XBLA Today: Bionic Commando Rearmed and Fable 2 Pub Games

Welcome to this weeks edition of XBLA today, and lets just say I’m in a very good mood this week, as both games are working out quite nicely for me. Why you ask? Well let me dive right in and tell you.

First off we’ll start with the suprise of the two, Fable 2 Pub Games. These pub games are actually card and dice type games that can be used to get gold for when Fable 2 comes out. At first this sounded like a horrible idea, and a strange way to get more money from me. But, the games are actually interesting and pretty fun, and also came for free with certain pre-order bundles. The games are a pleasent surpise to see that getting them just for the ability to get gold for Fable 2 isn’t such a waste as all the games are pretty fun. Check them out, and let us know if you agree!

Now the real winner here, Bionic Commando Rearmed. This is a complete revamp of the original, keeping the things that made the original great, scrapping and fixing problems, and adding a few new to top it off. For those who never played the original, it’s an old school style platformer, with guns, with one major difference than most. You can’t jump. Not once. Not ever. Instead, you have the bionic grappling arm, which at first is really strange after all the years of being able to jump in every game ever made, but once you get used to it, it is fun. The games looks are great, with a vibrant color palette and the soundtrack is awesome, with remixed tracks of the original. The funnest part for me is the new challenge mode. The challenge mode is vr tron looking levels, where you have to use your bionic arm to its fullest potential to get through rooms in a small alotted amount of time. The only dissapointing part is the multiplayer it has, is all offline, but with all the rest of the goodness this game has, I can’t knock it that much for not having it. The storyline is not too complicated, but pretty fun, and the delivery is slightly goofy at times. Example: I had intercepted a transmission between an officer and a private of the enemy, and the Private said “ROFL”, and the officers response? “Get of the floor!”. Pure gold my friends.

So there you have it, a pleasent suprise in Pub Games and a confirmation of all I was hoping for in Bionic Commando Rearmed. What did you guys think of these two? Hopefully you agree, but as always, this is all an opinion. Tune in next week to see if Lassie gets Jimmy out of the well in tim….. wait, wrong show….. Goodbye.