By John Walker on July 25th, 2008 at 2:15 pm.
I’m rather looking forward to Bionic Commando. Both of them. There’s the super-fly new-fangled 3D Bionic Commando, still awaiting a release date. And there’s Bionic Commando Rearmed – a remake/sequel for the classic NES game – due this summer.
Both developed by Swedish developers, GRIN, optimism is based purely on the bits and pieces I’ve seen of both games so far, rather than their rather weak ports of GRAW and GRAW 2 to PC. But there’s more reason to feel positive in the video below, where the Rearmed team explain how dedicated they are to the original look and feel, and the beginnings of some of the new ideas they’ve brought to the 2D series.
I also rather love the poll currently on the front page of the Bionic Commando site, asking:
“What average review score do you think Bionic Commando Rearmed will have a month after release?”
Which has an option to pick:
0% – I’ve played better matches of tic-tac-toe than this shovelware
4% of the miserable buggers voting picked it!
Florensia? Video Fail?
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So it seems.
Unless Bionic Commando is meant to be populated by anime-esque children twatting what look like Chess pieces with magical swords.
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Uh GRAW 1 and 2 for the PC wernt exactly ports, rather they were redesigned for the PC in areas, while keeping to the same story and setting. Surprising difference between GRAW on 360 to PC. Sure there are similarities, but hardly a simple port between versions (for all its worth Grin did do a good job).
Oh Bionic Commando? Both illiterrations look fun.
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Actual video
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Ahem. Apologies for the technical difficulties.
Correct video in place now.
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I’ve been playing this and it’s spot on. It works in much the same way as Trials 2: classic gameplay with decent graphics. As far as I can tell the level design is exactly the same as the 80s version too.
Definitely worth picking up if it comes on Steam.
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I can’t wait for either of these games, I still play the NES classic every now and then. Rearmed is going to be awesome over Xbox Live –that’s right I said it; I want to play it with decent controls, not the convoluted and arbitrary keyboard.
Also I hope they leave some of the original dialogue intact – I want the base to ‘EXPLOD’ at the end, rather than explode.
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GRAW on the pc was not a port. And I’m currently about halfway through playing on hard difficulty.
The only ‘weak’ aspect is a somewhat dodgy friendly AI. If you babysit them on the tactical map they do well enough. In every other respect the game is a blast.
Warning – don’t get it from Steam – it’s buggy as hell. I had to redownload it from Direct2Drive and it works great. Honestly this has been happening a lot lately and I’m starting to get sick of Valve and Steam.
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Yeah, I was about to mention that the GRAW games were definetely not ports, but actually original games with similar storylines but were made to be more PC-centric. Compared to say, the recent Rainbow Six Vegas and Splinter Cell games, GRAW is probably the only Tom Clancy game the Ubisoft released in the past few years that wasn’t a weak port.
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Man, it makes me want to play the original NES version. I do wonder why Capcom never made an sequel back in the 80′s.
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The GRAW games for PC were horrendously hard (and highly inconsistent in difficulty), and the lack of a quicksave killed the game for me. It was just too frustrating to have a tank aiming straight at me, and only at me, through the delapidated walls of a devastated building, forcing me to replay a section where you have to kill about 40 soldiers before the tank even arrives. I kept felting like i was a worhtless human being.
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Stop talking about bloody GRAW! :P
Bionic Commando article, people! More opinions!
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Not until John takes back the ‘weak port’ comment.
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This is looking quite good! I never played the original, but I like these guys, they seem to be genuinely excited about the game, and that’s always encouraging to see in games developers.
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You can’t just tart a couple of guys up with a polo neck and a tea cosy and expect them to be able to present. Listening to these two chaps was painful.
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@rob: I personally prefer a presentation given by people who actually put serious work into the game, not some random media icon, or self-aggrandizing turd. If those people happen to be awkward in front of a camera, so be it, as long as the content they present is interesting.
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not enough good old platformers around thesedays, this looks top bananna ;) cant wait to see it on the streets.
loved the original game, so this should be a nice hawk back to years gone by i hope.
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Does the new version have the old ones glorious military calypso music?
Military & Calypso; only geniuses put those two styles together.
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The only thing that irks me is the redux of the bosses. I liked some of the bosses that were all gun.
Still though, this is going to be awesome.
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