Bionic Commando - first look

The action here seems to be fairly standard third-person shooting, but things pick up once Spencer finds some buildings to swing around on. Aside from a handful of surfaces, just about every object in the game can be latched onto with Spencer's bionic arm. The thing is aimed with an onscreen reticule, and once it's been fired and attached to something, Spencer can reel himself in or swing over to something else.

It's got uses beyond just getting around quickly, of course, as we saw when a Capcom rep demonstrated the "zip kick," a move in which Spencer latches onto an enemy and rapidly reels himself in toward their faces, feet-first. It's also useful for picking up and hurling random objects, up to and including cars.

The jungle level is a bit closer to what we'd expect from a Bionic Commando game, flush with bright colors and free of stark reminders of real-world terrorist attacks. It's also big, filled with huge trees to swing around on and apparently open to free exploration, although you'll need to accomplish certain objectives as you make your way through it (although for the record, the only real "objectives" we saw involved gunning down BioReign goons).

The jungle was also where Spencer ran into the first major baddie we've seen him fight - an armored robotic suit called the Biomech. A little larger than Spencer, the Biomech is impervious to small-weapons fire, and trying to zip-kick it from the front will result in Spencer getting punched so hard that he'll fly several dozen feet. You'll have several other options for taking it down, though; zip-kicking it from behind is the most obvious, although you'll also be able to blow it up with special weapons, or just smash it by picking up nearby boulders with the bionic arm and hurling them at it.

Our first look at Bionic Commando was over pretty quickly, but we still saw enough to get excited about what else might lie in store. The visuals are slick, the action is fast and the grappling looks fairly simple and versatile, so again, there's a lot of potential for fun here. There's no firm release date yet, but the version we saw was about 50 percent complete, so a fall or winter appearance seems likely. Whatever the case, it seems nostalgic fans have something to look forward to later this year.

Feb 21, 2008