Being a pretty new Xbox 360 owner (today's my one month anniversary), I don't have much experience with XBLA games. I do, however, have a wealth of experience with 2d action games, seeing as a grew up with them on the SNES/N64. I never had an NES, so I missed out on some of the greatest classic 2d games back then. Bionic Commando was one of them. When I found out that BC: Rearmed was coming out earlier than I had expected, I dashed to Target and got some XBLA points, downloaded the title, and got going. I've only played two levels so far, but I'm proud to say that I've already gone commando.

The first thing I noticed about Rearmed was that this game has style. Colorful backdrops and enemies, and the bullets look pretty too. The menu is simple but easy on the eyes. I haven't bought a lot of XBLA games, but I've seen some and I can't imagine a lot of them having better graphics than this little gem.



Shooting enemies takes a pretty good amount of strategy for a 2d game, with enemies who almost always look for cover. I'm not saying it's hard, but it makes combat a bit more complex than most games of this kind. There's a whole other element of gameplay that you encounter when you run into an enemy on a map. It's kind of fun, but I can see how a lot of people are going to get bored of it over time. I've already run into it about three times after only two levels. It doesn't really take anything away from the game, and you can get an easy 20 points to your gamerscore if you kill all of the enemies on the field.

The real cream of the crop here, as most of you know, is the swinging. The element of gameplay is absolutely addictive, and the controls are handled brilliantly. There's plenty of fun to be had trying to dash through the levels quickly with the swinging mechanic, which I recommend on a second playthrough. If you really like swinging, you're going to love the new challenge room feature, which puts you through wireframe-style rooms and gives you a certain amount of time to swing through. I've already done a few, and I can say that they are aggravatingly difficult, but you won't be able to stop until you've beaten them.

So, I didn't feel like I needed to finish the game to be able to say that it is a must-have. Seriously. Don't worry about it being short either, there's a hell of a lot to do in this game, and is has some really easy achievements. I felt the same way way about buying this as I did with the Orange Box. I feel like I'm stealing it for ten dollars. This is the first of Capcom's plans to bring back 2d, and if this is a sign of things to come, keep it up.

P.S. I haven't tried the multiplayer modes but they look pretty meh.