Bionic Commando grappled only 27k sales in May

Make that a Bionic kick to the balls.

Yeah the InFamous vs Prototype debate kinda overshadowed Bionic Commando's release. I was pretty interested in picking it up, especially after that awesome 1UP Show with the multiplayer.

...but I forgot.

I was going to try this but there was no demo for PS3. This looks like a fun game but Im not going to gamble $60 on an unproven game without trying it first.

Do developers not understand how much $60 is? Im not going to throw away $60+tax on crap that looks good, for that much money I need to know that its good.

The MP demo is the reason why I don't want to get it. It was that bad.

Same as MrB. I player the demo on the 360, and wasn't impressed at all. It felt worthy of a pickup, but not as a full retail game, only as an arcade/psn title.

"Do developers not understand how much $60 is?"

They very much DO understand how much $60 is. The bare minimal they can price a game at and hope to turn a profit one day off enough sales.

Blame Microsoft and Sony with their ridiculously financially taxing HD game development costs.

The poor design choices noted in early reviews pretty much killed this game (weak weapons, not enough free-roaming using the bionic arm, etc).

I still wanted to pick it up, but I'm waiting for a price drop. Hopefully having gotten kicked in the balls so hard, this title will be receiving that discount shortly.

If they understand how much $60 is then they should understand that most people wont just piss it away on things because the box art was nice. There needs to be a demo, and if they want that demo to help then the demo needs to be one of the best parts of the game rather than the worst most boring level.

If average games that are $60 cost the same to develop as superb games that are $60 then something is wrong. Either its all bullshit or they are paying every game employee the same as Kojima and Miyamoto regardless of their talent. My guess is that its all bullshit and that games cost $60 because everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

I had money, time, and a lot of excitement set aside for this game. Then I played that godawful Multiplayer demo.

I picked up Tiger Woods Wii + WiiMotePlus instead.

I bought the game and stopped playing on the level where you have to swing out over water a really long way across the "mines" ... couldn't find my way after looking around for a route to the next location for a half hour and the radiation instead of invisible walls was killing me time and time again, so I quit.

Prototype on the other hand is every game I've ever wanted to play in an open world fighter.

"The moral of the story is to not do a re-visioning of a 20+ year-old IP that rides purely on nostalgia value and expect it to sell on that merit alone

NiGHTS 2 suffered the same fate, as is Punch-Out!! (though Punch-Out!! seems to be catching the long tail)"

Punch Out!! has more than nostalgia going for it. Reviewers may be whining that there's only one new fighter and only three circuits but the title defense definitely makes up for those initial seeming shortcomings. The varied delayed punches most of the further on fighters have really adds to the original gameplay. Or different takes on the usual timing strategies like King Hippo's or Aran Ryan's second go around.

The panning it for three circuits and one new fighter is really just reviewers being lazy with the game. If the other games were complete games when most fighters just had head swaps then this has those games hands down. I'm not noticing head swaps between the fighters and even the title defense fighters have model changes and most of their moves are new. And then there's Exhibition. Its just a blast to play.

Wii PunchOut is basically just Super PunchOut with one new fighter. The graphics look almost exactly the same.

The graphics aren't even close and there's no basically the same as Super Punch Out to it. It goes back to the original gameplay and throws out the meter and different types of super punches that were available in Super. You haven't played the game if you're making that statement.

No they didn't learn that at all. Terminator Salvation is abysmal and has BETTER sales than the above average Bionic Commando.

Moral: People like licensed shit

The moral of the story is to not do a re-visioning of a 20+ year-old IP that rides purely on nostalgia value and expect it to sell on that merit alone

NiGHTS 2 suffered the same fate, as is Punch-Out!! (though Punch-Out!! seems to be catching the long tail)

Nostalgia didn't even make me have interest in this game. I guess some IP just loses its luster quicker than the makers realize. Hell, I would probably have been more interested in a title like 'Pac Man Sr'.

Crap /= crap sales, and good /= good sales. Movie games are almost always crap, and yet they still sell far more than they should judging by the actual quality. Bionic Commando isn't crap, it had bad timing and a poor demo that was not representative of the full game. Dead Space was highly acclaimed and didn't sell well either (though it sold better than BC).

Also, nostalgia didn't get me to play this game. When it was first announced, I dismissed it as a crappy looking Spiderman ripoff. And I didn't even like the spiderman games. It was the ever improving trailers with some really cool looking action that got me to play it. Nostalgia is what got me to buy BC:R. That and my love for 2.5D and sidescrollers :D

"as is Punch-Out!! (though Punch-Out!! seems to be catching the long tail)"

Punch-Out!! has that whole "being an awesome game" thing going for it, though.

Not saying anything about their respective quality. I loved me some NiGHTS 2, also. It's about sales

They definitely would have. The multiplayer demo was a really poor advertisement for what turned out to be a pretty great game. I just finished it up yesterday, and I have to say that it was really really fun, and also kind of challenging.

If that wasn't bad enough, I hear the load times in Bionic Commando for the PS3 are a pain in the ass.

A couple of pissed of posters on a blog site aren't really going to affect sales in that manner.

Besides this site, the game wasn't promotted well and I didn't even realize it was released. Was at a couple stores this weekend and it wasn't even on the shelves.

The trophy thing upset me, but that's not the only reason we've been dying for a patch. The game has huge problems with freezing during saving, erasing the entire game save. They said they'd patch it.

Notice how, when they say they gave up on the patch, they "forget to mention" that they're ignoring an issue that SHOULD NOT be ignored.

The honest-to-god reason i never felt like buying this?... The protagonists hair.

Yup, the hair. If i'm going to play as a guy with deusche hair, i pass.

Wally - his hair is definitely douchey, but it doesn't make the game less fun. Plus, if you have BC:R (and you should if you are even considering this) you can unlock a version of the main character that looks like the old version, sans douchey hair. You get to play as him during a flashback to training for the arm, and I must say, the original model looks so much better than douchey hair model.

Agreed. The lack of trophies after promising them to us has caused me not to even think about purchasing a Capcom game for awhile, let alone Bionic Commando. It would have also been nice if they fixed the save game corruption issue for BC:R...

What a deadbeat company, dropping support for a game as soon as it ships out the door.

I guess my overall feelings are that it serves them right.

i dont know, i had a lot of fun with the demo for the new one, so it cant be that bad.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Please don't judge this game by sales figures or the horrid multiplayer. If you're a fan of games that actually CHALLENGE your skills, you owe it to yourself to at least give BC a rent.

the challenge of it is the main reason i want it. i'm just not the type of player to go buy every game at release and i don't trade stuff in.

Just going to reciprocate the guys above me's statements.

This game is great. I really love it. Yes, the story isn't strong, but I'm not sure where people get off on complaining that it's hard to swing.

I think the controls work quite well and I've never once gotten frustrated at the way the controls are setup or work in the game, and for me, that can absolutely kill a game.

Say what you will about a game, but something a dev must hold paramount for their game are two things:

Can I control my character well? (player controls)
Can I control the view of my character and the environment well? (camera controls)

If these two things are done right, the rest can be done on a much lower level of "polish" but still deliver a fun experience. And for me, I love this game because I never feel I get frustrated at the camera or controls. Swinging around feels great and the moves you unlock are quite satisfying.

So yeah, I enjoyed it.

Any yes, the biggest mistake they made was releasing that MP demo. It was absolute shit. It doesn't represent the single OR multiplayer well at all. I was very close to not getting the game because of it, but I'm glad I too the plunge anyway.

That's because a solid, epic story is pretty much a requirement of any game nowadays to get a decent review, even for a game like Bionic Commando, that you would NEVER play for the story. I can sort of understand, because ithink a cheesy thin story can be executed well (BC:R).

Also, and this is a huge shame, when a game challenges the player more than average, it is looks down upon. BC requires you to learn a mechanic that isn't instantly comfortable, but it is that mechanic that provides some if the most fun gameplay I've seen this gen. The game is pretty difficult too, though I'm playing it on hard mode so I don't know how hard it is on medium.

I do think the reviews were a bit harsh though. I'm having infinitely more fun with Bionic Commando than other highly acclaimed recent releases.

@Levi

I don't know, Justin McElroy really seemed to like 50 Cent:BoTS, and you know how much of an epic story that had......

I'm not interested in a game that asks me to get used to it's controls for even 1/2 an hour. Give me that same game with an easy setting, where I don't die repeatedly, as one player evinced, and I'll show some interest. This game basically appeals to the hardcore, and that's great-- reading the comments, it's obvious that hardcore players have mastered the controls and the game feels good to them, just like it did to the hardcore playtesters. But this company obviously never looked at the big picture and said, what about the older players who want this experience but without the time or the frustration? An easy mode, reviewed favorably by a thirtysomething, would have sold this game tons-- because we get to experience an old 2d game, in 3d, at about the level we were proficient in, then (we used to be bad-ass, and have tons of time).

I loved the 2d rendition of BC, although at some point it got ridiculously hard and I simply couldn't play it, anymore. But in the early stages, it was well worth whatever I spent on it monetarily, no more than $20, and I spent a couple weekends with friends, the music kicked ass, the graphics and controls were awesome, it was priced right, and it was like my Commodore 64 became the hulk. Awesome. This? It's like my Commodore became schizophrenic. I felt like I needed to commit this thing.