TIME EXTEND

How an extendable arm pulled us towards a new age of downloadable gaming

By Jon Bailes

Developer Grin Publisher Capcom Format 360, PC, PS3 Release 2008

The first hurdle to overcome in Bionic Commando is your instinct. You arrive at the edge of a platform, merely a short hop from the next, or find your path blocked by an unassuming crate. What you do next should be obvious, but Nathan ‘Rad’ Spencer is the rare platform game star who can’t jump, can’t even lift both feet off the ground without assistance from his extend-andretract bionic arm. When there’s no girder or spotlight above for him to latch on to and swing himself over, you have to sheepishly turn and find another way around.

With Bionic Commando Rearmed, Capcom and Swedish developer Grin may have been tempted to relax these artificial limitations, set by a 1987 arcade game and its 1988 NES successor, their two-button controllers fully occupied by multidirectional shooting and grappling. In 2008 the Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers certainly had room to afford a cybernetic soldier extra athleticism. Yet the developer held firm, unafraid to bolt new parts onto this update of the NES game but stopping short of rewiring the fundamentals. As the title suggests, it is still a platformer where arms count more than legs.

Along with that backward-looking approach comes a sense of forward thinking. Today we’re used to agile reboots, with Capcom’s own Ghosts ’N Goblins Resurrection a recent illustration, the developer sticking to its guns with a nod, a wink and some careful expansion. In 2008, Rearmed was an early example of this craft, the essence of its classic core mechanic restored and given a coat of modern varnish – and, more importantly, it was an early example of downloadable gaming. The perhaps unlikely leader of a revolution, it heralded a new 2D age tempered in history, remoulded for the present with cosmetic flourishes, quality-oflife concessions and bolstered play modes.