The boss fights themselves are all starkly original, a throwback to true retro ingenuity. Hacking communications reveals hilarious conversations between enemy forces that details the weak spots of that level's boss fight, often referencing the original game, even taking the piss out of Metal Gear Solids extended Codec conversations. Rearmed even acknowledges the counter-intuitiveness of some of its more difficult techniques, with self-deprecating humour peppered throughout the game's tutorial.Ī play of the NES original shows that the dialogue has been completely rewritten, transforming the mood of the game entirely. Vertically, then, plays heavily in almost all aspects of Rearmed, and once your fingers become accustomed to the mechanical nature of your bionic abilities, it really becomes an elaborate and joyful dance of a game.

Such restrictive controls take some getting used to, the horizontal firing itself forcing you to use the bionic arm to move into position before attacking enemies. Another key fires the weapons you unlock as the game goes on, most of which will only fire horizontally. Tapping the grappling hook key reels the hook in, either pulling you up or pulling an object towards you. It's this tool that you use to traverse the game's levels, a chain that shoots out at 45° angles, latches on to any ceiling it can find and allows you to swing from it. That's why Capcom have brushed it up and sent it out - to raise awareness of bionically-armed commandos in the run up to their sequel (simply titled Bionic Commando, and still mostly under wraps).Ī side-scrolling platformer lacking in a jump button, Bionic Commando Rearmed forces you to rethink the genre basics by giving you a grappling hook for an arm.

I can't be alone - although it's touted as a classic, proponents of the original are now lawyers, surgeons and architects who've got more important things to think about. Nostalgia over the original is blasted away by a condensed stream of my own ignorance. I don't, because I hadn't played the original Bionic Commando until I was assigned to this review. Remember when we could have games about war that didn't parade about the place trying to out-reality everyone around them? Those wintr'y eves when we could sit around our Nintendos and, with all the sobriety of a man about to watch a serious documentary about Gulf War ethics, fire up a game about a commando with a bionic arm who swings off things and kicks people in the face with his iron boots?

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