Bionic Commando Rearmed

Let me tell you about the man I met when I was young...

Bionic Commando was a pretty awesome NES game. The arcade game? Not so much, really. But the NES is a classic. At least I think so. So did the guys at Grin since they remade it. Now I know this game has been out for a while and Grin doesn't even exist anymore, but I only just recently played it, so.

Let's start off with this: As remakes go, this is a damn good one. The levels are almost identical to those in the NES, with some exceptions, namely some hidden areas you can find. The music is great, too, but as near as I can tell no "real" new music has been added, it's all remixes from the NES game. The dialogue even pays homage to the original by being intentionally campy and using a number of references (like where a private corrects the sergeant when he says "explod").

There are a few changes here and there, though, some good, some bad.

The best of them are undoubtedly the bosses and the weapons. The bosses in the first Bionic Commando were a joke. They're vastly improved in Rearmed, though I do wonder why the guy with the shield got cut out. There's no more destroying the core BS, you just fight the boss at the end of the stage, and I'm okay with that.

As for the weapons, they're completely different from the first game, and given how every weapon in the first game sucked except the rocket launcher, that's a good thing. You've got:

The revolver, your starting gun that's basically the same as the original.

The plasma rifle, which is the same as the revolver except supposedly it works better on mechs (I haven't noticed a difference) and it goes through some shields some soldiers have.

The shotgun, which is a very nice close range weapon.

The vector gun, which is a nifty weapon that shoots bouncing lasers.

The bazooka, which..... Ergh... It kinda sucks. It's really powerful, but you can hurt yourself with it. And if an enemy shoots your rocket, it goes boom. It's too dangerous to use for the most part.

And Joe's machine gun, which unlike in the NES game is so brokenly overpowered it makes everything else obsolete.

All of the weapons can be upgraded, too, plus you can throw grenades after finishing the first level.

You don't collect bullets to increase your health anymore. Instead you just have a lifebar from the start. You also start each level with 3 lives, but if you've got more they carry over.

Enemy troops now take multiple hits. Dunno if you'd consider that a good or bad thing, but it's something that just is.

Another thing that just is, is that the enemy layout of some levels has been changed, and many of the enemies have been replaced by robots. The guys throwing spiked balls in area 6? Robots now. The guys on jetpacks in area 5? Robots. No doubt this was changed around because of the whole energy-weapons-are-better-on-robots thing, but I kinda miss area 3's giant spiders and man-eating plants (replaced with bear traps).

There's a hacking minigame at the comm stations, which.... sucks, really. And neutral zones have been replaced by allied zones, meaning now you can shoot in them and nobody will try to kill you.

The bad? Well the underground tunnels and the final level are different; they're a lot more intense in the platforming. The last level in particular is brutal.

The Leader is neither called Hitler nor Master D, he's just referred to as "The Leader" (though he does have the Hitler mustache and shout Nein! when you hit him. It's kinda funny). Maybe they still didn't want to officially call him Hitler, but I would have preferred they at least call him Master D than The Leader. I'm sure it's supposed to be a play on "The Furher", but I prefer the way "Master D" sounds.

And you get to fight him this time, an actual boss fight. It's... not a bad fight, but I kinda liked how in the NES version it was an everything or nothing deal: you made a leap of faith and either managed to shoot him or you're dead.

Hitler's head still explodes, once in real time, once as a still image, but despite the (obviously) superior artwork, it doesn't strike me as good as the original, where his head exploded in several panels. Despite the 8-bit pixelart, it was just more fun to watch.

As a final note, Bionic Commando Rearmed was made to promote the "New" 3D Bionic Commando game. That game tanked hard, but Rearmed was so successful that Capcom's now working on Rearmed 2. That'll be sweet :D