Bionic Battle Mutants

[Lord_Potato]

Did any of you guys played it?

It's quite a fun tactical RPG about a band of space criminals sent to a privately owned prison planet and forced to fight each other for the enjoyment of the masses - their combats are being broadcasted by a galactic TV network. The story is very barebones and reminiscent of the 1987 action movie "The Running Man" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the aesthetics and general vibe is also that of the 80s, while the gameplay is old school 90s tactics. Somewhat between (much simplified) Ufo: Enemy Unknown and Jagged Alliance 2.

You start with one predefined character, but quickly build a team of local misfits. Some will join you for free, others for cash. Your squad, from which you will deploy from 2 up to 4 soldiers for each mission, will be supported by a scientist developing new drugs and mutagens, and a technician building cyber implants, bionic body parts, and upgrading gear. But before they start working for you, first you must find and liberate them! These are just 2 of more than two dozen missions that form the single-player campaign (with a bit of branching and non-linearity). There is also multi-player mode in which two players can wage battles with teams numbering up to 6 troops.

The meat of the game is of course tactical, turn-based combat in various isometric locations, representing dilapidated towns, shady bars, secret laboratories, gloomy caverns, and mysterious excavation sites. All the typical elements: action points, line of sight, a chance to hit, different modes of shooting, kneeling for better aim, using cover, and interacting with the environment are implemented here and together create some pretty challenging combat encounters. Fortunately, if the next mission is too tough, you can grind a bit in special arenas, where your squad defend against waves of enemies or competes with another team controlled by AI. Missions are varied: sometimes the aim is to rescue a hostage, protect your base, gather resources, capture a strong point or simply kill all enemies on the map. They can also be completed as many times as you want so true perfectionists may try to get their perfect run of every encounter. The only weak part of these encounters is a limited selection of enemies: your team (guys in blue) will always fight other criminals (guys in red), mutants (green) or cyborgs (grey). While you sometimes find carcasses of enormous monsters than once inhabited the prison planet, you never have the opportunity to fight them, which IMO is a missed opportunity.

As the title suggests, Bionic Battle Mutants provide many tools to develop your squad. Soldiers gather experience, and upon gaining levels their primary statistics can be improved and additional skills selected. But they can also be mutated (different types of tiered mutagens add additional bonuses, like health point regeneration) and enhanced with cyber implants. In the course of battles, they may lose limbs, but these may be regrown with the use of proper chemicals. Even dead characters can be brought back to life with the right artifacts. All these modifications not only change their fighting capabilities but also influence their looks, sometimes in a quite dramatic manner.

Apart from mutagens and bionic body parts soldiers also use their gear. There's not much of it - 4 basic types of weapons (pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, machine guns), 3 types of armor (light, medium and heavy), but they can all be altered with a wide selection of mods. Each soldier can also be equipped with different types of combat drugs (offering additional action points, armor class or regenerating health) and grenades (frag, smoke, teargas, poison).

All in all, it's a somewhat limited, but enjoyable experience. Unapologetically old-school, sometimes quite challenging, with a great atmosphere and nice pixel-art visuals. The game does not overstay its welcome (full single-player campaign with some grinding took me around 9 hours) but it's also cheap and often on sale on Steam. I may recommend it to fans of tactical RPGs, just don't expect another Jagged Alliance 2. It's much less ambitious, but still offers good fun.

 

[Saduj]

I played this a while ago and some of my recollections my not be entirely accurate. I remember playing the same maps more than once and that the ones that were challenging were only challenging the first time you play them. I was definitely grinding too much because I wanted to see all the upgrades and whatnot. The impression it gave me was that the developers really intended people to play multi-player, which seemed like a pipe dream given the lack of marketing, basic graphics, etc. They would have been much better off focusing on fleshing out the campaign with more and increasingly difficult missions and some additional combat options. The only way a game like this would have had any kind of player base for multi-player is if the single player campaign made it a cult hit first. It seemed to me like the SP campaign was there so that players could build up a party for MP.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I played this a while ago and some of my recollections my not be entirely accurate. I remember playing the same maps more than once and that the ones that were challenging were only challenging the first time you play them. I was definitely grinding too much because I wanted to see all the upgrades and whatnot. The impression it gave me was that the developers really intended people to play multi-player, which seemed like a pipe dream given the lack of marketing, basic graphics, etc. They would have been much better off focusing on fleshing out the campaign with more and increasingly difficult missions and some additional combat options. The only way a game like this would have had any kind of player base for multi-player is if the single player campaign made it a cult hit first. It seemed to me like the SP campaign was there so that players could build up a party for MP.

Yes, it seems like they hoped for multi-player to become a thing but there were too few people to get it off the ground.

If you grind in the sp campaign every mission ultimately gets possible to overcome - you simply become powerful enough to tackle it. However if you try to play without too much grinding some missions offer tactical challenge. There was one of the final missions I tried like 10 times, sometimes getting very near completion, but always getting defeated before that. In the end I surrendered and did some more arena runs before returning with better gear, bionic body parts, and additional experience level. But I'm sure that with more patience and a bit more good will from the gods of RNG I could have done it without the grind.

 

[Saduj]

However if you try to play without too much grinding some missions offer tactical challenge. There was one of the final missions I tried like 10 times, sometimes getting very near completion, but always getting defeated before that.

Yeah, that's where I guess I ruined it for myself. If I couldn't pass a mission, I would grind a bit before trying again and then it would become easy. From what I remember, everything in the game comes from one (maybe two?) generic resource. Harder maps give more but early maps become very easy to just fly through in a minute or so. So grinding becomes easier and quicker as the game goes on and the temptation was just too great for someone of my limited willpower.

 

[Galdred]

I played this a while ago and some of my recollections my not be entirely accurate. I remember playing the same maps more than once and that the ones that were challenging were only challenging the first time you play them. I was definitely grinding too much because I wanted to see all the upgrades and whatnot. The impression it gave me was that the developers really intended people to play multi-player, which seemed like a pipe dream given the lack of marketing, basic graphics, etc. They would have been much better off focusing on fleshing out the campaign with more and increasingly difficult missions and some additional combat options. The only way a game like this would have had any kind of player base for multi-player is if the single player campaign made it a cult hit first. It seemed to me like the SP campaign was there so that players could build up a party for MP.

Yes, it seems like they hoped for multi-player to become a thing but there were too few people to get it off the ground.

If you grind in the sp campaign every mission ultimately gets possible to overcome - you simply become powerful enough to tackle it. However if you try to play without too much grinding some missions offer tactical challenge. There was one of the final missions I tried like 10 times, sometimes getting very near completion, but always getting defeated before that. In the end I surrendered and did some more arena runs before returning with better gear, bionic body parts, and additional experience level. But I'm sure that with more patience and a bit more good will from the gods of RNG I could have done it without the grind.

Yes! I remember playing the game in SP(and playing every map iirc), then trying MP, and finding no one to play with.
The core of the game is nice, but it lacks content for SP(maps and opponents are fixed, so not really replayable), and players for MP.

I checked: I finished the solo missions, and played a bit of the random ones, but they were too long and without enough variety to keep coming back to the game. I had a good time with the game, and wished there was more to play, but it looks like the devs didn't survive the launch.