Go go bionic

Are you sick of Bionic Commando yet? No? Well, listen to the latest Retronauts and maybe you will be! I also, you know, reviewed the remake. Spoiler alert: I liked it.

Chain Dive
Publisher: Sony | System: PS2 | Date: 2003

Whenever the subject of games that borrowed liberally from Bionic Commando comes up, someone always mentions Spider-man 2 for last gen’s consoles. Whatever! Yeah, you swung there, but there was no skill involved. Spidey could swing by using thin air as a grappling point, which is just silly. A much better representative of the Bionic Commando swing mechanic is a little-known and incredibly-hard-to-find-info-on PS2 game called Chain Dive.

Chain Dive is probably best described as the boss battle in the Sky Palace of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess transplanted into the futuristic city from Strider 2 and turned into an entire game. The levels are almost entirely aerial, with the hero grappling between tiny points and evading enemies by flinging himself from link to link. It’s very exhilarating, and kind of tough. But fun!

Too bad I gave away my copy, because it’s stupidly hard to find these days.

12 thoughts on “Go go bionic”

  1. “Yeah, you swung there, but there was no skill involved. Spidey could swing by using thin air as a grappling point, which is just silly.”

    You’re thinking of Spider-man. Like, 1. Spider-man 2 and every Spider-man game since requires buildings.

  2. I’ve played a demo of this that came with an OPM, I always wished it would reach the states, alas.

  3. I….had never even heard of Chain Dive. It actually sounds pretty neat…and now I have yet another game to add to my list of “sad it’s super hard to find”. But hey, maybe I’ll have something to keep an eye out for whenever a friend inevitably drags me into yet another Gamestop!

  4. Yeah, but that’s kind of a specious argument.

    In Spider Man 2, you do need some surface to grip, but you aren’t actually aiming for that surface. You kinda just slam the R2 button and hope you’re close enough to a building.

  5. OK, whatever, some Spider-man game was fun but not very technical. The end.

    Chain Dive never came to the U.S.! Sorry not to mention.

  6. Actually, I think OPM put Chain Dive on one of their demo disks, but added a reprehensible XX-minute-long time limit before the disk simply cut out back to the main menu (they did the same thing with Space Fisherman, too). Why they don’t simply toss an unhobbled version on PSN is beyond me.

  7. I wanna read the rest of that Bionic Commando fanfic from Retronauts… You could be the next F.X. Nine…. F.X. TEN? Ahahah Gold!

  9. So I just scanned e-Bay and found a few copies for under $40, which seems pretty reasonable for a PS2 import. Think it’s worth it, Parish?

  10. I think the confusion here is this; Spiderman 2 (the game, for the playstation) let you swing from the sky basically. there was no real finesse to the mechanics.

    HOWEVER!!

    Spiderman The Movie 2 (or 2 the movie) has some amazingly deep swing mechanics, very in the vein of Bionic commando, and you actually have to swing from objects. If you haven’t played it Parish, I urge you to play it and then subsequently put it on the list. You’ve got enough free time, right? Sure you do.

  11. I played the Chain Drive demo (that came with an issue OPM a few years ago) for hours and hours, that’s a game that I’d love to get my hands on.

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