Bionic Commando Preview

Visually it needs some polish, but could look spectacular.

Gameplay variety is also a concern. Travelling through one semi-destroyed city area to another, deactivating air-based mines, and then moving on through an endless tunnel and appearing (after a loading screen) in another semi-destroyed city area is fine for a level or so, but we're hoping things change dramatically later on. We're almost certain the environments will become more diverse, simply going on what we've seen at trade shows over the last few years and in trailers, but if they'll offer anything more in terms of gameplay remains to be seen.

Something that adds some instant off-objective action is the challenges system. Throughout the game you'll be presented with secondary objectives, such as killing ten enemies (this is early in the game remember). Doing this will earn you a reward (improved accuracy for example) and unlock a new challenge. It's similar in style to the instant challenges seen in the recent 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, except here the rewards seem more beneficial and long-lasting.

While the bionic combat and platforming is solid at this stage, we're less convinced about the gun-play. You can shoot from the hip by simply pulling the right trigger, or target with more precision (and in turn move a lot slower), but the weapons don't really feel all that meaty at the moment. This becomes quite troublesome during hectic battles against a room full of enemies, where the indoor setting makes bionic grapple attacks tricky and the awkward up-close aiming a recipe for death. Still, this is a Capcom game, so we expect it to be hard.

We expect a lot from Capcom games in terms of presentation, and so far Bionic Commando hasn't disappointed. There's certainly not the instant wow factor we had while playing Lost Planet or the overall level of visual quality we saw in Resident Evil 5, but the levels here are huge and there's a draw distance to match. There's a definite sense of travelling through a broken world and the main character looks great - complete with cool bionic arm and stylish dreads. Of the levels we're allowed the talk about, the fissure section is by far the most impressive, with beautifully lit underground rocks and water cascading down cliff faces.

Once you get the hang of it, swinging is a lot of fun.

General presentation in terms of cutscenes and acting quality is typically Capcom, although this seems slightly more TV-movie than B-Movie - Spencer's voice is verging on terrible, especially when he shouts one of his many one-liners as a reward for doing something cool. The plot really hasn't got going during the few hours of the game we've played so far, but we're hoping it'll follow a similarly ridiculous storyline as we saw recently in Resident Evil 5. There's also some screen tearing and what we hope is a not final depth of field effect, but with a few months of dev time left we're hopeful the final build will be the visual spectacle it has the potential to be.

Bionic Commando is perhaps the trickiest sell of any of Capcom's next-gen efforts to date. Not only is it being developed by GRIN, which isn't a Capcom studio, but it's based on a tricky gameplay mechanic and is a modern version of one of the hardest retro games of all time. It's certainly got the next-gen sheen we've come to expect from Capcom, and could be the most hardcore pleasing game next to Street Fighter IV. Let's just hope the final game isn't a big swing and miss.

Bionic Commando will arrive on Xbox 360 and PS3 on May 22, with a PC version following soon after.