If only the multiplayer demo of Bionic Commando was bright like this!
A demo of the multiplayer mode for the new Bionic Commando game was released late last week and I spent some time this past weekend checking it out. It seems to have pretty polarizing opinions from players – some enjoy it and others thought it was garbage. I actually tend to fall more towards the latter camp and was unimpressed with the demo. I had low expectations for the multiplayer in the first place but even then I was let down! Check out my impressions to see why for the most part I didn’t enjoy it.
I grew up loving Bionic Commando on the NES. It’s one of my favorite games on the system, so to hear that a 360/PS3 sequel was in the works to the game I was a bit concerned. Would it be any good? Will it just play like Lost Planet but without mechs? How is it going to handle swinging and grappling in a 3D world? Unfortunately, most of these questions I had weren’t answered with the demo since it was only multiplayer, but from what I played in the demo I was disappointed.
Matchmaking
First of all, the matchmaking is terrible. I applaud that Capcom went the matchmaking route for public games with Bionic Commando, but it actually has to work to be effective. Unfortunately for me, it only worked half of the time. Once in a while after I declared I wanted to play, it would fill me right into a room of 8 people immediately and the game would start. But more often than not, I would just sit there, waiting for minutes and nothing would happen.
I’d quit out, and try it again, but still, no luck. It was only after I decided to play something else for a while and come back that I’d get right into a room. And it’s not like no one is playing the demo either – it just came out last week. So for some reason or another, you either sit waiting to join a game but you’re all by yourself, or you join a full room immediately. You don’t see any sort of progress being made about a potential room being filled up or anything.
The Demo Level
My second negative impression from the game was specific to the demo level. It was a terrible choice for a level. The level is ridiculously dark, and you can’t even really make out what the level even looks like. What irks me even more is in the matchmaking screen for the level, it’s a shot of the level but in bright daylight. Why the heck were we not given that option? Who wants to play in such a dark level anyway?
I also felt that the player models were poorly designed. They were like stormtrooper rejects that all had different colors (I managed to get pink more than once -_-) and literally no personality. On top of that, weapons and items were just icons and not even physical 3D models. The whole aesthetic experience was like playing an old school game in a dark 3D world – yes, a bad combination. What the heck? I guess if the game actually used physical 3D models for weapons and such you wouldn’t see them since the level was so dark.
And what’s with it being deathmatch only? If it’s a demo why not pick a mode that isn’t the bare minimum of multiplayer. Who even plays straight up deathmatch these days?
Combat was blah – the starting weapon is ridiculously underpowered, and the other weapons handle too loosely to be enjoyable. I felt that the combat mechanics in Lost Planet were tighter, and I didn’t think Lost Planet’s multiplayer could touch the better multiplayer games on the 360. So yes, my general experience with the multiplayer matchmaking, the mode type, the level itself, the aesthetics, and the combat were not positive. I think for Capcom’s part, it was a mistake to release this demo if they didn’t want to disappoint fans of high quality games, but again, that’s just my own jaded hardcore opinion.
The Grappling Hook
The *only* redeeming and enjoyable part of the demo for me was the grappling hook. Its design was pretty solid and I enjoyed using it to not only swing off structures, but you can pull yourself towards an object so if you get really skilled with it, you can have fun. The targetting reticule lights up when your grappling hook can reach an object, and even grappling onto the side of a building allows you to sometimes jump up high enough to get onto the roof.
I also discovered that you can grapple onto other enemy players. This made the grappling hook even more enjoyable to me, as I was able to grapple onto people, pull myself towards them, and land some damage. In fact, when I had just the starting pistol, I decided to just skip it altogether and get kills by grappling into people from behind and knocking them off buildings and such.
Parting Thoughts
I wasn’t a fan of the multiplayer. Fortunately, I don’t really care much for multiplayer in gaming provided that the single player is awesome. Bionic Commando may very well have a great campaign game and for that reason alone I’ll buy it, but even if I get it, I probably won’t be playing the multiplayer much after this demo’s experience. The grappling hook was the fun part for me but it wasn’t enough to offset all of the other disappointments with the multiplayer demo.
