Let's play with a couple of swingers. Bionic Commando NES & GB

Bionic Commando (NES) vs. Bionic Commando (GB)



It’s history time!

For those of you who don’t know, the Bionic Commando series began as an arcade game titled simple “Bionic Commando” released in 1987. It was a side scrolling action game that would have been a fairly run-of-the-mill entry in the genre if not for its one unique attribute, there was no jump button. Instead whenever the hero was on the ground, he could shoot out a grappling hook either in front of him, at 45 degree angle, or straight up. When shot straight up, the hero could retract the arm to climb to the attached platform above you. When shot at an angle you could then push forward to swing. The frontal shot could knock some enemies back a little, stunning them temporarily.



The arcade version quickly sank into obscurity for the most part after the NES version was released in 1988. The NES version, like many NES arcade ports of the era, received a number of changes in order to run on the more modest NES hardware. This was the best thing to ever happen to the series.

The NES port featured the same basic two button gameplay, shoot or use the bionic arm. Although in this outing the versatility of the bionic arm was greatly improved. You were no longer limited to only using the arm while standing on the ground. The arm could be shot out whilst in the air, allowing you to chain together swings in the air like he was Spider-Man web slinging his way through New York City. This made for a radically different game, but they went further and added quite a few other things, including a nonlinear world map along with different weapons and support items that could be selected at the start of each stage.

The NES version is the most well known, but four years after its release Capcom remade the game for the Game Boy, and it is in this version that I feel the gameplay finally reached its true potential.

So what is this Let’s Play all about?

I was inspired to do this after constantly hearing about how awesome and near perfect the NES version is, while the superior GB version is usually ignored altogether. What makes it better than awesome? Let’s play and find out!

Prepare for a massive flashback sequence.



198X means that this game takes place 20 years before Mega Man. Unfortunately Mega Man didn’t get his own bionic arm until Mega Man 4. Known as the wire adapter, it could only shoot straight up. Several hundred years later in Mega Man Zero 2, Zero got a weapon called the chain rod, which would have been completely awesome if it hadn’t worked like a like a cheap Chinese Wii knockoff.

Protip: Badds = Nazis
And all those eagles should be swastikas. You gotta love NES era censorship.



I didn't think there were any Scottish Nazi's, and they misspelled "kilt."


This is all a dirty propaganda. There are quite a few Federation soldiers inside the Badds' territory. They're just too busy hang out in the Neutral Zone with Klingons and Romulans to really be much help.



It begins!

That's good!



That's bad...



Ooh! Pretty lasers from the sky!



Why are all these rocks defying gravity and flying toward the sky?



Well I guess that peace from earlier was short lived!

In reality this is a really nice little cinematic where the buildings break away gradually in a few frames of animation before they disappear completely as seen below.





Here we come to the first major change between the versions. Instead of Badds, we get the Doraize Army led by a director with the equally groan worthy name of "Wise Man" .

On the plus side I'm pretty sure that this makes them an evil PMC in a video game before evil PMCs became all the rage.


Of course with this detail one could argue that maybe it is a sequel to the NES game, where another group decided to enact the Albatross project. However the significant differences in the looks of the world and characters would make this idea look really silly.



Shouldn't this make it Duke Wiseman?



Interestingly enough, Bionic Commando Rearmed used the Federal States of America instead of the Federation.

Yup, one picture for a single word sure is wasteful, especially since the sentence isn't finished yet.





According to Wikipedia "FF" stands for "double force." I did not know this as a kid.



An entire group of people sent in on a rescue mission makes a lot more sense than a lone soldier.



Yes, he is named Rad Spencer in this version instead of Ladd Spencer in the NES one. It's Dr. Right and Dr. Light all over again! Capcom might just be one of the worst offenders for inconsistent use of L's and R's in the entire industry.

Now to prove how super hardcore he is, Rad shoots the player through the screen. Again this is a nice little graphical touch as we see the shot grow bigger as the screen goes white, and then fades to...



It begins! (again)

This is my first attempt at a Let's Play, so any advice, comments, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: I did decide that the images were too big and ugly at 480x432, and resized them to 272x240 within Photobucket, but apparently they aren't showing up at the new correct size for me. Grrr....

I'm seeing them at 480x432 as well. Photobucket has told you a terrible lie.

So hey, parallel Bionic Commando LPs? This is something I can get behind! I really like the GB game, but you've got a tough road ahead of you if you want to convince me that it's better than the NES version, mister (aside from the swinging mechanics, that is).

At first I thought this was going to include the GBC Bionic Commando. I never even knew they made a Game Boy BC! I have learned something today...

I'm assuming you're doing this on an emulator so we won't have any shots of the siezure inducing screen blur from the old GB screen. As nostalgic as I am sometimes I don't miss the old days... :-) lol

The GB Bionic Commando is really, really good. You should play it!

THE ORIGINAL IS THE BEST THOUGH

But.... ReArmed.

ORIGINAL

BEST

1. Please turn off your emulator's filtering, because blurry pixels look like ass. Clean pixels also mean you can save as an indexed GIF or PNG, which use much less bandwidth!

2. You know how much these games mean to me, right? If this isn't the best LP ever, there will be.... trouble.

Well... he's using JPG, which is low-bandwidth as it is.

Speaking of which, please don't use JPG. It makes artifacts of sadness.

An indexed GIF from an NES or GB game will always be much, much smaller than JPEG. And also much cleaner.

I also recommend doubling the size of both GB and NES screens (320x288 and 512x448, respectively, and use "Nearest Neighbor" interpolation to keep 'em clean). It's the ideal size and look for both!

I completely agree with your first point, and the filters are always off on the emulators on my PSP that I usually use for retrogaming. I was so focused on getting the pics that I forgot to kill them on my PC. I'll probably update the first few posts with new pics later tonight. I greatly appreciate the advice.

As far as point number two goes, I don't want any trouble with the boss, so I will do my best to make this the best LP ever (or at least my best LP ever.)

Expect the next update with actual gameplay on Tuesday.

Ok, the updated images are all up now. Any comments from the peanut gallery before I start doing gameplay?

From where I'm sitting the new images definitely look better.

Much better! My only other recommendation is to turn off dithering when you convert to indexed color.

Here, too.

I swear my keyboard must be breaking down and failing to register Ctrl+C. I'm pretty sure it is all fixed now. Hopefully I won't screw up tomorrow.