for the nes ports. This game is extremely forgettable and not very fun to kill enenemies and advance through the stages. Stick to the nes game.
Capcom Classics Collection Revisits #12
Want to know how to tell when I'm getting burnt out on these? It's when I go down my list of titles to play and the arcade version of Bionic Commando is next, then I just sit on it for like two weeks, because "fuck I gotta play Bionic Commando next? goddammit".
I respect this for doing something new and giving us a unique way to move about the stage, but I just never really liked using the grappling hook and there's tons of times where shit just plows into you when you probably could've avoided it if Rad Spencer had any leg muscles to spare to leave the ground on his own volition. By stage three you're probably gonna be constantly dying, because this is unfortunately an arcade game that cares more about pinching the pennies from your pockets rather than giving you a good experience. This is probably the first game I'm playing for this where I legitimately just don't like the game, like Trojan and Street Fighter 1 are far worse objectively, but those games I can laugh at, Bionic Commando Arcade is just irritating.
It sucks that my review can basically be summed up as "play the NES version instead", but seriously just play the NES game instead. I can already tell you from the few minutes I spent trying it out quick that it feels a metric crapton better to play than this. Hell, this doesn't even have an exploding Hitler head. Seriously, why bother?
Want to know how to tell when I'm getting burnt out on these? It's when I go down my list of titles to play and the arcade version of Bionic Commando is next, then I just sit on it for like two weeks, because "fuck I gotta play Bionic Commando next? goddammit".
I respect this for doing something new and giving us a unique way to move about the stage, but I just never really liked using the grappling hook and there's tons of times where shit just plows into you when you probably could've avoided it if Rad Spencer had any leg muscles to spare to leave the ground on his own volition. By stage three you're probably gonna be constantly dying, because this is unfortunately an arcade game that cares more about pinching the pennies from your pockets rather than giving you a good experience. This is probably the first game I'm playing for this where I legitimately just don't like the game, like Trojan and Street Fighter 1 are far worse objectively, but those games I can laugh at, Bionic Commando Arcade is just irritating.
It sucks that my review can basically be summed up as "play the NES version instead", but seriously just play the NES game instead. I can already tell you from the few minutes I spent trying it out quick that it feels a metric crapton better to play than this. Hell, this doesn't even have an exploding Hitler head. Seriously, why bother?