NES #33 - Bionic Commando

Okay so I could've wrote about this game a week ago, but I've sick. Whenever I get sick my writing starts to get really dark. Yesterday I was planning out a blog post about how you never get back what you had as a kid, but you will spend your whole life trying. I was going to talk about how that's the reason I play so many old video games. So you can see how my mind goes when I'm not feeling well. For the record I'm not that interested in reliving my childhood, and I'm actually quite happy these days. I'm probably still a little too ill to be blogging, but I get really bored when I miss work. At least this gives me something do to.

So earlier I was talking about how I'm not trying to recapture my childhood by playing old games, but if I was I couldn't think of many better games to do that with than Bionic Commando. For years I said it was my favorite game ever made. While I no longer know if that's true I still think it's just as fun as when I played it all those years ago. The only thing that has changed is my appreciation for other games.

In many ways I think Bionic Commando is the perfect action platform games on NES. I think the only rivals are Mega Man 2 and Mario 3. It has so many things going for it. I mean, look at what it has going for it. First of all there's the unique gameplay. You can't jump, but you got this long arm that you have to swing around with. All the precision swinging makes this a game like no other. Then there's the compelling storyline. This was right after game developers started to see the potential for expanded stories in games, and they use it to great effect here. This game also has the most bloody and adult ending that I had seen in a game up to that point. It also has some RPG elements which greatly enhances the experience. How good can a game be with no towns to visit and no levels to gain? I don't even want to think about it. It's even got a world map which always knocks a game up a couple of places on my list.

Am I gushing a little bit? Well I really love this game. I've beat it many times over the years. Although I have an interesting story, or at least a not completely boring story, about this time through. This was actually going to be one of the first games I played when I started this blog. I knew that I could get through it easily. It was always my plan b in case another game was taking longer than expected. Well I tried playing through this one during just about every RPG I've covered on this list and never could beat it. I discovered that somehow I sucked at Bionic Commando. But this was my game! I couldn't possibly be so bad! I was missing every jump, getting hit by every soldier, and running out of lives fast. What was going on? I had remembered this game having very fluid motion. You were able to swing around like Tarzan. How did it get so sluggish? I thought that maybe it was a Tetris scenario where I had played so many newer versions that the old NES one seemed rough by comparison. The problem with that theory is that I've never really played any of the other versions of Bionic Commando. It was about that time that I realized that my controller was broken.

So all this time I've been playing these games with a broken controller. Or at the very least an unresponsive one that needs a good cleaning. I don't really know that much about the technical side of gaming. Anyway, I got out one of my other controllers and beat this game easily. I finally learned how to get continues and realized that there's still a lot I don't know about this game. I didn't know that you could use your energy recovery pills over and over again. I thought that was a one shot deal. Also, I still don't know how to get the machine gun. Not that I need it much when I've got a rocket launcher. Still, I'd like to know. I think it's great that I've spent more time playing this game than just about any other platformer and I still don't know everything about it. Some games just have staying power.

So did I mention how much I love this game? I guess there's not much more for me to say. I can't say that it's the greatest game of all time anymore, but it certainly is one of the best sequels anyway. The developers took the game Commando and expanded it beyond anyone's wildest dreams. I would like to close by saying that I hope people are impressed out there that I had been playing through all these NES games with a broken controller. But since I'm a guy who spends his free time playing twenty year old games and writing about them ten years after all the other bloggers out there I doubt you will be. Well there I go getting dark again. That's why I get for blogging when I'm sick.