The game, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is available for download for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. As with the Nintendo version the update is stripped of its original Nazi-referential storyline. The original game had players attempting to stop an evil army trying to resurrect Adolph Hitler in order to get him to complete his superweapon. Instead you face off against the forces of Generalissimo Killt in a two-pronged quest: rescue Super Joe and stop Master-D (instead of Hitler).

Along with the expected graphical update there are some changes to the gameplay, some of which are extremely welcome. The biggest improvement is that players no longer need to kill enemies and collect ‘bullets’ to extend their health meter. This often led to some frustration in the original because you started the game with a single health point; get hit once and you snuffed it. That leads to the other part: continues.

As in the original game you choose your level by telling your helicopter pilot where to go on a map divided into squares of interest. Some are enemy bases, others are neutral territories you can go to get equipment or information. As you fly from one place to another there are trucks driving around the map. Cross paths with one of them and you’re taken to a top-down battle where you have to battle your way through soldiers in order to destroy an AA gun at the end. In the NES version these battles were helpful because enemies would occasionally drop continues when dispatched and since the trucks never ran out you had an avenue for getting as many continues as you needed. To eliminate the tedium of having to go through these repetitive battles they gave you infinite continues. Unfortunately they didn’t get rid of the battles themselves, replacing useful tedium with useless tedium. It’s not very easy to avoid the trucks either as contrary to real-world logic they move faster than your helicopter.

Other than that one difference pretty much all the changes are for the better. In the original game before heading into a level you had to choose the equipment you were going to bring along, including a ‘communicator chip’ which came in several colors. These communicators were essential as certain doors in the levels were only unlocked when you went to a certain room and put in a call to your people. Go to a level with the wrong communicator and you get nothing but gibberish. Now you essentially carry all communicator chips you have at once and the game doesn’t let you into a level without the proper communicator chip. Likely there’s some die-hard fan out there who won’t like this, but it saves a lot of time and frustration.

The bosses have been changed from the original version and are generally pretty easy to defeat once you figure out the trick. Each boss has a weakness of some kind and you can find this out in the communicator rooms via a hacking mini-game which is new. It’s simple enough to not be frustrating and infrequently used enough to not become tedious.

If you’ve played the original before the game doesn’t necessarily offer anything new beyond some new secrets to collect and challenge rooms to test your bionic arm navigation abilities, but it’s still got the same solid gameplay as the original.

Noting high Metacritic ratings, Judd explained that the title is a “friggin JUGGERNAUT” in the digital distribution realm and that “consumers voted with their dollars”.

He added, “Basically, we have set a standard in digital gaming. The bar has been raised and you have let developers around the world know that if they invest the time, money, and heart into making (and remaking) some great games, you will support that initiative.”

The game was released on August 10 on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade for $10 and on PC for $15. It was going to be released on Steam, but was pulled at the last moment; it can be downloaded from other digital distribution sites.

“At the last minute, we’ve been unable to reach mutually agreeable terms with Valve on BCR, so they won’t be carrying it,” wrote company corporate officer Christian Svensson on their message boards. “I won’t get into the details but we do continue to have a good relationship with Valve and future Capcom titles we expect to be carried on Steam.”

The game is already available on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network; PC gamers can grab it from Direct2Drive and GamersGate.

The rooms will be added via a free patch that will be released soon. “You will get more bang for your buck,” notes Judd.

Rearmed is an enhanced remake of the old-school swinging platformer. It is debuting on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, with the console editions priced at $9.99 and the PC at $14.99.

The Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network releases will come August 13. The XBLA version will be priced at 800 Microsoft points and the PSN version $9.99. The PC version will be a bit expensive, coming in at $14.99; it will be available on Steam, Direct2Drive and other digital download sites.

Reviews can be expected early next week.