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Denver, 6:05 AM
Tue Dec 1
64 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/12/09
08/12/09
08/12/09
Bionic Commando is...not a good game. I bought it for $20 new, and I'm convinced I was effectively ripped off. It's a $10 game, if that.
It seems like GRIN implemented gameplay mechanics that were DESIGNED to frustrate, anger, and otherwise antagonize players. For example, every level has several collectible objects the player can go out of their way to pick up as well as challenges they can meet to receive rewards to their weapons and health, but if the player dies, the collectibles/challenges are RESET, making the player go back and get them again if they want a 100% completion rating. This is compounded by the player character being a complete pussy, with hardly any health throughout the majority of the game. How was any of these implementations considered good ideas?
As for swinging, the mechanic works but is also very weird. Your character maintains the same velocity during the scope of each swing, but at the arc on either end, it's like the character hits a wall of air, and slows to a stop in half a second. Then you swing the other way, and stop again. It's like they wanted to provide the player with freedom of movement, but not too much freedom. It also doesn't help that the levels are all essentially long tubes of traversible terrain, which definitely give the impression of an open world to play around in, but that's actually a huge fat lie, isn't it? If you venture too far in any direction off the incredibly linear paths, you're quickly killed by "radiation", which is their convenient excuse as to why the game doesn't feature an open world - the city you're in was hit by a nuke, see.
The story KIND of makes sense along the way but then in typical Capcom fashion they just give up any kind of logical progression at about the 80% mark, zip you all over the fucking place to locations that aren't nearby anywhere you were with no explanation (at one point you're in the city, then in the next stage you're over the ocean, then in the next stage you're in a desert), introduce characters that do important things in two cutscenes and then never show what happens to them, and ends in a non-boss fight/cinematic. The worst of it is that GRIN, an external developer supposedly outside of Capcom's control were clearly not, as the game's story flows almost exactly like any other Capcom game from the last few years - Poorly.
Multiplayer is fun for about 20 minutes, and then you realize it's exactly the same thing over and over and over again, just on different maps. It's a contest as to who can jumpkick the other players the fastest, and who can get to the best weapons the quickest. There's no skill involved.
The best thing about the game is the music, but that certainly isn't worth the full price.
08/12/09
Normally you'd have to pay for that kind of irony.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
i miss the BC Top Secret Podcasts leading up to BC's release, it was alot of fun. and i hope these guys can bounce back in a new form.
RIP GRIN.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
I *really* liked Bionic Commando, too.
I don't mean Rearmed, but I liked that aswell.
08/13/09
08/12/09
i found bionic commando fun but capcom should of advertised it
08/12/09
08/12/09
Rearmed ties with Siren for my best PSN purchase... Though Rearm was actually PSN sized, and Siren wasn't. So Rearmed was the best PSN purchase. Siren loses points BECAUSE it's on PSN and not on Bluray (in the US, anyhow)
Oh, and good luck Outbreak. Hope you can be profitable again.
08/12/09
The group has talent but poor execution. There games have quite a bit of technical merit, but that merit is showcased in the most generic and uninspired ways possible.They have the talent but they lack the vision to wield is effectively.
And seriously, his wife is his arm...wtf?
08/12/09
:p
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08/12/09
duh
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08/12/09
1. go honorably bankrupt trying to make a masterpiece
2. make a masterpiece, succeed, and win
3. give up after one masterpiece achieves the status of failure, ditch masterpiece Plan B, quickly put your measly few hundred thousand dollars in a savings account, buy a fishing boat, drink lots of whisky
it's pretty simple!
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08/12/09
I hate to see people lose jobs, and I hope the best for the multitudes that are caught in the middle of this, but I guess I just can't share the feelings of pity everyone is going to throw out here.
Games are just like any other business. If you can't produce stuff that sells, then you fail. They had two major stinkers with two major IP's in one year. They pissed off a lot of suits that way. Any cash flow problems they have from the publishers probably stems directly from them withdrawing support after seeing how the latest projects turned out.
Purely speculating now, but the whole bit about not paying up is probably aimed at contracts and/or payments that they "expected" to get, but were not guaranteed. You can hardly be too harsh from a business standpoint on publishers that don't want to keep throwing more money after bad.
08/12/09
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08/12/09
*looks at Carnival games, Wii Sport and Okami*
... T______T
08/12/09
:(
p.s is it meant to look like The Jokers grin? I was never sure on that
08/12/09
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08/12/09
Not sure how it is unfair to GRIN at all. They knew they were a hired gun being brought in to execute someone else's franchise.
Edit: I know the money wasn't your main point, but I just felt it warranted a response before someone else jumped on the M$ and Capcom suck bandwagon.
08/12/09
Seems to me, though, that GRIN never got a chance to work on something not someone else's. Have to wonder if they'll do better when they aren't under the thumbs of multiple other companies. Hopefully so!
08/12/09
08/12/09
Lots of studios would love to have that opportunity. I don't know that any could have done better, but nobody can claim that GRIN wasn't given a chance.
06/15/09
Although not bad, the reviews still weren't as good as those of many titles of the past 6-8 months.
Bionic may be decent, but the plot and voice-acting have been universally criticised as dumb and poor respectively... For me, "Mostly-enjoyable" gameplay isn't enough to warrant buying a game full price.
And let's look at the current competition on PS3 and 360: Infamous, Prototype, Ghostbusters. Infamous and Bionic Commando somewhat fulfill the same craving for action, and aside from nostalgia, I don't see what could prompt a PS3 owner to choose Spencer over Cole. Same goes for Prototype.
And if you do take nostalgia into account, proton packs trumps sausage arm. When it comes down to it, for the same price, I can pick either BC or a Ghostbusters bundle from Amazon (here in France) containing the PS3 game and the movie on Blu-Ray. A no-brainer.