ast Wednesday, Capcom unveiled the first sequel to Bionic Commando in 20 years, and we had the opportunity to talk at length with Capcom Japan’s producer Ben Judd about this unique project. In Part I of our interview Judd reviewed his history at Capcom, and what led to him becoming the producer on the title. How exactly does one go from localization to a full blown producer? Why bring back Bionic Commando to begin with? While most would think that it’s not a big deal for a non-Japanese person to become a producer on a title for a Japanese developer, find out what kind of opposition Judd faced from the outset. Spanning a time period of four years, hear the trials and tribulations that faced this project that actually was supposed be a 2D PSP title instead of a full-blown console game.

Today we're posting part II of our interview with Judd as he talks about refreshing this franchise, and how to do that with the newer gamer considering it's been 20 years since the original games hit. Are they showing the game too early? How truly innovative is a swing mechanic since Spider-Man has been swingin' for years?  Capcom's Ben Judd answers all this and much more in the final portion of our in-depth interview.

Game Informer: When a franchise is so old that a lot of people that are playing video games now weren’t even born to see the original, how do you resonate what that series was to those people?

Ben Judd: I don’t think that you can, to be honest. There is a clear-cut split with gamers that started pre-PlayStation. I think PlayStation is a clear-cut gaming landmark, period. If you were to talk to me, who played 8-bit frustrating Ghouls and Ghosts when a damned Red Devil would come down and sweep and kill you—ahhhhh!—you’d throw the controller, pick it back up and keep trying. We know what truly hard, hard games are. People that started with PlayStation can save whenever they want to, have easy controls, tutorials, whatever. They don’t know what truly hard games are. They’re used to having it handed to them in a lot of different ways. So, since Bionic Commando was a title that was 8-bit back in the hard day, I think were going to have two different types of people that know about it. You’re going have people in their high 20s or 30s who played it, or you’re going to have people who played it on an emulator, because it’s going to have been mentioned here or there. Other than that people will not know about it.

Just seeing some of the feedback from when we announced the game, I think people are impressed by the hype, and some of the different ideas about the game make sense, so they’re willing to pick it up even though they know nothing about the original game world. I don’t want to necessarily compare it to the Transformers movie, but I think that Michael Bay with that was in a very similar boat because he wanted to appeal to the fans and make sure that that 10 percent or whatever was going to support the film, but also redesign the thing so that people who didn’t know the Transformers at all–families, mothers, whatever–could come to the film. That was his goal, I’m sure, when he made that movie. So, we have to make sure that the story, as fanfare that the fans of the original will feel that it’s Bionic Commando. Yet, be polished and next-gen, and pushing enough envelopes that people who don’t’ know Bionic Commando at all can look at it and say, “Those are damn good graphics, that seems like a cool concept, I want to try this out.” That’s the goal.

GI: The original game was very difficult. Are you thinking of having a difficulty level to make it as hard as it was back in the day?

Judd: In the 3D version? Hell no! The thing is, even though you and I are old-school gamers and know exactly what some of that pain was all about, we wouldn’t want to experience it again. We had Ultimate Ghouls and Ghosts, and they had a very difficult option in there. And that’s great for selling it to the retro gamers. “Look how hard it is.” When a person really sits down and tries to play that and those old frustrations come back, they’re going to find that they’ve been softened over the last 10 years of games and how easy they’ve become. They don’t have the thick skin that they used to, and they’re going to give up a hell of a lot sooner.

GI: Some might argue, “Oh, big deal, we’ve been playing Spider-Man for a long time.” What’s going to separate Bionic Commando from that game?

Judd: And of course, when we were developing this–Spider-Man 1 and Spider-Man 2–they’re not bad games. Spider-Man 2 I liked a lot, to be honest. So high-five to that team, and credit to that team for being the first team to do that swing mechanic. I think Spider-Man 1 had fixed swing points, Spider-Man 2 had you swinging into the air–to the sky. Neither of those solutions is satisfying, because fixed swing points mean you can’t really go where you want to. With 2, you can go where you want to, but it doesn’t make logical sense because it’s just connecting onto anything, so it’s more of a rhythm thing than anything else. I think the wire mechanic we’ve come up with, if it’s a surface you can connect to, you can aim for it, go there. It’s skill based, yet there’s enough of a slight auto-aim so that you feel that it’s not extremely frustrating. You’re able to connect, you’re able to catch yourself if you fall. I think we have found the near perfect blend of giving the player freedom to go where they want to instead of forcing them to go to fixed points. While still making it easy enough with the controller, the rhythmic swinging through the stages. And of course, Spider-Man does not have a rocket launcher. If Spidey could use guns and do head shots with a sniper rifle, he’d be a bad mo-fo. (laughs)

GI: You seem rather coy on the multiplayer elements, are there multiplayer elements?

Judd: What can I say about multiplayer elements? I can say this again, at this time, and this is the same sentence I keep going back to. I’m a big fan, and I will make this series succeed. There are certain expectations for next-gen, people are going to expect to be in there. We have planned things out very carefully.