Bionic Commando Rearmed: Drool-Enducing 2D Goodness

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I couldn’t help but be in pure awe after watching the trailer for the upcoming Bionic Commando Rearmed and the high-resolution screenshots that were released today on IGN.

No, Capcom didn’t ditch its plan to make a fully 3D Bionic Commando game, but instead decided to please its old-school fans with this modern 2D side-scroller that will be available on XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Network.

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Just from the trailer alone, it is easy to get excited about the silky-smooth visuals, the fluid swinging animations, and all the gameplay mechanics that we all grew to love in the NES classic.  This new remake will also feature a two-player co-op mode.

The storyline and setting in Rearmed is also a call back to the original according to Ben Judd, producer at Capcom Japan:
“Imperials? Yes. Master D. Ohhh yes. However, now that we don’t have the same memory limitations that the 8-bit game did, we have fleshed out the story quite a bit. Without altering the original story, we have added some new background information that helps tie Bionic Commando Rearmed to its next-gen big brother.” As you can see in our trailer below, the remake also retains some of the more eccentric elements of its forefather – the immortal line “Get the heck out of here you nerd!” is present in all its absurdist glory.”

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Since I’m constantly preaching to the choir about how the classic names in gaming like Sega, Capcom, Nintendo, and Konami need to give some of their classic, and sometimes forgotten, franchises a 2D overhaul, you can understand my excitement to see Bionic Commando Rearmed in action.

Last year, I was especially impressed with the 2D Prince of Persia remake on XBox Live Arcade.  It kept everything that made the original Prince of Persia game remarkable, from its stunning aninmation to its sometimes frustrating acrobatics, while giving its the graphical polish that you would expect from Ubisoft’s modern Prince of Persia games.  Prince of Persia Classic wasn’t a runaway hit, but it was nice to see them make and effort.

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This idea really seems to have sunk in with Capcom.  Between the HD Remix of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and this Rearmed remake, I can see a trend starting to catch on.  The hype has already started to build for this game and I hope other publishers and developers take note.  Sonic the Hedgehog 2 HD, anyone?


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12 Comments

sir jorge says:

The screens look awesome, but if you don’t own these things, you’re stuck on the original, which is good on its own.

SAGExSDX says:

Officially excited!

tankexmortis says:

Damn, no Wiiware? I really need to get a 360 one of these days. Glad they rid of the hideous new Korn-member character design, though.

Is it weird that, for me, all of the 360’s killer apps are on XBLA?

racketboy says:

You’re not the only one….

Ezzen says:

Same here. I own 8 games for 360. 6 are XBLA…

dudex77 says:

Damn I need a 360

Fernando says:

Seems totally possible on Wii.
Capcom developers said :
It will largely depend on what the fans want for the future of Bionic Commando. If the interest is there, of course we want as many people as possible to appreciate this great franchise.
So, Go Nintendo made an online petition for Bionic Commando on the Wii. You can check it out here: http://www.petitiononline.com/0819/petition.html
It´s coming pretty strong, near 10.000 so far…

StarsCream says:

Awwwww, but theres no Mike Patton involed in this one 🙁

I love Capcom they have always had their head screwed on and know how to please their dedicated fan base. I was never familiar with the series on the NES but this definetly has grabbed my interest.

Capcom likely won’t be able to release this on the Wii even if they wanted to. The Wii wouldn’t have the hard drive space the store a game like this hence Capcom have no choice. Express your anger at Nintendo as it is ultimately their fault that all of these PSN and XBLA games aren’t being ported across.

Alex says:

Not a big fan of those photoshop lights, but BC is always BC.

NoMadKnight says:

Wii gets SH*TTED on by companies, Nintendo allows people to be so damn lazy that they dont give a damn what they put on the system so all the other systems get good games. No one wants to play party games all the damn time. The class controller completely goes to waste.

TopazCandy says:

What about the Wii?! Please make this for the Wii!

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