Bionic Commando Multiplayer Impression
I don’t quite understand why Capcom decided to release a multiplayer demo for Bionic Commando, all I’d heard or seen of the game’s competitive aspects were a pair of short videos months ago on Gametrailers. That said it didn’t look like the worst multiplayer I’ve seen, so when I saw tuesday night that a the multiplayer demo was being released I was at least a little anxious to get my hands on it. Oddly the first thing that really struck me about the game was the super awesome menu screen, it’s something I never really think of but when confronted with the minimalist, yet entirely functional radial style menu in Bionic Commando I was actually wowed a bit. Of course it seems that Swedes know a thing or two about sexy menus, Riddick by Starbreeze also sported an awesome menu screen as well.
Moving onto the actual game, you’re simply dropped into a matchmaking game and given five minutes to zip about killing everyone you can. A bit surprisingly the game functions really well as a straight up deathmatch game, the depth doesn’t really come from the obtuse weapon selection or perfectly refined balance, but what it does do very well is movement. The grapple arm and your use of it more than anything determines whether you will live to fight or die quickly. The grapple arm is also what will put a lot of people off initially, it’s you’re only really quick way of getting around and it’s not something that clicked with me right away, but as I gained a bit more experience with it and was doing a full lap around the map, spotting a poor sap on the ground releasing my grapple and and doing a dive bomb directly on them it was supremely satisfying. Unfortunately the demo gives you one option on learning these mechanics, trial by fire, and their are a lot of mechanics, you could miss easily had no one told you. I didn’t realize I was able to use my grapple arm to pick up the weapons on the map from a distance until I accidentally did it a few matches in, or that you can grapple other players and zip straight to them and give them a swift kick off the map. It’s moments like those that set the game apart from an Unreal Tournament where much of your success hinges on your proficiency with the multitude of guns provided.
Unfortunately the map in the demo is a night map, so it’s really hard to get a good read on how the game actually looks. Also the art direction seems inconsistent with single player game based off of screenshots and videos I’ve watched. Where the single player game has a somewhat muted looking pallet, with lots of earthy tones and vibrant greens the multiplayer characters are like hopped up space ravers in bright glowing primary colored suits that allow them to be picked out across the huge maps. Of course the multiplayer also likely has a lot of the games graphical bells and whistles turned off in order to keep latency down, as all games do.
I’m not exactly sold on the game as a whole, but if nothing else this does seem like a pretty great straight up deathmatch game, something consoles lack, sticking to more team based shooter affairs, and if the single player is designed heavily around the grapple arm, easily the best thing the game has going for it (duh?) then I have a lot of hope for a great single player as well.
