So Bionic Commando’s levels are a tangle of pipes, branches, rock faces and all manner of other environmental detail just waiting to be swung from. They’re self-contained obstacle-courses rather than fleshed-out missions, and prevent all-out exploration through being largely linear – the only impression of freedom comes with picking out the route to the next waypoint, though even this is more a case of trial and error. The world feels cohesive, but your role in it is stripped to the bare essentials: defeat enemies, disable a floating minefield, use minefield to get to the next area.

That the game doesn’t descend into inane repetition is remarkable, and testament to just how well implemented the simple pleasures of combat and evasion, of running and gunning, are. Though on paper the controls are simple – one button keeps the arm attached to the hook/surface, while the stick controls your movement back and forth – there’s certainly a period of adjustment to be had. Once you get the knack for swinging, and the success to be gleaned from working on timing and visually judging distances, it’s a pleasure. In keeping with the prominent arcade heritage GRIN aren’t exactly forgiving, but given a chance Bionic Commando soon takes on its own unique, gruelling momentum.

Those aforementioned features could all easily have tipped into annoyance and damning negatives – and for some players (we suspect the majority) they will. After all, it doesn’t hold your hand in the same way as, say, last year’s Prince of Persia game, and there are certain sections where the balance between the enemies and controls takes a turn for the worse (Nathan also has an irritating habit of drowning in what appear to be puddles). Visually it doesn’t even try and compete. Whilst you could never accuse the game of being ugly – there are some wonderful lighting effects and distant vistas that, we imagine, communicate strongly the experience of swinging through a post-nuclear city – there is something refreshingly lo-fi about the way it looks. Refreshing because, in our current age of rapid graphical progress, here is a game that appears to be intentionally stepping out of the race.

It’s this intention and lack of compromise that is Bionic Commando’s saving grace, a game that seems to acknowledge the current state of the industry whilst pretending that none of it – the photo-realism, the open worlds – is actually happening. To set Bionic Commando against any of the current and forthcoming crop of superlative action games (inFamous, Uncharted 2) would be unfair and slightly missing the point. It’s a game that, in nearly every way, refuses easy comparisons. A flawed, yet incredibly enjoyable, history lesson.

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