Bionic Due is not only a necessary purchase for all true rogue-clone fans, but it’d easily be a pride-worthy addition to the game collection of anyone with even a remote interest in this sort of thing. This game is a great laugh and a good challenge; Arcen Games, hat’s off to you chaps.
Beneath Bionic Dues’ bland appearance lies a thoroughly engrossing strategy game, one which deserves to be played by anyone with a keyboard, a mouse, and a hankering for blowing up evil mechs.
I've played a lot of games like Diablo, XCOM etc etc but this game... THIS GAME keeps me coming back for more! I have not played a game this fun in a LONG LONG time! Kudos to Arcen Games for a brilliantly realized game
One of the best and most creative games I have played in a long time. If you like rogue-likes or turn based strategy games you will love this. The mission variation is fantastic and and the meta game of trying to choose which mission to do next and trying to decide when to fight the final battle adds tension to the already tense and fun dungeon crawls. Add to that a great sound track and tons of customization options with procedurally generated loot and you have a very very good game.
A solid game, that gives you an engaging and deep tactical experience. There's not a ton of replayability, though, unless you're deeply into grinding and you tolerate some repetitiveness.
Arcen's latest delivers an undeniable rush of triumph once you manage to overcome the final confrontation. Most times you'll fail, however, but if you're not put off by the limitations of the presentation and the sheer brutality of Bionic Dues' challenges, you'll find an enjoyable roguelike that rewards your persistence and determination.
At its best, with its dystopian future and haphazard revolution, Bionic Dues feels like a Games Workshop game that never was. At its worst it’s like being submerged in a swimming pool of dice and calculator printouts.
On first impressions when I started playing this game, I wasn't too impressed. The difficulty seemed all over the place, there were a lot of numbers and stats everywhere, and things were confusing. But, if you stay on and keep playing, you eventually start to get a hang of it. There is a bit of a learning curve here, but the game has a very nice tactical depth to it and can be loads of fun.
Upon starting a new game, you get to select your preferred pilot and 4 mechs/exosuits. Each pilot has a bonus perk of some sort, and each mech has its own strengths and weaknesses, some being more offensively based, others more to do with support stuff, like hacking and stealth. So it's up to you to pick your preferred team.
The campaign itself has a simple concept - a robot army is going to attack your HQ in 50 days. Do whatever you can to prepare yourself for this attack. Each mission you do in the city counts as a day. You can go for missions where you find shiny new gear for your mechs to make them stronger, or you can go for missions which weaken the enemy and slow their expansion. The best thing is, you can see on a side of a screen the details of what units currently comprise the enemy army, so you can see how it is affected after every mission you do.
The missions themselves take a form of a randomly-generated dungeon with tile-based movement. You can swap between your mechs at will, but doing so counts as a turn, so you have to be very careful in your advance. It is very easy to make a wrong move and to have several enemies on you at once. Both, your units and enemy units, might feel like glass cannons. You could kill an enemy in 1-2 shots, but so can they! So you have to utilise tactics to outsmart them - use range or perhaps area of effect weapons, or even just pull back and surprise them around the corner. You can even deploy sentry turrets to help you in firefights if you've got any available.
And in between missions you can customize your mechs with the loot found. The customization is very rich and detailed. Each mech has several slots where gear can fit in, ranging from weapons, to shields, to propulsion systems. It can feel overwhelming at first because there are a lot of things on the screen, but you do get used to it, and everything in the game has a description if you're unsure what something is.
Speaking of descriptions, they're fantastic. Everything has an edge of humour in it. When you hover over an enemy, an object, or anything else in-game, you see a bit of funny flavour text about it.
The music is also amazing. I first got interested in the game when I've heard its main theme, which is very beautiful with great vocals, but even the tracks that play during missions are also great.
I've been enjoying the game so far and started a new campaign already. I would highly suggest to play the first game on an Easy or Casual difficulty level to get familiar with the game. After that, the higher difficulty levels don't seem as bad anymore.
Great game. Highly recommended for fans of tactics-based games.
A fun and addictive little game. The interface is easy and straightforward as long as the option for mouse movement is NOT selected (If it is, then placing mines and turrets at a specific location is a nightmare). The game is eminently feasible at normal even on the first try. No cheat required. The ability to save when ever you wish is a big plus. There is a lot of replay ability value as your strategy will need to change depending on the lead character you select and the robot team you select. So why nine and not ten? Well, some missions are somewhat repetitious and, once you found the right tactic, there is much less challenge. Anyway, highly recommended specially when, like me, you can get the game at a discount ($5 on GOG!).
For all its RPG elements, I never finished this game got bored after 15 missions or so. The main problem with this game is horrible AI. There's only so many rooms of dumb robots I can blow up before starting to look elsewhere.
Overall game idea? Excellent. AI? ABYSMAL. Music/Art? Bargain bin anime level. If you're a fan of tactical games like X-Com, FFT, FTL, etc. or mech games like Armored Core, this game will have appeal to you off the bat. DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT. Got bored after 10-15 missions.
SummaryBionic Dues has players guiding multiple classes of Exos through a variety of missions filled with enemy robots that are as buggy as they are angry.