Retro Game Review: Bionic Commando

Bionic Commando hit the arcades in 1987, followed a year later by an NES adaptation.  I only played the arcade version a few times, but I loved it.  Or at least I thought I did.  When the NES version came out, I enjoyed it a lot, but I also found myself wishing it was closer to the arcade version.

While I did get to play a (really bad) adaptation of the arcade version on the Commodore 64, the arcade game didn't get remade a lot.  So aside from a few quarters I spent in the 80s, I haven't really gotten to play the arcade version until now.  Bionic Commando is now featured in the recently released "Capcom Arcade Stadium".  

This collection is pretty cool, but it only has a few standout games I'd play again today.  The problem is that the best games in the collection were previously released either in the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection or the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle.  So of the three packs that make up Capcom Arcade Stadium, I only purchased the first one, which contains Capcom's earliest offerings.   

I was excited to finally get a chance to play the original Bionic Commando again.  I've always considered it one of my top 10 classic arcade games, and I was excited to finally see what some of the later levels were like.

I was wrong.  It sucks.  For starters, it's impossibly difficult.  It is designed to be a quarter muncher.  There are dangers heading towards you in every direction, and sometimes there's just no way to avoid them.  In fact, the easiest way to get past certain areas is to die, so that when your next life parachutes in from the top of the screen, you land farther up than you were before.  

Secondly, it's short.  If you have unlimited quarters (as you do in this retro collection), you can beat it in 15 minutes.  It only has five levels, and they aren't very long.  I always assumed it was longer, but that's because the difficulty stretched out the play time.

Finally, the controls just aren't as tight as I remembered.  While the NES version did a great job of getting the most out of your bionic arm, the arcade version feels primitive by comparison.  The biggest annoyance is that once you're in the air, you can't use your arm again until you land.  This eliminates the Tarzan-like strategy you used in the later versions, where you could swing repeatedly to get past a long area of dangerous terrain.

So at this point, I would like to apologize to the NES version of Bionic Commando, which was clearly the superior version.  I've spent too many years wondering why they didn't just make a direct arcade conversion, and now I know.  

The arcade version of Bionic Commando started with a wonderful idea.  The bionic arm was truly innovative at the time, and it's a pity they didn't do more with it.  I'm just glad that Capcom's NES team was able to see the potential and turn it into a truly wonderful game.