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• Soon. So Soon: Bionic Commando Looks Even Better, Has Worrisome Dialog

  We’ve had quite a year, haven’t we Bionic Commando? Treasured stolen moments last summer, when I first saw you soar in a full three dimensions, climbing to pristinely rendered heights never seen before. A rekindling of our youthful flirtations with Rearmed, a reminder that true love is timeless. You are so close now, Bionic Commando. I can hear your steel hand clanking against some ruined skyscraper like a whisper on the breeze, calling me to your summer embrace. Yes, GRIN’s Bionic Commando sequel is going to be out in just one month, right as 61 Frames Per Second is celebrating its first birthday. In these new clips, you can see just how much its creators have polished the game in the past twelve months. Read More... Posted Apr 14 2009, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, capcom, bionic commando, grin, bionic commando rearmed, radd spencer

• Terminator Salvation: The Videogame More Terminator-y Than Terminator Salvation: The Movie

  I’m in a bit of a pickle here. I do not think I can be trusted to make reasonable judgments of GRIN’s games. They made Bionic Commando: Rearmed. In a few months, they’ll have finished the new Bionic Commando. I can’t be trusted to talk about their games. I owe them too much. I apologize. Then again, I think I can give you a fair impression of GRIN’s Terminator Salvation. I got an early look at their tie-in, a prequel to the upcoming movie of the same name, at the beginning of the month. It doesn’t look like a bad game, not by any means. For a movie tie-in, it actually looks very good. But as a GRIN game, Terminator Salvation is a little disappointing. Read More... Posted Mar 23 2009, 08:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, capcom, bionic commando, grin, bionic commando rearmed, terminator 2, warner bros interactive, john connor, wanted weapons of fate, ghost recon advance warfighter, ulf anderson, terminator salvation

• Dr. Spock vs. The Watchmen vs. Terminator: The New Movie Tie-In

  Nostalgia, as Cole’s post on the ever-ubiquitous Final Fantasy VII so deftly illustrated, is a disease afflicting games criticism. It’s understandable why. The people writing about games today (not to mention the majority of people making them) came of age during videogames’ golden age. It’s no wonder fond memories color their perception of the entire medium. Nostalgia isn’t always a bad thing, especially when it inspires creativity. Just look at Bionic Commando Rearmed. But as Luc Sante says, “Nostalgia can be defined as a state of inarticulate contempt for the present and fear of the future.” Me, I love the future. I’m a ceaseless optimist, fueled by the promise of tomorrow, I am. When I feel the symptoms of nostalgia (itchiness, aquaphobia, uncontrollably defending Battletoads, frothing at the mouth) taking over my brain, I remember movie tie-ins. I think about going to Pompey Video and plunking down four dollars to subject myself to The Rocketeer on NES. I think about buying Die Hard Trilogy as one of my first Playstation games. Then I vomit and, like an exhausted drunk, I feel a little bit better. The movie tie-in is changing though. While you still see trash like Secret Level’s Iron Man game making millions, the big budget retail rush job isn’t the guaranteed success it used to be. Iron Man may have been a hit for Sega and Secret Level (providing the cash flow to finish the giant flop Golden Axe: Beast Rider), but The Incredible Hulk tie-in, released by Sega just a few months later, sold about as well as cans of Coke II. It isn’t just brand strength and high cost that makes tie-ins a greater risk. Read More... Posted Mar 10 2009, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, bionic commando, grin, sega, the dark knight, bionic commando rearmed, warner bros, watchmen, golden axe beast rider, paramount, racketeer, die hard trilogy, the incredible hulk, iron man, superman returns, star trek

• Pole’s Big Adventure: Sega Rides the Retro Train, Takes Advantage of You

  A couple of weeks back, Sega Japan launched a countdown website sporting a peculiarly recognizable icon: a pixilated mushroom. Instead of the spotted red or green associated with the company’s one-time rivals, this mushroom was purple with yellow spots. It was an ugly little blighter and fueled all sorts of speculation as to what would be shown at the end of the countdown. An 8-bit style Sonic & Mario platformer where Robotnik has poisoned all the mushrooms! An 8-bit style game where Alexx Kidd and Mario open a day spa and compete for Birdo, Athena, and Dig Dug’s affections! Okay. Fair enough. I am the only man who thought Sega might be making either of those games. The 8-bit part was spot on though. The game turned out to be Pole’s Big Adventure, an WiiWare original aping early Famicom games in the spirit of Retro Game Challenge. The funky looking mushroom’s a big hint as to what Pole’s Big Adventure is all about, namely messing with preconceived notions based on Super Mario Bros. You don’t break bricks with your fist, you break them by shooting them, and the same goes for getting treats out of question boxes. Go down a pipe, immediately pop back up covered in… goo? The video isn’t clear on what you’re covered in. And when you do find that mushroom out there, it will make you grow until you die. Pretty clever there, Sega. Read More... Posted Jan 23 2009, 02:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, bionic commando, nes, sega, super mario bros, wiiware, bionic commando rearmed, famicom, birdo, Legend of kage 2, pole’s big adventure

• Bionic Commando Rearmed Fan Trailer

  ”Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.” “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” “Your number's up! Monster!!” I think we're all agreed on which famous quote deserves to echo through the generations. Sadly, Rad Spencer will probably never have his chance on the big screen, but at least artistic justice can be served through the Internet. A cool person named OzShadow put together a fan trailer for a Bionic Commando “movie” with footage and sound from Bionic Commando Rearmed. Read More... Posted Jan 05 2009, 04:27 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: capcom, bionic commando, trailer, bionic commando rearmed, fan stuff, nadia oxford, rad spencer, movie

• 10 Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead Of Working: Bionic Commando Rearmed

  Having grown up with two brothers and personally scoring somewhere in the negatives on the official Femininity Chart, you would think that Bionic Commando would have found its way into my Nintendo library somehow. Alas, no. Though I was always aware of Rad Spencer and his important contribution to history (making Hitler's head and secret headquarters EXPLOD), I didn't adopt any fondness for Bionic Commando until I watched my husband do a playthrough. My eyes followed that swaying red-headed soldier like a pendulum. Where do I sign up for the Bionic Harem? (And what did I just say about scoring in the negatives on the official Femininity Chart?) I tried to take control of Rad. When my attempts to make him swing out of the television screen and into my lap failed, I decided I'd at least try to get him through his no-jump adventure. I couldn't get through Area 01. It was an embarassing disaster and Hitler won. I figured Bionic Commando was simply something you had to be born into if you wanted to stand any chance of finishing it. Time went by, stealing a drop of my life with every tick, and there dawned an age (Now) wherein game developers learned the value of nostalgia. Remakes and revamps of old classics, they reasoned, would send twenty- and- thirty-somethings running to Playstation Network and Xbox Marketplace like sows to the trough. Indeed, we sucked it all down, but there's no shame in indulging in a high-quality remake like Bionic Commando Rearmed. Read More... Posted Dec 12 2008, 09:14 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: capcom, bionic commando, 8-bit, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, nadia oxford, top 10

• Klonoa: Careful, Namco. You Tread On My Dreams.

  I’m not a purist. No, really. When it comes to classics being revisited, modernized, or remade, I don’t need every facet of the past perfectly preserved just the way I remember it in order to get a desperate nostalgic thrill. I delight in Mega Man 9 because it’s a great game whose presentation and technological limitations are carefully made design choices, not because it’s a new NES game. I’ll let you in on a secret: I actually like Mega Man 7 and 8. Yeah, that’s right. I think they’re good games. Not as good as their forebears, but all the same. When the new Bionic Commando was announced last year, even before Rearmed was revealed, I didn’t balk at Radd Spencer’s Adam-Duritz-makeover. I think the new look is cool, especially the way his dreads flow behind him like delicate willow branches as he soars through dystopian cityscapes and… oh! Excuse me. What I’m getting at is that not everything from yesterday is sacred. Some things, especially in games, should be changed. Final Fantasy III DS is a good thing. The NES original is just too slow now. Tomb Raider Anniversary preserves a revolutionary game’s best qualities while also making it, you know, playable. In with the new, out with the old may not be an all-encompassing maxim, but it’s more often than not good advice. That said, Namco, if you go through with this, I will hurt you. The Raw Meat Cowboy himself over at GoNintendo received a survey from Namco-Bandai today, the subject of which was their impending Wii remake of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. RMC has smartly inferred that Namco is testing the waters to see if Klonoa should be localized for North America. One of the questions in the survey asks which of these two character designs is preferable. Read More... Posted Oct 30 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, capcom, final fantasy, bionic commando, nes, mega man, tomb raider, klonoa, mega man 9, namco bandai, mega man 7, mega man 8, namco, bionic commando rearmed, final fantasy III, poochie

• Continuing the Old-School Conversation

  Boy, we here at 61FPS sure are thinking with a hive mind today--and it's all due to a lovable, fast-talking British fellow who's already popped up a few times on our blog in the past 24 hours. Needless to say, the reactions of our own bloggers have been intriguing, so I thought I'd continue the old-school conversation with my own post. First of all, retro is undoubtedly back in style--if that isn't contradictory enough for you. I was going to begin this post by going through a list of the most recent retro remakes/revivals, but there's just too damn many. Right now, I'm completely stuck in the past with Mega Man 9 and the DS remake of Dragon Quest IV, and I couldn't be happier. As much as I try to resist the crippling powers of nostalgia, it does get to me; and, in some ways, I realize the tragedy of buying my childhood back, one game at a time. It's safe to say that I'm on the same page as John and Nadia when it comes to Bionic Commando: Rearmed--but there are certain retro quirks that irk me when they appear in a modern-day game. Take the concept of "lives," for instance; it's something that I've wanted to write an in-depth article about for a long time (and I just may do that!). I'm completely against punishing a player with tedium (i.e., replaying long stretches of a game) for screwing up; but if Mega Man 9 didn't have a lives system, it would feel very, very wrong. Despite it kicking my ass up and down the block for a week, there are certain old-school ideas that work best in certain contexts. Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 07:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: yahtzee, zero punctuation, retro, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, difficulty, castle crashers

• Yahtzee Presents A New Angle On Nostalgia (Sort Of)

  While Mr Constantine gets over his case of the vapours, I'd like to offer my own perspective on Yahtzee's scorn towards Mrs Rad Spencer. One bit in particular caught my interest. (::Pipe puff::) Most of North America had the honour of growing up alongside the Nintendo Entertainment System. A great deal of Europe, if my video game lore is up to snuff, did not. I remember my older brother coming home from a visit to Ireland and telling me about how everyone there still played Atari 2600. I was all like, "No waaaaay!" Then the UK's ultra-sweet take on Smarties rebelled against my stomach and I vomited everywhere. In his latest rant against Bionic Commando and all things fun, Yahtzee briefly mentions that his household was a Commodore 64 household--in other words, he didn't grow up with Bionic Commando or a lot of our favourite 8-bit treasures. Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 03:05 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: yahtzee, bionic commando, 8-bit, retro, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, nadia oxford

• Me and My Bitchin' Backlog

  Don't lie to me. If you're a gamer, you've got a backlog. And for most of us, these stacks of unplayed and/or unfinished games are a testament to poor choices, personal failures, and conspicuous amounts of disposable income/growing debt. The first step in all of this is to admit that we have a problem, and that's exactly the point of this post. I will air my dirty laundry for all to see, only if you promise to do the same. Please abide by the rules of Web 2.0, and no one gets hurt. What follows is a list of shame, my reasons for giving up, and a prediction of if I'll ever go back and play with these little digital orphans. I hope this doesn't take longer than I think it will. Read More... Posted Sep 18 2008, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: final fantasy iv ds, bionic commando rearmed, bob mackey, final fantasy xii, backlog

• One Crazy Summer of Arcade

  Today's LIVE Arcade release of Castle Crashers and the recent trend of incoming college freshmen gathering in front of me to learn writing can only mean one thing: summer is over. But man, what a summer it was.  So many memories made while only moving slightly to avoid bedsores. Of course, I speak of Microsoft's five-week-long "Summer of Arcade," an event that saw the back-to-back release of five awesome Xbox Live Arcade titles: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Braid, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Galaga Legions, and Castle Crashers. Sure, it started a little late, and it neglected to include a few of the more recent remakes (Commando 3 and 1942: Joint Strike got just a little bit screwed by the timing), but I can't remember a time that so much multi-genre awesomeness was packed into such an affordable month. More importantly, though, I think it's a look at things to come for the future of gaming. Read More... Posted Aug 27 2008, 08:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: xbox live, bionic commando rearmed, braid, bob mackey, galaga legions, geometry wars

• Quickies: Homestar Ruiner

  While we were all ridiculously pumped for Bionic Commando: Rearmed last week, there was another highly-anticipated downloadable game to tide us over for the first half of the week: Telltale Games' point-and-click WiiWare adventure Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People Episode One: Homestar Ruiner. Odds are good that if you're on the internet you're already somewhat familiar with the world of Homstar Runner and its brash luchador masked star Strong Bad, and, if you're anything like me, you were with them from fhqwhgads and quit right around Cheat Commandos. A quick glance through the Toons section of the site shows that, like The Simpsons and Family Guy, I'm probably better off for having missed the past few years of redundancy. How does this bode for the first official H*R video game? Read More... Posted Aug 18 2008, 05:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: derrick sanskrit, wiiware, adventure, eden, bionic commando rearmed, cartoon, homestar runner, strong bad, telltale games

• Worlds of Power: Books That Worried Your Parents and Pissed Off Your Teachers

  My weekend sojourn with Bionic Commando Rearmed's Mr Rad Spencer reminded me of all things good, pure and 8-bit. I even remembered that my husband owns most of the Worlds of Power books, novel "adaptations" of popular Nintendo games from Back in the Day™. He transferred them over to our new basement apartment home after we were married; it's a dowry my parents are proud of, I'm sure. Alas, I cannot find the Bionic Commando adaptation, but if I were to guess, I'd say Rad Spencer wasn't allowed to shoot anyone with his awesome guns. I did find Ninja Gaiden, which is dedicated to "the Ninja in everyone's dad." Holy shit, I thought my dad just sold alarm systems. This is awesome news. I don't know if you kids today have book fairs, but they were a staple of my school days. My generation was not in love with the printed word and teachers did their best to make sure we didn't fall into any affairs. They policed our book fair purchases, declaring comic books to be verboten "trash," especially comic books about the Ninja Turtles or that rude Bart Simpson. The cutting-edge Nintendo Entertainment System was the worst enemy of my grade school marms, so F.X. Nine's Worlds of Power was bookfair contraband, too. Read More... Posted Aug 18 2008, 01:45 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: mega man 2, ninja gaiden, 8-bit, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, fandom, game literature, worlds of power, f.x. nine, books

• What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mega Man Anniversary Collection

  I am a rotten Mega Man fan. I only acquired the Mega Man Anniversary Collection last week. But wait! Put down the cat o' nine tails!I have an excuse! Um... See, when the Gamecube and Playstation 2 crouched at the starting line for Big Shiny Console Love Race!! 2000, we bet on the Gamecube. Nintendo's purple lunchbox proved to be the wrong choice for anyone who wanted to pick up Mega Man Anniversary Collection, because the developers at Atomic Planet decided to reverse Mega Man's jump and shoot buttons--"A" being shoot and "B" being jump. Anyone weaned on the Blue Bomber might understandably be traumatised at this nonsensical reversal, especially since Atomic Planet thoughtfully excluded the ability to change controller settings. So here we are now, a little less poor than in previous years (holy cow, not by much) and able to afford a Playstation 2. A friend gave us the superior PS2 adaptation of Mega Man Anniversary Collection and now my husband and I are taking turns appreciating the classics instead of engaging in social interaction with our human peers. Read More... Posted Aug 15 2008, 06:37 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: mega man, 8-bit, retro, rush, bionic commando rearmed, mega man anniversary collection, kalinka, classic, mega man 4, what i'm playing

• More Downloadable Remakes! More, Says I!

  Bionic Commando Rearmed is apparently excellent, not like there was ever any doubt (well...maybe just a titch). Chances are good that Mega Man 9 will be playable as well, which leads me to believe that Capcom has a pretty good idea about how to handle its remakes. I would like to see more. On one hand, the state of the gaming world is making me brood like Yahtzee. Why are the most exciting games of today remakes and sequels to old franchises? Am I a dirty person for being more excited about ancient gaming lore than Mirror's Edge? I don't know if there are any rabid Osamu Tezuka fans among us, but the whole ordeal reminds me a bit of the Phoenix manga series. In it, mankind's progress sputtered and stalled because he became nostalgic for the past instead of trying to innovate for the future. Eventually, the human race decayed and crumbled before the master computers running the world burnt civilization to the ground with hydrogen bombs. Gamers' pining for the past might be a grim prophecy. We should tread carefully and be wary. On the other hand...hey, Bionic Commando Rearmed! Read More... Posted Aug 13 2008, 07:04 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: psp, capcom, yahtzee, psn, mega man powered up, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, xbla, remakes, phoenix, mega man maverick hunter x, osamu tezuka

• Emergency Rescue!! Super Joe!!

  If you're ever looking for a very poor lunch idea, might I suggest two Red Bulls and a package of dehydrated mango slices? One thing Americans need to be less shy about is singing along to superhero ballads. The Japanese, on the other hand, are really fantastic about belting out anthems for their heroes. Bear witness to any opening for any shonen anime or programme. Very few clock in at less than a minute and most of them go on for a minute and a half. All of them are enthusiastic: the singer is always a super-energetic Japanese guy who bellows as if this rubber monster-throttling knight sprang from his own loins. It pleases me to say that Capcom has captured the spirit of Bionic Commando perfectly with its sentai-flavoured trailer for Bionic Commando Rearmed. Are you ready to blow up Hitler's head, kids? Please pray for the success of Radd Spencer for best luck! Read More... Posted Jul 29 2008, 06:55 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: capcom, bionic commando, trailer, sentai, bionic commando rearmed, sing-along, shonen, super joe, radd spencer