NPD May 2009: Bionic Commando Dead On Arrival

Less than 30,000 units sold in May.

[morganfell]

One word - Grin. In many ways they are like Bizarro. While they may have good intentions, they have the reverse Midas touch - instead of gold, everything they touch turns to crap.

[Immortal Kaim]

Agree. They likely assumed having the Bionic Commando name on the box ensured sales, well sorry to burst their bubble, but if you make a cr*p game people will catch wind of it.

[Bnet343]

Ouch! The demo was crap. Just let Bionic Commando rest in peace. The remake was nice, but move on and resurrect other franchises. Personally, please bring back Dino Crisis. I know a lot of people hated DC3, but to me that game was not horrible.

[ZuperAmazingCooKie]

Bionic Commando is not a very popular franchise, so whoever assumed this would sell because of the name made a horrible business decision

[NeoCloud]

I really liked DinoCrisis too, Regina[thats her name right] 1 and 2, i liked the DC3 too.

[njr]

Whoa I never even heard of this game coming out o_o

[locos85]

I was interested in this title until I got my hands on the demo. I think the demo ruined the sales for this game.

[Tito Jackson]

Spot on, my man. They should have never released a demo.

"Ricki Bobbi, I saw the HIGHLANDER movie---it was sh*t!"

[Downtown boogey]

I hate when bad games are made.

I'm sure there's always at least SOMEONE in the team that has a better idea of a game if they're making something like this or crappy licensed EA games.

[morganfell]

I remember before GRAW PC came out and they were posting like mad at Ghostrecon.net and running their mouths. A verified Special Forces guy that did work for Ubisoft but wasn't working with GRIN called them on the carpet over their design and ripped them a new one. The things he pointed out were the things with which gamers later took issue. They began to insult the fans that disagreed with them. Especially by the time they were working on GRAW 2, many fans took the "You are going to screw us again" atitude and Bo GRIN had a fit. And they did shaft fans.

[PrimordialSoupBase]

Wasn't great but it certainly deserved better than that.

One of the worst demos ever didn't help either. Really, the singleplayer game isn't like that.

[heyheyhey]

that's not true morgan..

GRIN also made BC:Rearmed which i found to be excellent..

[MNicholas]

Not bad but not great. Is that US only or international?

Lifetime sales (using standard model) should be around $20M barring something unusual happening. After publishers fee, retailer's cut, etc... they should still make a little money but maybe not enough to make Bionic Commando 2 happen. If they run a lean development operation and spend a bit more money on marketing then it might be worth a go.

[morganfell]

As Chiun said, even a fool is occasionally blessed with luck. One game out of how many is supposed to compensate for the mountains of crap they have produced? No. The worst part is when the IP doesn't sell the IP is blamed rather than the rotten dev team. Then we have to forget about seeing any version of that IP for a long time. Or else they decide that it wasn't the dev team but rather the IP should be drastically changed. The see what happens.

Look at the 007 license. Activision makes a crap title and now what are we going to get - a Bond racing game. WTF? Why not pick a dev team that will make a great gritty, dark title. BTW, the PS2 version was a bit different and far superior to the Next Gen version. That's similar to Splinter Cell Double Agent where the superior version was on the first Xbox.

The Bourne license was ruined also. Did they blame the dev team. The 24 license? Also blown.

Do you like the Bionic Commando IP? It will be a decade before it gets resurrected...again. I would like to know who the idiot is that makes the decision of, "Oh yeah. This is the team we want blowing this IP." Look how many possible IPs were invented and then shelved after the first game. Not because the IP doesn't have merit but rather because a dev team left a bad sales taste in the publisher's mouth.

Publisher's are loathe to blame the dev team because the publisher commissioned said dev team and such condemnation (truth telling) is really a self indictment. Rarely do you see publishers so protective of an IP they would rather throw the dev money away and shelve a product rather than kick it out the door and damage an IP. Blizzard and the Starcraft Ghost incident come to mind as one of those rare moments. I am so glad that game wasn't cancelled.

@MNicholas They made back the advertising budget. They have a lot farther to go to break even and even farther to meet estimates. IPs are not judged by what they make but rather by what they could have made.

[pwnsause]

capcom was warned about this by their fans. They told them not to give the development of Bionic commando to them. look what happened...

[Forrest Gump]

Poor gameplay in BC,Demo left me wondering why they didn't delay the game to work on it some more.

[Athlon]

The game is worth a rent for the story mode. When I tried the multiplayer mode, all I heard was crickets, not a single soul online for like the 15 minutes I fooled around with it.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

I didn't like the story or the multiplayer, but the SP gameplay was kinda fun.

[Keowrath]

Hmmm, I must be the only one on the planet who is enjoying the game. Spent most of yesterday playing it and I'll be going through again on the commando difficulty.

Sure it isn't a 10/10 game but the gameplay and combat work fine, I haven't touched the multiplayer but I don't tend to play online multi in any game (except Streetfighter 4)

to each their own.

[DARK WITNESS]

your not the only one. I enjoyed it but it's interesting seeing what other people thought about it.

look at the two posts above...

see now i thought the gameplay was ok, once you got the hang of really using the arm. On the other hand i thought it was the story that let it down in many ways.

i could write all day about what i thought was wrong with it, but i will leave it.

one of the issues i had was not enough ammo for the weapons you got apart from the stupid pistol. they really tried to force you to use the arm which they should not have to do if the arm is fun to use anyway.

the graphics in the cutscenes i thought was crap but ingame was not so bad. in some parts i thought the lighting was quite good.

the multiplayer was crap though and they should never have released the demo of that. they must have lost a lot of sales just by that one action.

its worth playing i thought but not worth the full retail. i got it because i bought it for £27 and traded it back after finishing it for £25.

[ar]

I don't regret buying it. I liked every hour of gameplay.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

It's a fun game, I kept my copy from Gamefly.

[Fishy Fingers]

I'd rather play BC Rearmed than this. I found it mediocre at best.

[MajesticBeast]

it wasnt a bad tgame i enjoyed it story took a nosedive tho still fun gameplay multiplayer isnt worth it but liked using the arm alot, only the arm is so overpowerd. Think ign there review was right on the money with the 8 i think.

[solidt12]

I haven't seen any ads for this game. Didn't even know it was out. That may be part of the problem.

[DARK WITNESS]

i have seen 1 or 2 adds on TV.

its really a rent or buy and trade when you finish.

[Baka-akaB]

Couldnt find any worth in the game from the very first videos , later confirmed by the demo .

I'm not saying i'm glad it failed , but those sales figures show me that at least i wasnt insane , on my own thinking it was meh compared to all the good exclusives and multi platform titles the two consoles got so far .

The hero already had a quite lame design , as if they took any random thug from street of rage or gta and gave him the bionic arm .
Cole and Alex from prototype and infamous may look generic too , but their adventure isnt .

Here all i see is webs of shadows with better graphs and without spiderman ....

My loss then i guess

[dirthurts]

As did the multiplayer.
But I loved the campaign. Not perfect, but the arm was fun as could be.
I think people should at least rent it.

[TomVanDamm]

I think the individual that let us down was Ben Judd. He completely got the character wrong -made him into a street thug, bad/laughable story, almost the same environment throughout the game, etc.. The worst thing is that Ben Judd is involved with Dead Rising 2. I pray that Capcom yanks him from that project before he messes that game up too!

[Rowsdower]

i enjoyed it and i guess this means little to no support for multiplayer.

[Baka-akaB]

Whatever killzone physics or graphics had been involved with Mirror edge , it would have sold as badly .

For starters Mirror Edge was very pretty , it wasnt the issue .
People just didnt bother learning to play it , or couldnt care less about a fps without emphasis on guns .

[Bladestar]

This game was a disappointment... so much potential gone to waste.
I was always a fan of Bionic Commando like many of us.. since back when it was first released on the NES... I mean it was one of the best games... instant classic.

I also think that Lost Planet took from this game it's soul... there is no doubt that Lost Planet inherited many concept and ideas of what bionic Commando could of be.

Sad to see this franchise going down in history like this. They should of left it alone.

[Dellis]

There goes any chance of ever seeing STRIDER Remake or any other remake.

[Baka-akaB]

I'm sure there are chances on PSN/XBL

And besides , if its to give it away to such a lackluster developer , mightas well not do it .

[Gr81]

What a flop.

[Enterprise-E]

Base off the demo I knew this game wasn't going far fast. Some people say they shouldn't have released the demo but I say thank god for the demo. Only because you don't have to waste 60 bucks to find out that its a garbage game.

[devilhunterx]

NOW can they work on the BC rearmed trophy patch?

[samura]

The single player was nice.

most of the people I know did not know how to play the game well ( the swinging part) this is why people hate it.

I will ALWAYS remember it as a good game.

[likeaboss302]

I bought it and enjoyed playing through the single player. I agree the demo wasn't very good and it's sad that it turned so many off. It's a pretty solid experience that could have used just a little more time to polish things. Regardless I don't regret buying the game.