Bionic technology can facilitate some amazing feats. It can produce a super-strong hand that lets you crush metal. Or mechanical legs that allow you to run a hundred metres in several seconds flat (and make strange "bwawawawah" noises into the bargain). Or, in the case of the Bionic Commando, it provides an arm that shoots out a nifty grappling hook.

The game take its inspiration from the 8-bit Nintendo title of the same name, released some twenty years ago. Whereas the eponymous commando once saved humanity and was hailed a hero, time passed and those with bionic implants became at first distrusted, then shunned. The Bionic wonder ended up on death row, although in this game he's offered a reprieve, provided he helps the powers-that-be. In a highly dangerous mission involving terrorists and nukes, naturally.

Bionic Commando is a third person shooter, and a port over to the PC which shows its console roots. For instance, in the tutorial the Xbox joypad buttons are displayed rather than the keys, although this isn't much of a problem. At least the menu is a slick, mouse-operated affair, and the graphics are good enough if you crank the resolution up (albeit suffering from repetitious textures and architecture in places).

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It's actually a pretty straightforward 3D shooter, but for one clever and compelling addition; the commando's arm. The bionic appendage can attach its grappling hook to any suitable surface or object, be it a rock face, road sign or lamppost, and your momentum can be directed to swing and propel yourself further. The game could be dubbed a third person swinger, in fact, if it weren't for the unfortunate connotations that phrase evokes.

Impressive chains of multiple swings can be strung together, allowing our hero to soar through the post-apocalyptic streets like some kind of cybernetic Tarzan. And whipping through the air in such fashion is much fun, and easy to pull off thanks to the simple and intuitive controls. One minute you'll be scaling a skyscraper with giant grapple leaps, the next taking a stomach churning plunge off the top of the building, saving yourself from certain death with a deftly aimed, last second grapple onto a jutting-out flagpole.

The physics of swinging about are just cool to play around with, and we found ourselves chuckling away even when the unfortunate happened. Such as getting our line accidentally tangled around a traffic light in the midst of a town square filled with snipers, suspending ourselves as a sitting (well, dangling) duck whose back was swiftly filled with holes.

The arm isn't merely for aerial acrobatics, mind. It can be used in melee to whack people into the air, rip doors from their hinges, or pick up rocks and even cars to fling them at enemies. It's also a tin opener and food blender (no self respecting half-metal chef should be without one).

There's a large number of offensive moves available to the commando, far more than the few we've just mentioned, and experimenting with these is as entertaining as high speed swinging. And as easy, too, with the HUD clearly displaying context sensitive controls to let the player know exactly how to pull off any given move.

The danger with Bionic Commando is that 'easy' morphs into 'a bit too facile' in some respects. There's never much thinking required, and the action runs very much on linear rails, with the game forbidding wandering around or exploring by making most areas irradiated. Any puzzle elements that do crop up generally have very obvious solutions: a glowing rock, a cracked looking wall, wonder what has to happen here? It's not exactly the Krypton Factor.

A further weakness is the enemy AI. While soldiers do attempt to take cover, and are something of a challenge in numbers, the boss mechs and helicopters that should provide a really tough fight generally act fairly dumb. Once you've figured out the basic tactic to use against a boss, and that's usually quite obvious, they're not too tricky to dispatch.

As for the multiplayer, it's pretty much a disaster area. The lobby system is crudely put together with only a basic level of functionality, but the real problem is the regular occurence of disconnects. Almost every time we tried to join a game, we were disconnected at the start. The two deathmatches we did manage to partake of were so laggy they were unplayable (on 8MB ADSL). At the moment, the online play seems broken and in serious need of patching.

While Bionic Commando doesn't reach the heights it perhaps should have, it remains a likeable third person shooter with a neat control system. As for the single player difficulty, you can always stick the game on 'hard' and attempt to take on the extra tasks, namely picking up all the collectibles and completing every single challenge. The latter are mini-objectives that pop up - for example to kill ten enemies with a single grenade - and success unlocks useful goodies such as weapon and armour upgrades.

The swinging is definitely a winning addition to the shooter formula, and the slick and simple control scheme helps the player get into it quickly, too. Bionic Commando is definitely worth playing, but the game falls short of its full potential.