izigame.me

Bionic Bay is a game built around an engine that has the most potential I have ever seen. Its movement is buttery smooth, the graphical capabilities are beautiful, and the game mechanics within it feel effortless to use. But this game refuses to go beyond the surface of what it can achieve.

While the movement is incredible, the level design never allows it to shine. The few moments when you are pushed along a straight line, dodging lasers and obstacles at breakneck speed, were frustratingly only two 30-second-long portions of a 5-hour experience. Instead, most of the game is spent methodically climbing up jagged edges and across tiny platforms. If you are ever given a moment to run, it is soon cut short before any momentum can be built up.

The number of mechanics introduced in this game is mind-boggling. Nearly every 10 minutes an entirely new object or mechanic gets used, then immediately thrown away, never to be seen again. Obstacles that jump when you do, pneumatic tubes, time-slowing light, anti-gravity fluid you can jump off of; just a few of the many mechanics that are introduced for 10-minute periods and then never touched again. Some lucky mechanics do come back: bouncing lasers and freeze rays are all frequent throughout each level by a certain point, but these are only two of the tens of mechanics that should build off of one another. All of these mechanics seem to be able to work with one another well, but Bionic Bay instead drops them the second they get interesting. Any reviews you see talking about how the game is "padded" are not because too few mechanics exist to fill the space but because they are simply just underutilized, leading to repetitive gameplay.

The player’s abilities are amazing. The game is 90% about the swap mechanic, which is good! I’m glad they devoted enough time to fully explore what you can do with it. But Bionic Bay introduces 3 other abilities only used in 4 levels, and never all together. The ingenuity that the swap, gravity change, time stop, and power glove abilities could achieve if used all at once creates endless possibilities. Any talented level designer could create an incredible experience using any combination of the 4, but this game leaves no time for that, ending just as you have the chance to see how each ability could work together. The swap ability, time stop, and power glove specifically could do amazing things together, creating the greatest momentum-puzzle game ever.


Finally, the story. It's good! The atmosphere and teaspoons of lore you get are incredibly intriguing. But I constantly just wanted moreeee. You can go hours in this game without encountering any actual story moments simply because they are spread so far apart from one another. With such an amazing basis, I wish every level had the scientists you find around the facility that give you that desperately wanted info. Also, the camera almost always refuses to zoom out. You get the sense you are in an area that is seemingly endless and fit for a giant, but the camera is only ever directly locked into your character. There were one or two moments where the camera zoomed out on a large set piece, but once again it was far too little for how much potential this game has to take advantage of the amazing art it has. Even when it did zoom out, it never did during gameplay. The second I moved, it came right back to me. Let me feel like an ant crawling up these mountains of machines!

This game is good. Beyond all my complaints, I deeply enjoyed my experience. But this is a 6/10 game resting on the potential of GOTY. I deeply implore the devs to add a level editor of some kind. The pure puzzles or platforming challenges that could be made out of this engine are limitless. Leaving this engine trapped behind this game, good as it is, would simply be a disservice to the many full games that could be made on the back of this game.

Play this game, enjoy it. Let yourself be lost in its atmosphere and tight controls. I fully recommend it, because it is good, but it could be incredible.