Bionic Commando Catch All [360, PS3, PC]

My search skills are weak, and I was unable to find the previous thread regarding the new Bionic Commando coming out in the winter. If that thread was considered the catch all, then please lock this one down.

The PR machine on Bionic Commando has been relatively quiet of late. With the game getting ready for release, some new multiplayer videos have surfaced, and the look pretty sweet.

Multiplayer video 1

Multiplayer video 2

More here

The multiplayer gameplay looks like a ton of fun. It looks awesome to be able to swan dive off a skyscraper, swing on a broken street sign up onto another building, and blow someone away with a shotgun.

I have high hopes for this game; let's hope it doesn't disappoint.

The multiplayer demo for this drops today exclusively on the 360.

From the videos I have seen posted on it, this looks like it has the potential to be alot of fun. I'll wait to read a few reviews on it on first, but I am very much leaning towards picking this up.

I've got the demo downloading, I think I may try it while I'm having lunch at home. Mmmmmm ... lunch at home.

Any feedback on the demo yet? I got it on my lunch break, but it took too long to look for a game so I played something else.

Typical, limited multiplayer demo. No ability to invite friends, all random matches and only one small night map near as I can tell. I like the swinging mechanic, but it's doesn't feel super fresh and new compared to existing games like Spider-Man; although I do like that you can be really specific about what you're grappling onto. This isn't a huge knock, but Bionic Commando leans heavily on that particular feature so I would hope there's a lot of dynamic stuff you can do with it. Could be that's just a practice and understanding thing. The weapons don't have a whole lot of punch and you lose health so quickly the benefit of having a shotgun or rocket launcher is a bit muted. I'm going to try it again tonight, but it's not looking like more than a rental so far.

I see myself picking this game up. At the very least, grappling is an awesome and very under-used mechanic in games. My only concern is how difficult the game will be. I've seen three video previews of this game, and every time it's a new representative dying constantly during sections he's bound to have played for months on end. The history of Grin's previous work and the series in general just makes me even more worried.

Certis wrote:

Typical, limited multiplayer demo. No ability to invite friends, all random matches

Aww, don't tell me this. That sucks.

So I randomly ended up in a multiplayer match with Certis just now, and managed come in dead last, right behind him. Fun times!

It's embarrassing how often I died in that game, I gotta figure out how to grapple and then punch a dude.

I'll be downloading this tomorrow, I bought into the hype via the giantbomb crew and now I'm starting to feel iffy.

I had a very tough time getting into a game yesterday and only got to play one full round. Several disconnects and very long wait times but I'm not holding that against the game. I'm looking forward to it and it's in my Gamefly queue.

I've booted the demo up a few times now, and I'm starting to feel comfortable and competent with the swinging mechanic. It sure has got a learning curve, but now I can easily swing myself fast directly forward, and easily hang off a ledge to recover health. The weapons do feel a bit similar, though I wouldn't necesserily say there's no point in getting the shotgun or the RPG; with the shotgun I was able to kill a many players in one shot, and two RPG rounds between two other players would more often than not kill both (moohoohahaha!). I think you just have to get used to using that wide reticle for the guns, where it doesn't matter as much that the opponent is in the direct center of your viewpoint, just generally inside of the reticle parameters.

I would have liked two maps though, to cycle randomly between. Having only this one map gets old pretty fast.

Having played the demo I'm pretty optimistic about the single-player, as using those swinging moves, stomps and grip-kicks is much easier against dim-witted AI characteres than other humans.

Please give me a practice mode. I need one so, so badly.

Yeah, they should have added a practice mode. As it stands, you can't even figure out the controls before the match begins.

But if you try swinging about a bit and ignore the other players, you'll get the hang of it. It took me and my friend only a few matches.

I finally managed to get into a game over the weekend and just about any enthusiasm I had for the game was completely washed out after a handful of matches.

Everything seemed very last-gen to me, right down to players hunting and camping around glowing weapon placements and the super-congested controls. Why in the world do I need two melee attacks (on face buttons next to the jump, no less) when the entire experience is predicated upon a swinging mechanic that makes hand-to-hand combat infrequent, if not outright improbable? Even if you're cool enough to nail a Death From Above on somebody, it seems to knock them out of range for any further kung-foolery.

Even beyond that, there's a general lack of feedback to almost everything, as Certis touched on earlier. The swinging mechanic is awesome when you can nail it, but it certainly doesn't come easy at first and I even managed a couple of spills from blown grapple attempts after I had played a couple of times.

Definitely a rental, at this point, and a complete buzzkill to my renewed optimism coming out of Rearmed.

The demo was disappointing, but I wasn't really excited about this game for multiplayer anyway. I'm afraid I have crossed over from optimist to pessimist on this one. Although, I also found the RE5 demo disappointing and ended up loving the game.

Game Trailers Video Review is Up

It seems the game is getting between 7 and 8 in reviews. Almost unanimously agreed upon by all the reviews I have read is that they nailed the swing mechanic down pat, and it is a blast to use.

I have been playing the mutliplayer demo on the 360 for some time now and love the feeling of swinging through the level to land on someone's head. That alone has sold me on the game.

Given that EB games (in Canada) is giving $36 trade in credit for Fear 2 and $40 for CoD: World and War, I'll be picking up Bionic Commando in the next few days.

Looking forward to nabbing this one today. Game Informer was down
on the combat in their review, but what do they know?

The review in the paper this morning kind of put me off it.

Reviews seem to be pretty mixed. When Edge and Game Informer give a similar score you know there's something that across the board just isn't jiving well.

I picked up BC on the PS3 this morning. I have to admit, I nervously shuffled my debit card a bit in my hand before handing it to the cashier because of how review scores are all over the map. But, I bit the bullet and I'm liking it. It's definitely not AAA material, but it seems to be more than passable to me so far. GRIN seems as if they could use a bit of help in the modeling department- or am I jaded by the likes of RE5 and Dead Space? Using "retro" Nathan Spencer is helping a lot as I wasn't a fan of the dreadded-out version. There's a pretty sizeable learning curve with the swinging mechanic at first, but after you "grapple" with it(pardon the pun), the swinging feels weighty and the gravity seems accurate for the world GRIN is attempting to create. One thing I may look into, though, is those $5 extenders that clip onto the shoulder triggers. L2 is your grapple button and holding it down whilst maneuvering can really work the meaty part of your left palm. I'm interested to see how my thoughts stack up to that of others.

jsslifelike wrote:

I picked up BC on the PS3 this morning. I have to admit, I nervously shuffled my debit card a bit in my hand before handing it to the cashier because of how review scores are all over the map. But, I bit the bullet and I'm liking it. It's definitely not AAA material, but it seems to be more than passable to me so far. GRIN seems as if they could use a bit of help in the modeling department- or am I jaded by the likes of RE5 and Dead Space? Using "retro" Nathan Spencer is helping a lot as I wasn't a fan of the dreadded-out version. There's a pretty sizeable learning curve with the swinging mechanic at first, but after you "grapple" with it(pardon the pun), the swinging feels weighty and the gravity seems accurate for the world GRIN is attempting to create. One thing I may look into, though, is those $5 extenders that clip onto the shoulder triggers. L2 is your grapple button and holding it down whilst maneuvering can really work the meaty part of your left palm. I'm interested to see how my thoughts stack up to that of others.

It sounds like it got better once you got the "hang" of it.

necroyeti wrote:

It sounds like it got better once you got the "hang" of it.

I can't believe I didn't come up with that originally...

necroyeti wrote:
jsslifelike wrote:

I picked up BC on the PS3 this morning. I have to admit, I nervously shuffled my debit card a bit in my hand before handing it to the cashier because of how review scores are all over the map. But, I bit the bullet and I'm liking it. It's definitely not AAA material, but it seems to be more than passable to me so far. GRIN seems as if they could use a bit of help in the modeling department- or am I jaded by the likes of RE5 and Dead Space? Using "retro" Nathan Spencer is helping a lot as I wasn't a fan of the dreadded-out version. There's a pretty sizeable learning curve with the swinging mechanic at first, but after you "grapple" with it(pardon the pun), the swinging feels weighty and the gravity seems accurate for the world GRIN is attempting to create. One thing I may look into, though, is those $5 extenders that clip onto the shoulder triggers. L2 is your grapple button and holding it down whilst maneuvering can really work the meaty part of your left palm. I'm interested to see how my thoughts stack up to that of others.

It sounds like it got better once you got the "hang" of it.

Yeah, once you get the "hang" of it, it "swings" into action and gets a "grip" on you.

I'll get my coat.

The voice actor for Nathan is simply awful. It's not something that takes
away from the sweet, sweet swinging, but the guy's delivery when
communicating with Super Joe or whomever else is just grating.

Dropping a 'nade over groups of enemies as I swing away from their
encroaching gunfire, though? Golden. I only shudder to think of what
evil multiplayer games will hold once good snipers start headshotting
at distance mid-swing.

The voice actor is the lead singer of Faith no more! Oh, Mike Patton you rascal. Stick to the Darkness.

If he was the guy that was doing the voice of the dark power thing in The
Darkness, it all makes sense. I hated him there, too.

The Mohole boss fight was surprisingly satisfying, but something tells me
it won't be as much fun on repeat playings.

HaciendaSquish wrote:

Please give me a practice mode. I need one so, so badly. :(

I don't know where you guys were sleeping, but tehre was a fairly well-publicized glitch in the Bionic Commando demo which allows you to drop out to a private game lobby. You can invite friends and play a private game, and change some of the match settings such as time limit. If you try to change the map it will generally hard lock your xbox though.

All you have to do is have someone invite you OUT of the demo, accept their invite, and then refuse to leave the game when the "are you sure you want to do this?" prompt comes up.

...If you have trouble joining matches in the demo, just back out and try again if it takes longer than 10 seconds. It only should take a couple tries.

My main issue with the demo was that the night map is extraordinarily dark over HDMI on my plasma TV.. I'd like to pick up the full game as soon as I can afford to, though.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

The voice actor is the lead singer of Faith no more! Oh, Mike Patton you rascal. Stick to the Darkness.

And Left 4 Dead! And Portal!

I hate Left 4 Dead. I hate Portal.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

I hate Left 4 Dead. I hate Portal.

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