Welcome to the weekend edition of Capcom Retro Idol ! For your reading enjoyment on this Sunday, we have exedore4970 hailing all the way from Italy, defending Bionic Commando for the Capcom Retro Idol title! You can currently get your bionic (haha) hands on the updated remake, Bionic Commando Rearmed, available on Xbox Live, PSN, and PC.

As always, you can now head over to the official Capcom Retro Idol Experience forum thread to start posting about tomorrow’s game, DuckTales!

From exedore4970, who says “English isn’t my native language, but here it goes!”:

In 1988 Capcom released Bionic Commando for Nintendo Entertainment System. This game wasn’t simply a porting of the original Arcade title, but introduced many huge changes.

Read on for more!

Let me tell you about the person I met when I was young…

  The story is quite simple: the U.S. government found a top-secret document named “Albatross”. This material was originally developed by the long-gone faction “Badds”, and now the Imperial Forces leader, Generalissimo Killt, is planning to complete their original project himself. The U.S. Federation tried to stop his attempt by sending their best soldier, a hero known as “Super Joe” (the main characters in games like Commando, Speed Rumbler and MERCS), but unfortunately they lost any contact with him. The last hope for the U.S. government is now Rad Spencer, a brave soldier sent to rescue Super Joe and complete his mission: this young guy is known as “bionic commando”.

They found some guy who couldn’t even jump.

In Bionic Commando, the main character couldn’t jump: this is very unusual for an action/platform game in 80s. The player must learn to swing through the levels using Spencer’s bionic arm, avoiding spikes and falling into the water. This aspect of the game scared many people that couldn’t get used to the mechanics enough to master the character’s abilities. The people that kept on pushing and continued to play this game realized that Bionic Commando was one of the greatest video game productions in those early years, and THAT passion inspired Capcom to make many remakes and sequels in the years to come (such as Bionic Commando for Gameboy, Bionic Commando Rearmed – and its incoming second chapter – and the next-gen Bionic Commando released last year).

The old-school arcade players should easily appreciate many in-game sections reminding them of the Commando gameplay, where Spencer must defeat enemies just like Super Joe made before.

You’re going to fight against me? You damn fool.

Another great innovation introduced by Bionic Commando was its storyline: the Badds in the story represent Nazis, and their leader, Master-D, was obviously Adolf Hitler. The American version expunged every reference to the Nazis, but players can easily recogneize Hitler in the final game sequences.

A very shocking factor in this game was the presence of a very gory ending sequence, showing Hitler’s head exploding after his defeating. Many people remember the game for this!

The game presented many hilarious dialogues as well, such as the communications between soldiers.

Wich other videogame software produced in the same period can offer you the same?

Go! Go! Bionic!

Even if some people quickly dismiss the game for its difficult mechanics, Bionic Commando represents a wonderful, solid game strongly loved by many players still today. I think that only a game with a great, solid foundation in gameplay could inspire one of the best remakes ever made, Bionic Commando Rearmed, recently released on Playstation Network, Xbox Live and PC. I strongly invite everyone to join the bionic world (if they’ve never tried a Bionic Commando before), to remind them that despite the initial difficulty, this game can offer you some amazing, great fun!

And never forget: once bionic, forever bionic!