On The Horizon
You know, about a month ago I turned to a good friend of mine and said, “You know what franchise they need to bring back in a major way? Bionic Commando.” Of course, when I said that, I was envisioning some Wii-tastic bionic arm whipping, probably in an attempt to purge the still repugnant odors of Spider-Man 3 from my travel-via-extendable-latching-device palette. But really, I’ll take the return of Bionic Commando on whatever platform it’s available. Even if they fail to include a fat, balding Hitler! The one fear I do have is that they will disregard everything but the concept, which I think would be a mistake. While I don’t want to be named Radd, and I don’t necessarily have the urge to fight Badds and Gereralissimo Killt, I don’t see any reason to drop the whole New World Nazi theme from the game entirely. If there’s one thing we’ve all learned from George Lucas, it’s that everyone likes killing Nazis.
On the other hand, the original Bionic Commando, whether in Nazi-killing Japanese mode or watered-down American mode, has plenty of problems in terms of modern day requirements on plot and believability. It would be an incredibly delicate balance to take the original source material of Bionic Commando and draw that into the modern franchise. Though it’s been done before. The original stories for Metal Gear and Metroid were equally absurd and campy, yet Metal Gear Solid and Metroid Prime are two of the most beloved modern action game franchises today. Though that success more a result of purely brilliant talent (thanks, Hideo Kojima and/or Retro Studios) than it is of hokey nostalgia. So either way, Bionic Commando still has me psyched.
As for titles that are coming to the Wii, we’ve got a double header of PS2 ports in Rygar and Okami. I’m excited about these titles because despite being exceptional, neither of them found a good home on the PS2. It could be because they came out at odd times in the system’s life cycle, or because they simply got lost in the avalanche of other games for that system (hey, regardless of how I feel about Sony, the PS2 did have an insane number of great games, many of them exclusives). Okami looks to be a straight port of the PS2 title, where the designers are calling that choice “faithful” instead of “lazy”. I was hoping the straight port days were done, and only forgave Capcom because they started pricing those sorts of titles below $30. Still, Okami is such an exceptional title, and the Wii is so dry in terms of adult friendly games, it’ll probably do well regardless.
And then there’s Rygar. While Okami got in right under the PS2′s relevancy buzzer, Rygar is a much older title, and the PS2 version shows that age. Thankfully, it’s getting a full revamp as opposed to just a new control scheme, and so far it looks like one of the darker, prettier games coming out on the Wii. It sounds like it’s going to be a sort of “re-imagined” version of the original, in much the same way that Resident Evil 1 and Metal Gear Solid got re-imagined on the Gamecube. The genesis of bringing Rygar to the Wii came from the design team toying with the Wiimote and literally thinking, “This would have been perfect for Rygar!” and that fills me with hope. Too often Wii games are just normal games that make you shake the remote like an idiot. Hopefully Rygar’s control scheme will have more depth than that, and the design team in question isn’t completely new to the Wii, which also helps.
No More Heroes. My morbid fascination with this title continues, largely because of my equally morbid fascination with Killer 7. Suda 51 is probably the weirdest, craziest, and potentially the most artistic game designer you’re going to come across – especially on this side of the Pacific. And if you think Killer 7 isn’t enough street cred to make No More Heroes seem interesting, it’s worth pointing out that he’s apparently good buddies with the aforementioned Hideo Kojima. Heroes looks like lanky pulp anime on the wrong side of an acid bender, and might just be the first game to strike the proper balance when flailing the Wiimote around like an idiot during sword fights.
