Like Gus Van Sant’s famous 1998 remake of Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho, Rearmed reconstructs the original game level by level, scene by scene, shot by shot. The one who’s prettier, but somehow, not as sexy. The result, however, is less like running into that long-lost love on the subway, than running into her sister. It didn’t have to be perfect – it was better than anything we’d seen at the time, and that made it awesome.Īs part of the run-up to the release of a next-gen Bionic Commando installment for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, Swedish developer Grin and Capcom have released Bionic Commando: Rearmed, a lavish, lovingly-crafted re-make of the NES title. Maybe, in all truth, it wasn’t very realistic at all, but back then all we had were shadows on the wall, and when they turned on the lights, we could suddenly swing. Maybe the limitations of the hardware made it all the more exciting that someone figured a way to create movement and physics that felt like really swinging. In Bionic Commando, you swung like you were born to do it, like you were Tarzan with a gun. Pitfall Harry swung like he was made of lead. Pitfall, maybe, but there’s really no comparison. Grapple onto a lamppost to swing across the chasm filled with deadly spikes. Objects were no longer merely set dressing, they were there to be used. You could climb ledges with your bionic arm and use it – gasp – to manipulate the environment.
In Bionic Commando you could run and shoot, but you could also swing. There were worlds still left to discover in the universe of running, shooting and sometimes jumping. That’s what games were like in the 80s and early 90s running, shooting and sometimes jumping.
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