Bionic Commando (Windows, 2009)

Bionic Commando
Developer: Grin Publisher: Capcom Platform: Windows Released in JP: October 29, 2009 Released in US: July 28, 2009 Released in EU: July 17, 2009 This game has unused areas. This game has uncompiled source code. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material.

The 2009 Bionic Commando is a grim and gritty sequel to the original and was not well received by most gaming critics. While considered by many to be Capcom's biggest sales flop to date, it still made the main character popular enough to be featured in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The developer, Grin, dissolved due in part to the poor sales and reformed as OVERKILL Software, spawning PAYDAY: The Heist.

Also, the main character's bionic arm was his wife. Don't ask.

Debug Mode

Download Bionic Commando Patch.bundle File: Bionic Commando 2009 patch.bundle.rar (info)

The above file will unlock debugging functionality in the game. To use it, simply extract the contents of the file to the bundles folder in your game installation. This will add a "Debug" option in the Pause menu, which will have the following options available:

• Features:
  • Character - Allows you to change Spencer's available skills and powerups. If Arm Visible is turned off, Spencer's bionic arm will not be visible, and you won't be able to use his punching moves. However, you may still use your arm to swing around from place to place if you've got those specific skills available. Keep in mind that the game may freeze if you unlock the Kite skill in the early stages and use it on some debris that the game thinks can be thrown around, like some potted plants in the first level.
  • Weapons - Allows you to change Spencer's weapon bonuses (accuracy, damage and ammo amount.)
  • Matrices - Gives Spencer access to the White, Red and Blue Matrices (doors) without having to complete story sequences. A Green Matrix is also listed, which corresponds to an otherwise unused Matrix in a level.
• Free Flight - A no-clip mode. This freezes the entire game, and you can move the camera around with the gamepad sticks (Left Stick to move around, Right Stick to change the direction the camera is facing) or the mouse and keyboard (WASD to move around, mouse to change where you're looking.) Press A on your 360 pad to teleport Spencer to the camera's current position; this function doesn't seem to be available if you're using a mouse and keyboard. Press Space while using a keyboard to toggle the UI on and off while in this mode. Keep in mind that gravity and environmental hazards will affect you immediately after turning the option off. You can also fall off the map.
• God Mode - Makes you invulnerable to physical damage, radiation, drowning, or other environmental hazards. The enemy can still stun or throw you around, active mines will still knock you off, and you'll still die if you fall in a chasm.
• Give Weapon - Adds the selected weapon to your inventory with full ammunition. If you run out of ammo, using this option will refill your ammo.
• Health Boost - Restores your health.
• Unlock Challenges - Sets all the challenges and collectibles to 100% completion.
• Unlock Levels - Unlocks all levels for use in Level Jump mode.
• Ghost Mode - The enemy won't attack you or react to you. They'll still act like they see you when you first approach them, but they won't do anything even if you attack them.
• HUD:
  • Simple HUD - Makes the HUD vanish.
  • Safe Rect - Unknown.
  • Debug Box - Displays a box in the upper left corner of the screen that shows the stage name, and the coordinates for both the camera and your character. "Camera ray Length" shows the distance from the center of the screen to the object or scenery that your cursor is pointing at.
  • Help swing text - Does not seem to do anything.
  • Show FPS - Does not work.
  • Show Console - Does not work.
• QA Prints - Does not work.
• Sandbox Spawn - This is turned on by default, but its effect is unknown.
• 30 FPS Cap - Locks the game at 30 FPS. The game runs at 60 FPS by default.
• Save - Lets you save the game at any point.
• Quick Respawn - If you die, you respawn at the last point where you had your feet on safe ground without having to wait for the game to reload the stage.
• Adrenaline - Its effect is unknown. Theoretically it would affect your Adrenaline gauge, but it doesn't seem to change anything.

Unused Content

Unused Videos

Present in data\movies\tutorial is bc_logo.bik. Judging by the file name it was probably meant to be a Bink video file of the game's logo, but instead, it is a placeholder video for the in-game tutorials.

This same file is also found in data\movies with the name trailer.bik, which suggests the game originally included a Bionic Commando Rearmed trailer, as mentioned in the deleted credits in the system_text.xml file stored in quick.bundle\data\strings\. The file contains a line that says:

<string id='mnm_mizuki' value='Music Video'/>

The string id value is a reference to this Japanese Bionic Commando Rearmed commercial which resembled a TV show opening, and which had a theme song performed by Ichirou Mizuki. The video is also mentioned in the end credits.

Unused Music

bc_die01_win32 - A jingle meant to play when you died. In the final game, no music is used.

bc_upgrade_found01_win32 - Meant to play when you got an upgrade. The game uses an entirely different song.

16second_music01 - An 18-second long jingle for Lost Planet.

wrong - One second of accordion madness.

test_music_01 to 05 - Spencer humming a test tune, in five separate files. A separate file that has all of these together is also in the game as an unused idling sound.

Unused Lines

These lines appear to be outtakes.

Yeah, I do that all the time. *laugh*

Mama.

I'll be in Munich in two weeks.

These taunts are in the game, and are read out quite casually, which contrasts with Spencer's usual screaming:

I got you.

Nice job.

Surprise.

A conversation between Mike Patton and someone else, who insults his line delivery.

Spencer also has several unused sound clips of him humming music or uttering random voices. He's supposed to say them when he idles in place, but he only uses the cough, clear throat, and breathing sounds.

Early Tutorial Voiceovers

The game's tutorial is narrated by Joseph Gibson, but earlier, placeholder versions of many messages performed by a different voice actor are also in the game data.

There are three additional messages voiced by someone much younger, quite possibly someone from Grin's development staff.

Development Leftovers

The quick.bundle archive contains some uncompiled development code, as well as tools used during development:

• core\utils\shader_server and core\utils\tcp_monkey contain lua scripts that ran batch commands which were used to create development builds of the game;
• dev contains various batch files that fetched stable and development versions of the core game files for all platforms, and also includes a 7-Zip compression tool (version 4.65, dated 2009-02-23);
• startups contains various batch files that were used to start up the game's editing tools, a debugging console, benchmarks, filename checks, start the game without the intro or the startup videos, show the current build version, set the game's language, load a sandbox level, or run a DirectX 10 version of the game (which was not included in the final release build.)
• startups\trailer also contains several batch files that loaded cutscene data used to create the game's trailer. These batch files crash the final version of the game.
• core\lib\core\utils\dev\editor contains icons for the game's editing tools and a changelog, which can be seen here.

Sandbox

A batch file in the startups folder contains launch parameters for the game's testing sandbox. To access it, run the executable from the command line with the parameters -ewsext -zone sandbox -class Sandbox. (You can add that line to the Steam version of the game by right clicking its entry, choosing properties, then pasting that line in "Set launch options".)

This map is set in a floating island with various structures to swing from, rocks and cars to throw around, buildings to climb, a pond where you can drown, and a few collectibles. You can throw things off the island and they'll keep going until they hit the edge of the map. Of course, if you fall off the island, you'll die when you reach the bottom of the map, but you'll respawn on the island right away.

There's a hackable Relay in the map that has four options: Ball hack, which runs the script to deactivate the mines; ERROR: 'HACK' (which makes you leave the hacking screen), ERROR: ryt_city_b_1_hl, which loads an empty information screen, and Cube hack. Selecting that option makes the game load a fully functional version of the hacking minigame from Bionic Commando Rearmed! The game doesn't load a background so the graphics leave a blurry mess when you rotate the puzzle. Once you've cleared (or failed) the puzzle, you'll go back to the main Relay hack menu, but the graphics will be glitched so you'll have to exit the Relay to get them back to normal.

Other Unused Levels

Other than Sandbox, there are a few working test levels remaining in the game's data. To load them, run the game with the parameters -ewsext -zone mapnamehere, where mapnamehere is one of the following values:

• gridroom: Spawns you inside a completely empty map, so you end up falling to your death.
• all_cutscene: Spawns you inside a room that lets you view almost all of the game's cutscenes. To view them, just walk into the empty space underneath the cutscene title. Note that you won't be able to see all the available rooms at once because the draw distance for the level is quite short, so you'll have to walk to the left or right to see them. The scenes will only show the character models and some visual effects, but most of the backgrounds and props won't be loaded and the cutscenes will play out in an empty room with a skybox. The Skies above Ascension City and Above Bunker doors don't load anything because those two cutscenes are video files in the final version instead of being rendered by the game. Attempting to view the Oil Rig cutscene will crash the game to the desktop. Finally, sometimes the screen will stay black or white after a cutscene finishes playing. The only way to fix this is to walk away in random directions until the screen goes back to normal.

Deleted Credits

The credits.xml file contains some commented out credits:

<!--	<header header="DynaFont is a registered Trademark of DynaComware." font_size="14" offset="20"/>	-->




<!--
	<image image="credits_dyna" width="680" height="85" time="0" x="20"/>			
-->

The above is an earlier version of the DynaComware credits displayed by the game.

<!--	<header header="Copyright © 2008 PepsiCo, Inc." font_size="14" offset="0"/>		
	<header header="All rights reserved." font_size="14" offset="0"/>			
	<header header="PEPSI, the Pepsi Globe Design, and associated logos" font_size="14" offset="0"/>
	<header header="are trademarks of PepsiCo, Inc." font_size="14" offset="20"/>		-->


	<!-- Don't forget to remove Quazal from 360 version before submission -->

The console version of the game contained Pepsi ads on vending machines and billboards, but these were removed from the PC version and replaced with generic artwork. Curiously, the XML data files for their game models seem to betray their origin... by spawning cans of Coke.

<sequence name="'spawn_single_coke'">
  <spawn_unit rotation="object_rot( 'can_spawner' )" name="'office_sodacan'" position="object_pos( 'can_spawner' )"/>
  <run_sequence name="'sequencemanager_push_sphere'"  position="pick ('can_pusher_1', 'can_pusher_2', 'can_pusher_3')" velocity="rand ( 150, 300 )" mass="rand ( 20, 50 )" radius="50" />
</sequence>
        
<sequence name="'give_the_coke'" editable_state="true"  start_time="0.5">
  <run_sequence name="'spawn_single_coke'" start_time="0.1" />
  <run_sequence name="'spawn_single_coke'" start_time="0.5" />
  <run_sequence name="'spawn_single_coke'" start_time="0.8" />
  <run_sequence name="'spawn_single_coke'" start_time="1.2" />
</sequence>

<sequence name="'shut_down'" editable_state="true">
  <animation_group name="'flickering'" action="'stop'"/>
  <light name="'l_omni_01'" enabled="'false'" multiplier="'0.0'"/>
  <run_sequence name="'give_the_coke'"/>
</sequence>