Bionic
Commando: Elite Forces
Release Date: 2000
Review written 12/8/2005
System: Game Boy Color Only
Developed by Nintendo
Software Technology
Published by Nintendo (with
liscence from Capcom)
Bionic Commando: Elite Forces is a fantastic remake of one
of the great classic platformer serieses. The original Bionic
Commando, for the arcade and now available on PS2 and Xbox in the
Capcom arcade collection, is supposedly not as good but I have not
played it. Bionic Commando on the NES, though, was a great game
and is one of the great NES classics. Bionic Commando for the
original Game Boy was similarly fantastic, and improved on the NES
title in many ways (Note that those three games are each completely
different games, despite all sharing the same title). This game
brings back that series, which had gone without a game in eight years
(since the GB version's release in 1992), with a game developed by
Nintendo's then-new American division, made up to a large extent of
Digipen (game design college part funded by Nintendo) graduates.
It is faithful to the series, and anyone who liked the NES or GB Bionic
Commando games will love this one.
The Bionic Commando serieses most unique feature is the
bionic arm. Other games have tried to emulate this, but none have quite
matched the briliant simplicity of the arm as seen in these
games. In Bionic Commando, you cannot jump. Yet, it is a
platforming game with a heavy focus on the platforming, as opposed to
the enemies, who often feel somewhat incidental to the point of the
game. The key to the game, and the series, is the bionic
arm. It works like an extending swing, so you can attach to any
celing or box or platform-bottom and swing. As you get better,
you can swing endlessly on the celings, letting yourself go and then
reattaching in front of you, swinging forward. The game throws
trickier and trickier jumping puzzles at you too as you progress, so
you have to work your way between tiny swing platforms suspended over
nothing or swing along the underside of a plane, just a fall away from
certain doom. It can be hard at first, but as you get better at
the game all but the hardest jumps will become mostly routine -- though
that is not to say that they become less fun. The bionic arm
swinging is the best part of the game, and the kind of stuff you can do
with it is great -- where else have you swung between lampposts or
dealt with a bottomless pit that suddenly stretches into the horizon by
simply swinging across the celing?
How much you like Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, like the
Bionic Commando games before it, is entirely decided by how much you
like the bionic arm. I loved it, and have replayed the game again
and again over the years mainly because of how fun the bionic arm
is. It's a unique gameplay concept and one that does not appear
with such purity of purpose in other titles -- one common complaint
about Bionic Commando is "Why can't you jump over little boxes or tiny
pits?" My response is, "Because that would ruin the entire point
of Bionic Commando!" The game exists because of the bionic
arm. Bionic Commando with jumping would not be Bionic Commando,
for it would not make you use the one thing that makes this game
noticably different from the others. Jumping has no place in this
game. Gameplay gets a 10 out of 10.
Bionic Commando: Elite Forces has sixteen levels along the main
path in each game. Two of those levels are exclusive to each of
the two characters (a male and a female commando, who are otherwise
essentially identical except for looks). There are two additional
bonus levels that are a bit harder to find (and change the colors of
your costume when you beat them, a nice bonus), and top-down stages
accessed by running into trucks on the overworld map. The topdown
stages are short and easy (though you can die) and mainly exist as your
main way of getting extra lives, but for that purpose they are very
useful. Each time you beat a normal level you will usually get
some kind of item, like another weapon, or a special item, or armor to
protect you from hits, or a keycard that lets you access further
levels. Generally though, you will want to take with you your
best weapon, the health pills (they refill your health when used --
absolutely invaluable), the correctly colored card, and the best armor
you've got so far. There is one level that forces you to take an
item other than the health pills, making that one a bit harder, but
it's not too bad. The game goes by quickly -- the first time I
played the game, during vacation in 2000, I beat it in two days (and
then played it again and beat it again within the week) -- but perhaps
that is as much because of how much fun it is as because of its length,
as Game Boy games are often short. In addition, I've found that
the game is highly replayable, as I've played through it at least five
times. The single player game gets a 9/10 (10/10 in my opinion,
but I must do something to show that some people don't like the bionic
arm game mechanic, so there it is...).
There is no multiplayer in this game.
Bionic Commando: Elite Forces has good graphics for a Game
Boy Color game. Because of the small screen there are a few times
when you have to throw yourself forward into the unknown, but they are
rare, and you can look up and down for the cases when it is that way
that you think you must go. Bottomless pits are often marked with
skull images, making it clearer 'do not fall here'. The character
art is great. The game has very colorful still cinema scenes that
use a trick of the GBC in order to show many colors on screen.
The ingame graphics are also pretty impressive, though, and the
animation especially is fantastic. The swinging animation is very
smooth and it is clear that a lot of time went into the
animation. Very good. Graphics get a 9/10.
The music and sound just improve the presentation of the
game. The sound is simple, but has voices -- when you select
items before entering a level a voice says the name of the item, enemy
bosses scream out when you defeat them, etc. It's low quality,
but you can only expect so much from a Game Boy Color... The music,
though, I loved. It is true that there are a limited number of
music tracks in the game, but even so, I thought that all of them were
great. I've often found myself watching the introduction every
time I launch the game in a large part because of how much I like the
music.
Sound and music gets 9/10, one point off for the average sound effects
(though if they were seperated I'd give music a 10 and sound an 8). Overall, this game is
fantastic, and I consider it the second best game on the Game Boy Color
after The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. A true gem. Buy
it if you see it.
Plusses
+Amazingly fun
+Endlessly replayable
+Two exclusive levels for each
character
+The bionic arm is awesome!
Minusses
-Somewhat short
-Once you get good the game's
difficulty drops
-The Bug
-Some people dislike the
bionic arm game mechanic
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics:
9/10
Sound: 9/10
Singleplayer:
9/10
Multiplayer:
N/A
Final Score: 97% (not an average).
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