Pushing skill to the forefront is not inherently bad, and is usually preferable to a game that babies you at every turn, but that lack of hand holding is the cause of untold aggravation here. If you're a pixel off in your aim, you miss your target and suffer for your failings. It sounds easy enough, but in practice it's a chaotic mess. As in previous games in the series, you shoot out your grappling hook either straight ahead, directly above you, or at a 45-degree angle, and you need to use those three trajectories to latch onto objects and enemies along the way. Grappling is rife with just as many problems as jumping, and its failures are even more egregious given that Bionic Commando is built around this idea. Unfortunately, lousy controls permeate every aspect of this disappointing game. This is true in navigating through levels, as well as in boss fights, and the fact that your jump is unresponsive and underpowered means you're frequently aggravated by its many shortcomings. Finally, though it's possible to complete the entire game without jumping even one time, the quickest and most obvious way through each level requires you to leap. You may think a robotic enemy that only comes up to your knee could be hurdled with ease, but no such luck here. Just as troubling, your jump height is embarrassingly low. Because of this, you often find yourself walking straight into a pit, and that frustrating occurrence is a quick way to sap your excitement. First, there's a slight delay between when you push the button and when you take off. But jumping has a widespread effect on this game with largely negative results. You do become airborne shortly after pushing the button, and it's handy in a pinch when you need to cross a nasty pit and grappling isn't an option. On the surface, it seems as fine a jump as you would find in any other platformer. It's impossible to ignore the impact jumping has had on this once proud franchise. Now Playing: Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 Video Review
BIONIC COMMANDO REARMED 2 XBOX SERIES
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 fails to capture the magic the series has dutifully wielded before now.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's It's only when you take down an oversized boss or happen upon a secret area that the dormant feeling of elation returns. When you try to propel yourself above a spike-lined floor and die for the seventh straight time, it makes you wonder what you ever saw in this franchise to begin with. Controls that were once novel are now unforgivingly clumsy, and haphazard level design ensures your frequent deaths come at the hand of unseen dangers lurking offscreen. Now that Bionic Commando's precious distinction no longer fits, the delicate fabric holding this game together has been torn to shreds. He has a mechanical grappling hook in place of his right arm, and his swinging ways are what separated him from his peers.
But Bionic Commando's most noteworthy characteristic was that its protagonist, Rad Spencer, couldn't jump. After all, there's no genre where vertical locomotion is more appropriate than in a 2D platformer, and more diverse movement options could lead to fresher level design. It seems like such an innocuous inclusion. At the bottom of the crumbling tower that was once the mighty Bionic Commando, a culprit for the collapse was found: the jump button.