Bionic Commando: Rearmed

All you really need to know: it's a remake of the NES game Bionic Commando, and it's supposed to be awesome. You can download it from XBLA tonight, and PSN or PC tomorrow.

I've been really excited for this. Bionic Commando was one of my favourite action/platformers for the NES, and they've remained incredibly faithful to it while still throwing in enough interesting new features to make it appealing to a next-gen audience.

It recently scored an A from 1UP:

The soundtrack to Bionic Commando: Rearmed is a fantastic piece of work, a deft contemporary reworking of classic 8-bit NES tunes. In fact, it's so good that Capcom put it up for sale on the iTunes Store months ago to build hype for the game. The dozen or so tracks that play throughout this remake exhibit a remarkable degree of fidelity to the source material: The remixes are clever embellishments, transforming three-channel NES wavetable melodies into something wholly appropriate to the glossy 3D visuals they accompany. Yet within these new textures and sounds, the original tunes are preserved perfectly. Rearmed's remixes demonstrate far more creativity than the usual game-music reworkings -- they're not merely old tunes with boring techno tracks overdubbed, or once-great themes reinterpreted with wailing, cheesy, electric butt-rock guitars that would've sounded embarrassingly dated even back when the NES was popular. Rather, Rearmed sports a mesmerizing blend of familiar tunes and swirling European electronica, a mix good enough to enjoy outside the context of the game without a disapproving loved one asking, "Are you listening to videogame music?"

Like its exceptional soundtrack, the NES version of Bionic Commando is basically perfect despite its technological limitations. Which isn't to say it's flawless, exactly -- but rather that the core game mechanics, overall structure, and individual level designs work together so well that the game remains compelling, addictive, and challenging 20 years later. Rather than changing these foundational elements and risking spoiling the chemistry that made the older game an instant classic, Rearmed developer Grin built on them to create something fundamentally consistent, yet capable of meeting the standards of younger gamers who need a bit more flash and "oomph" in their games.

Rearmed adds plenty of interesting new twists; it's a remake in the truest sense, yet it never feels like a slavish adaptation. Elements that were goofy or awkward in the old game are reconsidered or even deleted here. Players are no longer forced to collect continues in order to keep going after running out of lives. The hero, Capt. Nathan "Rad" Spencer, carries all his gear into combat now, so if you bring the wrong communicator or weapon to the firefight, you no longer have to warp out of the level. Enemy placements are revamped to minimize cheap, unfair deaths, but their health and A.I. received upgrades so as to preserve the challenge. Bosses are reinvented or even created out of whole cloth to guarantee an interesting face-off at the end of each level. The good captain even has a few new weapons in his arsenal, with some existing weapons rebalanced to encourage variety; Super Joe's machine gun is no longer a worthless piece of nothing, and the rocket launcher has enough drawbacks that it won't be the player's standard gear after it's acquired in area five.

Yet, even with all of these changes and additions, Rearmed is unquestionably Bionic Commando. It retains the classic level designs, which were brilliantly crafted all those years ago to provide an optimum challenge to a hero with no jump button. The plot remains the same, despite the expanded text and odd little subplots (like Spencer's out-of-left-field lamentations about his ex-wife, which provide the game's only real "Uh, what?" moments). Players still move about a map, alternating between action stages, neutral zones, and top-down enemy encounters.

Most importantly, though, the essence of Bionic Commando is perfectly preserved in Rearmed: the sheer visceral intuitiveness of the swinging mechanics. Granted, old-time fans will need to readjust a bit to the new animation; Spencer moves a bit more slowly than in the past, so while chaining consecutive swings requires different timing than before, it still works in a way that no other game featuring grappling has ever matched. Dozens upon dozens of unlockable VR training rooms offer both a chance to master the game's new feel as well as a higher degree of challenge than the core levels could hope to offer.

Veteran players should also appreciate the thoughtful plot revisionism. Bionic Commando suffers from a long and rocky history of story retcons and ham-handed censorship, and Rearmed manages to reconcile all of these conflicting or contradictory elements in an unexpectedly satisfying fashion. You're not launching a rocket into Hitler's face at the end so hard that his skull explodes into bloody gibs, per se...but fans definitely won't be disappointed with the way the end result plays out.

Game remakes have become their own little cottage industry in recent years; any company in possession of a stable of classic franchises is essentially sitting on free money. Even then, remakes of Rearmed's caliber are uncommon; it ranks up there with Metroid: Zero Mission and Mega Man: Powered Up as the best of the best, the standard by which to judge all others. Given the quality of the core mission, the cooperative multiplayer, the copious hidden content, the expansive optional modes, and the exhaustive in-game database, Rearmed is a game that could easily sell for full retail price and seem like a good deal. That it's on offer for a mere sawbuck (or $15, for you unlucky PC fans) should go down in history as one of gaming's best deals. If you enjoy a well-crafted action game, you'd be remiss in skipping Rearmed -- even if you couldn't care less about NES games.

Anyone else going to get it?

This makes me sad. No Bionic Commando love around here?

I'm playing the game right now and it's fantastic.

Sometimes you get interest, sometimes you don't. Never heard of this NES game initially, so I can't really say anything about it.

Will probably download it anyway.

How much is it? I really liked the original back in the day and if the price is good, I'll probably get it. This looks really good.

On a side note: What I'm really waiting for though is Street Fighter II Turbo HD. *drools*