Bionic Dues (PC) Review

The city is in peril! The robot revolution has finally taken place with robots usurping humanity across the land and leaving only a small pocket of mankind intact within the city. The corporate CEOs are threatening to nuke the city to stop the rebellion in its tracks. The few stragglers who survived the uprising are struggling to survive against the ever-growing horde, but all hope is not lost! Four exo suits have survived and, if they can quell the rebellion in 50 days or less, the city can survive!

Coming from such a relatively simple premise is an outright enjoyable and fun little game. The city is laid out in a series of missions with each mission completed opening pathways to other missions in a manner that won't really surprise anyone. In fact, the majority of Bionic Dues will not surprise anyone when it is laid out. There are multiple classes of exos, each with their own unique talents, equipment, and abilities. Some can carry more weapons, while others carry better computers, or are better at stealth, but it doesn't seem that stand-out on the whole.

What does Bonic Dues do so right, then? Something a lot of games neglect in their desire to be the next big game-changer: be fun. There are many different ways to tackle each level. Maybe the desire is to stealthily progress, blast through with massive AoE rockets, use more reliable lasers, or hack enemy robots to be under one's own command. Maybe there is the craving to stem the factory production to make the final battle against the bots easier, or ignore it for a bigger challenge. Maybe just kicking back and having fun on a casual or easy difficulty is preferred, or maybe being pushed to the limit is the better option. The game tries its best to accommodate all.

Surprisingly, despite being in a setting where grim-dark would be perfectly at home, Bionic Dues is rather light-hearted. The enemy robots can blunder around, apologising when they hit fellow allies, questioning why they were programmed to feel pain when they die, and it is quite pleasing to see that the game hasn't forgotten that the point of games is simply to have fun. Hats off to Arcen Games for remembering that!