Sound Off: Bionic Commando Demo Impressions
While we've heard and seen a lot about Bionic Commando's single player content, details on the game's multiplayer mode have been scant. But all of that has changed with the 360 exclusive multiplayer demo, allowing anyone with a Gold account can go online and check it out for themselves. After downloading the demo for myself, I figured I would share my thoughts and ask everyone else their thoughts on Capcom's update to their classic series.
While I was positive (but not sold) on the series reboot coming into it, I left my rounds of multiplayer still on the fence. The demo shows off that the team at GRIN has crafted a very different type of online deathmatch experience, but many of the simplest aspects came up short. My main concerns walking into this demo were focused on swinging. The demo thankfully put my worries at ease very quickly. Without struggling with the controls, I was grappling onto sides of buildings and performing some of the new Commando's simpler acrobatic tricks without any difficulty. This was so much of a natural experience that by the end of the demo I began to wonder if GRIN was planning on including some 3D training rooms similar to BC: Rearmed in the console release. I could easily see myself playing a game that solely revolved around the game's grappling mechanics.
While movement felt just right, combat is a whole other story. While I'm sure there will be people disagreeing with me, I felt that the weapons were terribly unbalanced and the aim assist would assist a little too much. I defiantly enjoyed the variety of weapons that I could pick up, but I was able to kill other players without much effort or attention to aim. When on the receiving end of often single-shot death inducing weapons, it didn't feel as though I could really do anything and it just felt cheap. This cheapness got compounded by the multiple instances in which I died only a few seconds after respawning. Usually this type of thing only occurs in maps that are too cramped, but the when under normal gameplay situations the map's size fit like a glove.
I was really hoping that this demo would push me over the edge and convince me that the game would be worth the $60 price tag, but after my experiences with it I'm not sure I'm ready to make the jump. I had fun swinging around and I'm sure that the title's single player campaign will give me even more opportunities to do so, but without a compelling multiplayer experience I'm not ready to pay a premium price.
Have any of you readers taken some time out to take a bionic test drive? What did you think?
Game-Boy
Posted to Video Games on 1 May 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: 360, bionic commando, capcom, demo, grin, impressions, ps3, sound off, swingers
I completely agree with this article. I thought it was a little chaotic, but that may have been because I was new to the game. It was fun swinging around but the battle system wasn't too impressive. Definitely not worth $60 imo.
I'm more enthusiastic about my experience, though I concur completely with the map feeling small and the unbalanced nature of the weapons. Really, most of the problems I had with the game I attribute to the game being a demo and is thus more of an example of what the game will be like and is not necessarily as polished as the final product will be. Maps can be re-sized, weapons balanced, and various other tiny tweaks can be made without having to revamp pages and pages of coding. For what it is, it's pretty wildly entertaining, and assuming they pay attention to what they're doing with the final product, I think they're going to put out a winner.
Sounds like a PC purchase to me, as mouse/keyboard would take care of all the problems with the controls.
As I read all of those points, I thought to myself "Hey, that's just what I said!"
But for me, I just attributed it to my hatred of PvP skewing my vision of things...and I still expect single player to be awesome!
...at least, that's the hope that drives me to want to buy the game, anyway...
Still wish there was a single player demo =\
I loved the demo , it was unbelievably fun , I was worried about the game having never played the others , I didn't put too much faith in the game . The swinging was so rewarding , it felt like Spider-man in a way with guns . I loved the fact there's no reload button just shoot till there dead lol . I also love the heath system , they have shields but not regenerating health , witch I'm getting kind of tired of in multiplayer . Combat was very fun and the weapons are very fun and powerful.