While it never spun into a juggernaut franchise, old-school fans have always had a yearn for Bionic Commando, that pseudo sequel to Commando which stretched its mechanical arm from arcades to home consoles, handhelds and now it's getting treated with both a Next-Gen HD remix and a remake.
Let's take a look at the evolution that robotic super-soldier has undergone in his 22 year career, not in his cyborg bits and pieces, but how the classic platformer has grown along with the changes in the systems that we play.
Bionic Commando: The Arcade Game - 1987
In the U.S. it was released as Bionic Commando, but in Japan this arcade hit was titled Top Secret. Marketed as a sequel to Capcom's other military success, Commando, the ads for the coin-op action platformer claimed the robotic hero is Super Joe, star of the Commando series, but the game itself never mentioned the character's name.
On a mission to destroy the headquarters and the dictator leader of an evil army, the Bionic Commando goes deep behind enemy lines. Across five levels the cyborg hero battled foot soldiers, super soldiers, flying creatures, underground gremlin-like monsters and jumping mech-fighters.
The enemy soldiers are never called Nazi's, but they are suspiciously dressed like German Soldier's circa 1942, and they use bayonets as well as bullets, however their dictator leader looks nothing like Hitler, instead he sports a large white beard.
The controls don't allow the player to jump, instead they move Super Joe from platform to platform and across chasms by extending his bionic arm, grabbing the platform above or across diagonally and either pulling him straight up, or using the arm to swing left or right.
Although the arcade game was extremely hard to play, it was a moderate success; so Capcom began plans for a home version on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
