It’s an unusual combination to find in the development of a game. Both skill sets would be served by Viklund’s own personal attachment to Bionic Commando, a love shared by others on the Grin/Capcom team behind the game. Conversations with Ben Judd — Capcom’s producer for both BCR and next year’s 3D version of Bionic Commando — and others close to the project revealed an attention to detail that bordered on obsession.

“At the time I think we just loved what we were doing,” Judd said. “We were all fans of Bionic Commando. Some of us have incredibly fond memories when we played it as kids. We didn't want to be lazy. We didn't want to be cheap. We wanted to give this title our best.”

Last week, Viklund and I had an in-depth discussion of the music. The talk was less about the mechanics of assembling it — he’s a classically trained musician and adept at several instruments, I’m not — but more the inspiration and memories behind it. The soundtrack is available for download both at iTunes and sumthingdigital.com (where listeners can also buy the original 8-bit soundtrack, and compare the two). More than just great music, it’s the guts of a legitimate remake, of something that honors a classic more than imitates it. And a look inside the minds of those who knew they were toying with nostalgia — including their own — for a beloved title, and felt a strong commitment to doing this the right way.

Judd remembers being in Sweden when Viklund was scoring the introductory music — that first screen, with the awe-inspiring “Let me tell you about the man I knew when I was still young,” and then the unmistakable tones of the Bionic Commando anthem soaring in over that. “Simon was trying to sync up the exact moment that the intro music comes thumping in, so that it worked well with the text,” Judd said. “It's that sort of planning that is what makes Bionic Commando: Rearmed so great. Not only did Simon mix together a great new version of the intro music but he timed every beat so that the text and the music would blend together for maximum impact.”

“Judging by Simon's face he put a lot of personal time into the project and well beyond the call of duty to make it the great game it became,” Judd said. “It really shows that everyone attached to the product loved the base material and wanted to make damn sure we paid it the proper respect it deserved.”

That’s awesome. [laughing]

I was running to it, on the treadmill. It cycled through to the theme, and I had that vision of Nathan "Radd" Spencer, running into the distance as I was poking along in my 10 minute mile on the treadmill. So, you have formal music training?

I played the violin when I was a little kid, and I am a classically trained pianist. Other than that, well, I taught myself to play the bass and the guitar, and I’ve done [remixing] electronic music on the computer since high school.

But you’ve studied music theory.

Yes, but not with the aim to become a composer.

You have called this game “a love letter to the entire side-scrolling genre and its fans.” Before we talk about the music in-depth, I’m curious how you came to feel that way about this project. Did you set out at the beginning to write this love letter, or was this a feeling that developed in you as moved forward with the project.

I think I knew from the beginning that this would be a project that would consume a lot of my time, that I would pour my heart into it. The original game is one of my favorites from the NES era. When I got the chance to become the creative director, I was like, “OK, we’re going to do this right, from the beginning.” Initially it wasn’t Grin that was supposed to do the remake. Although, or maybe because we were doing the sequel, Capcom were looking at other studios to do the sequels. It was more like a marketing tool, I guess. But it turned into something more, when it was decided that Grin and I were supposed to do the creative direction.

So you had a great affection for this game before coming on to direct it. How did you get that job?

I was asked, and I thought they were joking at first, because it was such an honor to be working with such great source material. Of course I was working with Capcom already as the lead sound designer on the 3D sequel. But to actually, hands-on decide where to take a game and make all the calls in design, that was awesome.

So it sounds like this was envisioned as something to build buzz for the commercial project due out in the coming year. But it also sounds like you went into this project to make a game that was far more than just advertising material, though.

Yeah, any remake, as long as it is faithful enough, it would have been a fun game in its own right anyway. But I don’t think there would have been as many features added into it without our ambition.

You mentioned you played this on 8-bit NES.

Actually throughout growing up, I’d bring this out on my old NES from time to time and play it.

So you knew the game front and back.

Oh yeah.

You knew the music, more to the point — you could hum it or recite it to yourself before you were brought into this project,

Oh yes, definitely. It’s something that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
Sure, I think that’s why people are reacting the way they are to Bionic Commando. There is such a culture of nostalgia for video game music, and it presents a double-edged sword, because it’s already something that’s provoked a great emotional reaction in the people who played it. At the same time, you’re trying to update it, bring it into the future and make it relevant to times that are 20 years into the future with instruments that are 20 years into the future. Was it more an advantage to have the themes created ahead of time, or was it a disadvantage to be working with music that people had already cared about, deeply, for 20 years?

I’d say it was absolutely an advantage. The fear was there as well, because you’re messing with people’s nostalgia. Some people, I’ve read, hate BCR because they think it’s redone in the way they don’t think it should be redone. Most people seem to like it, which I’m happy to hear. But I could never have written that music. I’m not taking credit for all the raving reviews that the game gets, because we’re basing it off of something that has been done before. A lot of why people like the game and the music is because of the nostalgic factor. And that has nothing to do with me. I was eight years old, nine years old when the game came out. I can’t take credit for that. But it did help a lot.

So maybe you couldn’t have written these melodies, exactly, but could you have composed a soundtrack from scratch?

I suppose, but it would have taken a lot more time, with the melodies and the harmonies. I just took the source material and added my own flavor to it. That made it a lot easier.

Talking to Ben Judd, Capcom’s producer for this project, he said he wasn’t sold on techno or electronica as the theme or genre for the soundtrack. But he let you have creative space on it. His concern was that techno wouldn’t serve people’s memory of what the game was. How did you arrive at your decision to do the game’s soundtrack in that style, and how did you justify it as honoring the memory of the original Bionic Commando.

Listening to the original Bionic Commando soundtrack for the NES, you can interpret it in two basic ways: Either it’s just ... beep sounds, computer generated music of that age. Bringing that to the future would mean making electronic music, but how it sounds today. So, that was music the NES could make in 1988, and now we’re making it the way it can be made today, with the compressors and distortions, and you can add your own loops, and the way we make it today. Or, you could interpret the original music and try to emulate it with something else. And with the military theme of Bionic Commando, you can then make that into, real sounding, orchestrated military music. It can be more cinematic. And that’s how we interpreted the music for the 3D sequel, it’s a larger game, and it has these larger views and you have these huge outdoors areas, and it fits with a game that has these huge cinematic cut scenes. That’s the game where we would interpret the music as more orchestrated. For BCR, which has these bright colors, and a cartoonish look to it, I thought it would fit with something more dance, disco, techno music, for the visual style.

What was the first piece of music you worked with?

I started working on the Area 1 music. But I was so tired of that song, because I had written several interpretations of it for the 3D sequel. Before we went into full production, Capcom wanted to see a prototype, and for the prototype, I was planning to have the Area 1 music. But I realized I needed something new. I realized I needed to sink my teeth into another one of those tracks and interpret something else, just to get my inspiration flowing again. So I started with area 1 but I finished Area 5.

And that would be “Heat Wave.”

Yes, and then I went back and finished area 1, and I forget what the third one was ... I was so tired of Area 1. but when I got my inspiration back, it went pretty well, although the drum snares I had in the beginning, which are iconic in a way, they’re gone now. There’s a completely different melody going on at the beginning of Area 1, and then as soon as the drums kick in, you’re like “Ah, here’s the melody,” now it’s in there. So you get the two-stage rocket, when you arrive in the area for the first time, when you parachute in and you have all these graphics to take in, and then you leave some space in the music because you don’t recognize it until 20 seconds in, and that’s when the recognizable theme kicks in. So I thought people could get the graphics first and then the music kicks in.

Which theme posed the most creative challenge to you?

That would be “Power Plant.” (Area 8). That was one of those songs, I had the schedule that said this song is supposed to be written by this month, this song supposed to be written after that. And I was closing in on the time when I would have to have written the music for the Area 8 theme. And I wasn’t looking forward to it. I had no idea how to make a take on that one. I had The Crystal Method [a U.S. electronica duo] — for anyone who likes BCR, they should check them out — I did the Crystal Method take on Area 1 and 5, but for Area 8, I listened to the original NES track and realized I had to do something else. I was not looking forward to sinking my teeth into that.

Listening to the original, it looked like they were going for a blaring horn, almost like a siren, kind of opening to that. You came in, slowed down the pace a little ... it was an interesting redo, as opposed to a literal translation ...

When I listened to the original song, what I’m hearing is folk music, like Eastern European folk music, maybe accordions and stuff, some kind of a polka melody. The melodies are so awkward ... But I made a trip to the U.S. at the end of the summer, August 2007 to supervise the recordings of some voice acting, and I was standing in a Virgin Megastore, and they had some CD on display there, and it was this French group, disco- and funk-inspired house and techno. This duo called Justice. I listened to it and I was blown away. It was so cool. Usually, I’m more of a break beats guy, rather than a [emulates heavy “Zoolander” house beat] style, which I see as a modern take on polka, because it’s just 1-2-1-2, nothing happens really. I’ve seen that as uninteresting, maybe unfunky in a way. But now I thought this is something I can use, that kind of a groove for this take on the area 8 music. When I came back to Sweden, I had listened to the Justice CD a lot, and I used that inspiration to make “Power Plant.” After that I did the Area 12 song, which has the same kind of a vibe to it.

Did you see your job here more as honoring the original, or perfecting it?

In this project, we asked ourselves if the creators of the original NES title were making the game today with today’s technology, what would they do? Of course we realized that would be cooperative modes, and the ability to grab and throw around barrels, that’s how we came up with those ideas, and that’s how I approached the music as well. In the original, they had maybe three or four channels of sound. I have unlimited channels as of now, so, what about adding some melodies, and adding some layers of stuff, but not changing things around too much? But if you listen close enough, you’ll hear where I have missed some details, unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. It hasn’t changed a lot, but it’s more layers, of pads, and drums, and stuff.

Bionic Commando is notable — you even parody this in the trailer — for the fact your character can’t jump. It’s the feature that, by denying it, makes the game what it is. What is the musical equivalent of jumping?

Great question. For the longest time, it would have been guitars. There are guitars in the soundtrack, if you go into the secret tunnels — on the soundtrack it’s “Killt’s Hidden Treasures” — so I guess I sold out. [Laughs] Some people, the ones who don’t like techno, they wanted me to interpret the originals with rock guitars. If I was making interpretations of the Mega Man music, that’s guitars. But for BCR, either it’s symphonic military, or it’s techno, because it’s military and science-fiction themed. For the longest time I thought I wasn’t gonna do guitars in this game.

But it’s in there, subtly.

And also in a part of the game which not everyone will find. You don’t need to find these secret tunnels to complete the game.

Yeah, you buried it, literally.

[Laughing] True.

Which track did you work on the most? The track where you knew what you were doing, but you were working on it as a perfectionist.

“Heat Wave.” It was the first track that I finished, but it was also the one I came back to as I was working on the other songs. It was the last song I was fiddling with in the project. It was good enough to be released, as it was in the prototype, back in August 2007, but I kept coming back to that song and updating the mix, and the harmonies, up to the end of the project in the summer of 2008. The perfectionist in me kept coming back to that song and adding stuff, partly because I found new ways of mixing the songs and I had all these tricks that I was using that I discovered when I was doing the songs. So I kept coming back to Area 5 to update it, so that it would match the other songs.
If you could take a crack at any classic soundtrack —

I’d have to say Mega Man 2.

Nice choice, what theme is it you would want to remake in there?

I know all the bosses and their melodies by heart, but ... Flashman? I don’t know, it’s a tough choice. They’re really good melodies. But if I could choose just one song from any game, that would be the moon stage from Duck Tales.

Didn’t the same guy write both Bionic Commando and Duck Tales? [Note: This could not be verified.]

Actually, that was a girl. Her name was Gondamin. it was her handle, most of the creators back in the day had these secret names. They told me because the companies didn‘t want other companies to steal their talents. The gaming industry was so small back then. The good people were so hard to come by. They still are today.

This is also to say that on Thursday I spoke for about an hour with Grin's Simon Viklund, Rearmed's creative director and the composer of its soundtrack. You should see something in-depth about that conversation in the coming week.

The second video is on the jump. Also, I've been meaning to ask this — when you enter a birthday at the stupid age verification prompt which one to you put in? If it lets me, I always do the date of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. More importantly, why the hell do you have to put it in for this game? You're not seeing any of the content that got it an M rating. (Kudos to Grin and Capcom, btw, for sticking with an M-rated game instead of stripping out or watering down its finale. It hasn't hurt sales.)

Bionic Commando Rearmed: Classic Gameplay Comparison [Gametrailers, via BionicCommando.com

While I have to admit, throwing out a number like 100,000 seemed pretty overzealous after seeing how hard digital titles are to sell, I still hoped we could reach that lofty goal. Boy, did I miss the mark.

7 days — over 130,000 units.

Holy fiddlesticks!

That may not seem impressive compared to package titles that sell in the millions but compared to other digital titles that is a friggin JUGGERNAUT!

...Consumers voted with their dollars. They basically have sent the message loud and clear:

We are tired of meta-emulated crap.
We want the titles of yesteryear to be paid the proper respect.
We want them done right.
And if the price is right, we'll buy.

That's a nice message, you know. Hopefully other developers are, you know, listening.

BC Weekly Field Report: #12 [Bionic Commando]

So. Considering this is a remake of a twenty year-old game, is it worth all this fuss? Worth your time? Your money?

LOVED

Faithful – This is your father’s Bionic Commando. You’re still swinging between platforms in a 2D world, you’re still playing through a bad 80's action movie (which is good), there still aren’t many games that can really nail the joy you get from stringing together a series of perfect hook-shots to traverse a tricky sequence of ledges.

Spit & Polish - While it plays like your father’s Bionic Commando, it doesn’t look like it. The locations and designs will appear familiar to fans of the series, what won’t be familiar is how great the game looks with ragdoll characters, hand-drawn backgrounds and a warm haze that makes the whole thing look like it’s been dipped in sweet, delicious caramel.

Love – This is no cheap update, knocked out for the sake of a quick buck. There’s love in this project, a genuine drive to update both the feel of the game and the spirit. From the delightful banter between Spencer and Haley to the intercepted chats between the bumbling imperial troops, we’re presented with a game that not only captures the mechanics of a simpler time, but also the - pardon the misty-eyed reminiscing - innocence.

Bang For Buck – For your $10/$15, you get the core Bionic Commando game. Which is no slouch, especially on Hard. Then consider it’s a gorgeous game with a classy soundtrack. Then consider it’s got both co-op and deathmatch multiplayer (though these are offline-only). Then consider that, unlike the original, Rearmed has over 50 “challenge rooms” that play out like Portal/speed run puzzles, and you’ll realise that you’re getting a lot of game for your money.

HATED
Faithful – Nostalgia’s great, but when you’re recreating a game from 1988, we can do without the shitty parts. Anyone who hasn’t played the original will wonder why a super soldier, capable of superhuman feats, can’t...jump. Not even to get over a small barrel. And anyone who has played the original will wonder why the swinging collision mechanics are still so woeful, leading to many frustrating and unnecessary deaths during the game’s trickier platforming sections.

Digital Controls – We reviewed the game on the 360 (though we have also played it on PS3). And by God, Street Fighter aside there’s never been a game to make you hate the console’s awful d-pad as much as this one. You will die, and die often, because the mashy pad sends your arm in a direction you don’t want it to go. If you own both consoles, you’ll want the PS3 one, just for this (that and the PS3 version's a tiny bit slicker).

You really should go get this. Get it because it's a polished, challenging experience, which is one of the best downloadable titles (at least on console) we've yet seen. Get it because it takes the soul of a classic game, yanks it out of the grave and puts it in a sexy new body. Get it because Capcom deserve to be rewarded for not just re-releasing a classic, but releasing it in a way that, twenty years on, once again makes it relevant.

Bionic Commando Rearmed was developed by GRIN & Capcom, and published by Capcom. Released on August 13 on Xbox Live Arcade, August 14 on PlayStation Network & PC. Priced at 800 Microsoft Points/USD$10 on console, USD$15 on PC. Reviewed on Xbox 360. Played to completion of main storyline.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

We still have a fucking ace up our sleeve. It's an ace, a fucking ace... At TGS (Tokyo Game Show), the Capcom booth stage is going to make people's balls pucker up. It's going to be big.

When questioned further, Judd would not reveal what this ace was. Wonder what Capcom still has left to announce for Bionic Commando...

Thanks Jon for the iPhone pic!

Is Capcom satisified with the early reviews for Bionic Commano Rearmed? [Capcom]

I can give you a song and dance about PC digital content being more expensive as a general rule... but nobody wants to hear that crap. I can say this: for the PC version we are planning on uploading some additional PC-only challenge rooms via a free patch so you will get more bang for your buck.

There you have it. More buck, yes, but also more bang.

BC Weekly Field Report: #10 [Capcom]

Also hitting at the wee hours of August 13 is the NES remake, Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Similarly priced at 800 MSP, the game features four-man multiplayer, an M rating and zero exploding Hitler brains.

It has nothing to do with Piracy concerns. It has to do with different business terms/expectations in that sector and more importantly, generally prevailing pricing of PC digital games versus their console counterparts.

The typical downloadable price for digital-only games on PC is actually $19.99.

Not the answer you were expecting, then, but it's the answer you're going to get.

Capcom: Piracy Not a Factor in Higher PC Price for Bionic Commando Rearmed, $14.99 Is 'Appropriate' [Shacknews]

Bionic Commando Rearmed Release Date: Confirmed for Next Week! [Capcom]

Bionic Commando Rearmed available for download in N. America on Aug. 13/14 [Capcom] [Pic]

Each week after this will feature a new huge title. Next week sees the release of Jonathan Blow's innovative platformer Braid, followed by Bionic Commando: Rearmed (explaining the delay), and the reinvented classic Galaga Legions. Wrapping things up will be the August 27th release of the long-awaited Castle Crashers, from the creators of Alien Hominid. That's right, a game we've been waiting years for is coming out after a game announced two weeks ago. Such is the magic of summer! Sound impressive? Wait, there's more!

During the Summer of Arcade event, anyone who plays even a trial version of these new titles is automatically entered to win one of five weekly 4,000 MS point prizes, as well as a grand prize of 100,000 points, and Xbox 360 Elite console, and a 12 month Gold subscription. Two second prize winners will walk away with 10,000 points and the Gold sub.

Definitely an interesting promotion, with some excellent games attached. It's been a relatively lackluster summer so far for Xbox Live Arcade, with the Puzzle Quest expansion being the only thing I've purchased in the past few months. Looks like they'll be making up for lost points over the next five weeks. Good for them!

Announcing the Summer of Arcade and Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 releases this week [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

Hit the jump for a pic.

バイオニックコマンドーマスター D 復活計画 [Xbox.com via Dtoid] [Pic]

Just to be clear, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is an update of the classic side-scroller, coming to XBLA, PSN and PC later this year. There's also a 3D third-person shooter coming to the 360 and PS3 this year.

Bionic Commando Rearmed — Sing Along Japanese Trailer [Gametrailers]

プレイステーション3、Xbox 360版ともに配信日は未定 [Famitsu Thanks, Josef!] [Pic]

I know that once something hits the net it can be pirated very easily but I hope you can see the amount of time and money we have put forth to make this a reality. Just so that you don't see us as the evil corporation that is rolling in money and sticking it to the end-user, let me break down some costs:

We are charging 99 cents per song of which we usually make about 60% or so. That's 60 cents. Additionally there are server management fees, the internal staff hours it took to get the contract up and running, and of course a license fee to create the initial contract. All in all, it probably costs us around 10K just to get the product up and running. We would need to sell 15,000 songs to break even and when it comes to game soundtracks that just isn't a number that you can easily hit.

Odds are we will take a loss.

But still, I believe in the music. I believe in making it available to the fans. And I believe that you can't always look at the bottom line (although my boss disagrees).

Hates the money, loves the fans. That's nice.

BCR Music [Bionic Commando Thanks, Daniel!]

This is MA-1. Sir, we know you've been waiting to get your hands on the finished Bionic Commando Rearmed, but it appears we've run into a few problems in the closing stages. I regret to inform you that we have received confirmation that the game won't be making its scheduled May release.

This is always the hardest part of any battle, sir. All we can tell you is that the game is done and is more awesome than pure liquid awesome sir! Our troops right now are in the trenches, battling with bugs and submission procedures. Fatigue is starting to set in but they won't give up until that game is on the shelves!

What's that, sir? There are no shelves, it's a downloadable title? You sure told me, sir. What a world we live in!

Pretty sure this is the best delay message in recent memory.

Game Delay [Bionic Commando via Gay Gamer]

The vast majority of Japanese devs have an arcade background, and if an arcade game is going to be a hit, it needs to work, it needs to be tight and snap. If you put in a coin in a buggy game that locks up or freaks out, you'll complain to the arcade manager, who will then complain to his boss, who will then complain to his boss, who will complain to that game's publisher. Shit's gotta work. While the arcade scene is very much alive in Japan, it's not in the States, and most developers are coming in with a strong PC gaming background. If shit's broken, patch, patch, patch! "Japanese games have very few collision problems — hands, arms going through walls, etc," says Capcom producer and former localization head Ben Judd. "When western gamers see in-game collision issues, they don't care as long as they're having a good time. That's just not acceptable for the Japanese." Things like A.I. and programming is where Western devs really shine, while Japan picks up the slack on things like textures.

Other things that separate Western and Japanese games, points out Judd, include such seemingly small things like "Japanese player typically don't like controlling two thumbsticks are once — they get sick" and "Japanese players like a strong tutorial." Japanese players, says Judd, prefer that characters are skewed slightly younger and have more anime-style qualities, while Western gamers favor 30 year-old bald men. "RPGs are popular," says Judd. "Players don't typically like the first person point of view and want to see their character. It makes it easier for them to support that character." No wonder Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto has found a welcome audience in Japan.

While Japanese games have been localized to varying degrees of success on a consistent basis since the early-to-mid 1980s, Western games, save for the oddity here or there, haven't. This is nothing new, and Capcom has been bringing Western games over to The Land of the Rising Sun for sometime, even working with Blizzard to localized Warcraft III. "But it wasn't until GTA III that the company really saw the potential of Western games," says Judd. Even though a heavily censored GTA III was slapped with a dreaded CERO Z rating (the equivalent of ESRB AO), the game was a hit, fueled by US hyper carry-over as well as controversy in Japan. San Andreas moved something like 500,000 copies! Just as there are Western gamers who salivate at the idea of grinding through Japan-Only RPGs, there are Japanese gamers who cannot wait to tear through BioShock or Halo 3. Thing is, there doesn't seem to be as many of these Japanese gamers...

For Judd and his team, the challenge is selling Bionic Commando, a game developed by Swedes and clearly geared for a Western audience. One reason that game is getting made is because Western journos kept harping on a new Bionic Commando during Capcom press events and interviews! The original game, Top Secret: Hilter no Fukkatsu (Top Secret: The Return of Hitler) wasn't a huge arcade or home hit in Japan, but the NES console port with its endearingly cruddy English localization became a cult hit. "For the Xbox Live Arcade and the PSN Bionic Commando, the question has been how much to push Hitler," says Judd. "People in Japan know Hitler no Fukkatsu more than Top Secret or Bionic Commando." Then again, while releasing a Hilter game for the Famicom was apparently totally fine in the 1980's, it's not in today's world. Instead of releasing a Hilter no Fukkatsu remake on the Japanese PSN and XBLA, Capcom's releasing a re-localized version of the localized Bionic Commando remake. While Judd is fairly confident that Bionic Commando: Rearmed will do will with Western gamers, he's upfront about how it'll do in The Land of the Rising Sun. "Bionic Commando: Rearmed will have a tough time in Japan," says Judd.

"We don't really have a team in place to localize English games," says Capcom's Gearoid Reidy. "We're either outsourcing games we're publishing like GTA or God of War to be localized or trying to tie-up loose ends in-house." Capcom is staffed with a team of native English speakers like Reidy and Judd who are both fluent in English and Capcom and who have extensive experience in localization. What about vice versa? Besides Japanese staffers who are proficient in English, there isn't a dedicated in-house team of Japanese native speakers acting as translators. That's not to say the outsourcing firm does shoddy work, that's not to say that at all. The outsourcing firm has handled most of Capcom's Japan English game releases. "The problem is that there's a delay," points out Reidy. "Since they are outsourced, it takes a bit longer than if we had an in-house team doing English-to-Japanese translation." Judd would like to create a team of Japanese native speakers doing translation work in-house. "It really depends whether these games are successful or not," he says. With Capcom publishing Grand Theft Auto IV in Japan later this year, there's a pretty good chance they will be.

Translating is hard. Translating English to Japanese is harder. "You can't do direct one-to-one translations," says Tokyo-based localizer Matt Alt, who has his own localization company AltJapan. "You often have to capture the spirit of the original text." Programming-wise, changing English text into Japanese text can be tricky. "I've really come to hate the Japanese language," says Judd, who's not only a Capcom producer, but a licensed Japanese language teacher. "There are no breaks between words in Japanese," he explains. All Japanese words are mashed together, making breaking up in-game Bionic Commando text tricky. In English, text can easily broken up by spaces, but Capcom has had to go back and create a special program for breaking up the Japanese in-game text. "We've spent a lot of money on coding the Japanese text alone."

Some games just should not be dubbed. Besides the difficulty of matching up the character's lips, sometimes dubbing just doesn't fit. Take SEGA's localization of Yakuza, for example. That game needed subtitles. American voice actors trying to pass off as yakuza just sounds strange! Bionic Commando will not be dubbed for Japan. "Some titles," says Judd, "the Japanese just don't want the language changed." Shit Japanese Western game dubs become the object of ridicule for the Japanese internet. Who wants to hear cutesy anime voice actors try to act like badasses? Nobody! Bionic Commando will be subtitled in English. Besides, when you're looking at selling 100,000 Bionic Commando copies in Japan (as Capcom is doing) and you're consumers are Japanese gamers with a thing for Western games, what's the point of dubbing, really?

Even if the game is localized correctly, the Japanese market is tough to crack. "Japanese companies don't even know what'll be hits here," says Reidy. "Who saw Nintendogs or Monster Hunter and thought those games would be hits?" Some publishers feel that it's a market that needs pandering to. "Consumers need to know what they're buying," says Judd. So when Crackdown is given anime-style style poster art, it's not exactly a fair description of what's in the box and reeks of 1980's style game promotion. While Western publishers take advantage of things like podcasts and blogs, those really have not caught on in Famitsu-press-release-fed Japan. Bionic Commando has a Japanese blog, but it's updated only once a week. If users have any questions, their identity is censored by Capcom for privacy concerns and only their sterile question appears before developers to answer, creating a very sterile community interaction. Judd explains: "In Japan, we can't do community. It's considered a liability here." There are too many unknowns with community sites. What if an employee says or does something stupid? The lack of direct corporate control is dangerous. "We just waiting for Capcom to drop the hammer on our podcast," says Judd. "Lucky they don't speak English." Lucky, indeed.

But where does Bionic Commando stand regarding Nintendo? There was that internet petition, but it's ground to a halt — everyone's forgotten. Here's what Capcom producer Ben Judd told Kotaku:

Of course I know Bionic Commando's history, and it's relationship to Nintendo platforms. A Wii version is something we are considering. And if we did a Wii version, it would not be a port of the next-gen games or a remake. It would be an original title, but wouldn't use the Wii-mote for one-to-one swinging. I have a pretty creative idea for how to handle the controls.

They say ignorance is bliss, whoever "they" are, and the new batch of multiplayer focused media for Capcom's Bionic Commando Rearmed proves it. To me, anyway, as I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that Rearmed had such a strong multiplayer component, with team deathmatch, free-for-all and more in the features department. Now, I'm experiencing multiplayer knowledge bliss! I suppose I'll have to reeducate myself on the XBLA and PSN remake to see what else I've been missing. Hey! A swinging mechanical arm! Neat!

Bionic Commando Comminucator [Official Site via Videogaming247]

The final date for completing Bionic Commando Rearmed is closing in - we're stabilizing the game and polishing all the details now, and soon this product of almost a year of late nights and hard work will ship to a digital distribution channel near you!

...Within weeks we will see with sad eyes how it leaves to enter the approval process, and I'm sure that just days after things have calmed down here at the office and our schedules say "wait and see", the team and I will already start longing to get back to the backbreaking work we've gotten used to during the project.

[there were a] huge number of user comments that we received, where a majority were suggesting they would pay $15 or even $20 for the game.

It would be nice if they would adapt a policy of determining what the size limit would be based on the concepts submissions they are getting in. With BCR it features 20 different levels, 20 enemies, multiple attacks, next-gen shadows, scripting, 50 challenge stages, lots of sound effects, hi-res art from CJ's best artist, etc, etc. If you put that much in you just need more space if you are shooting for HD quality graphics as well. On the other hand, I don't think a game like Tetris (even if it is HD) would require as must space as say an MGS game due to it's huge amount of voice.

I think standards are good for maintaining consistancy across a brand image. Sony, Nintendo, and MS all have policies concerning naming, icons, and features but still you need to be able to take a case by case approach on occasion if you see a title that you think really needs to bend the rules a bit.

I'm not kidding myself, Street Fighter is a much more endeared brand than Bionic Commando but it's still nice to see MS was willing to adapt their policy in order to support Bionic Commando Rearmed as well as Street Fighter HD Remix. I'm sure this is because they feel these games will solidify XBLA as a prime platform for digital distribution.

Size-wise Sony has the advantage for now but MS has plenty of other advantages. They both have their advantages and disadvantages but isn't that ALWAYS the way it is? Heck, that's half the fun about deciding which system to buy... you know you gain one thing but lose another.

Capcom has a solid relationship with both Sony and Microsoft, as evidenced by the amount of titles we have released for the two systems, both at retail and digitally. Given the huge amount of content going into Bionic Commando Rearmed and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (turns out, hand-drawn art takes up a lot of space at 1080p!), Microsoft has allowed Capcom to work with a larger file size limit for both games.

Full details are available at the Capcom blog, including contest rules, deadlines, sample challenge levels, and which pieces you need to use in order to create your perfect level (as shown in the pic). The contest started yesterday and will end Wednesday, March 12, at 11:59 PM PST. So get doodling!

Contest: Design a Challenge Room for Bionic Commando Rearmed + Get in the Game! [Capcom Community Blog, via IGN]

...the team and I fell in love with the game and ended up putting a lot more time, effort, and money into the project than initially planned. Personally, since the goal is to make this game for the fans and to get the world to see what makes Bionic Commando so special, I want to sell it for about US$10.

However, some of the suits are suggesting that since the game is of such a high quality, has a ton of new modes, and has gotten a fantastic response from users, that we should go with a US$15 price point.

To be quite honest, not everyone internally is sold on the idea of doing a full-blown remake of the original. Some think that we can go the simple "meta-emulation" route, put on a fresh coat of paint, and release the game without any tweaks or new modes. After all, that is the standard right now. Most of these games sell for $10 but aren't anywhere near the quality of BCR.

There is also my biggest concern: I want 2D gaming to live on. Gaming was forged on the innovative gameplay of 2D games, and maybe I'm a bit of a fossil but I want it to continue to evolve over time. Since BCR wasn't cheap, turning a profit won't be easy but without doing so it will be hard to justify this type of a production for future games.

So the question stands:

How much would you sell BCR for? And as always, since you, "the community" is an important part of the puzzle, we want to hear from you.

Sure we knew yesterday that a remake of the original Bionic Commando was heading to the Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, but knowing is one thing and seeing is quite another. This remake hits all of the sweet spots for me, or seems to—gorgeous graphics, slightly tweaked weapons and bosses while still remaining faithful to the core. I can't wait.