Welcome to the fourteenth episode of 23 Endings: The Early Years, the show where we put old school video game endings into proper context. Put down that game controller and grab your grappling hook, because Super Joe needs your help. Today we're going to find out which Bionic Commando ending is best -- Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy or arcade. Find out now when you watch today's episode of 23 Endings: The Early Years!


Launched in arcades back in 1987, Bionic Commando was initially sold as a follow-up to the overhead shoot 'em up Commando. You took control of Super Joe as he parachuted behind enemy lines and used his grappling hook to infiltrate the enemy base and foil the army's plot to launch a missile. We don't really get a lot of details setting this up, we just know that it takes place a decade after an unspecified World War and requires a hero with a special set of skills.

This arcade game is short and only features four brief levels. We start out in a forest flooded with guards. This makes way for the enemy outpost, followed by an underground base. It all leads to a final confrontation with this giant computer, which leads into a frantic race to escape the compound in one piece. Here's what happens if you do all this correctly.

Okay, it's not the world's most satisfying ending, but it reminds us that we simply played a small part in a much larger war. It leaves it open ended and encourages you to restart the game from the beginning to earn a higher score. In other words, it's an arcade game from the mid-1980s. This is what you get.

When it comes to the 1988 NES port, you can go ahead and forget about the arcade story. Capcom decided to completely retool the home version, giving us brand new characters and a completely different story. This time around we find Super Joe captured after attempting to infiltrate Generalissimo Killt's base in order to uncover a top secret project known as "Albatros." Now it's up to Nathan "Ladd" Spencer to swoop in and not only save Super Joe, but figure out what the evil Nazz group is planning.

Long story short, Spencer fights through all kinds of stages and eventually infiltrates the Nazz base. It's here where he discovers that Generalissimo Killt has been keeping a brutal dictator named Master-D preserved in some sort of liquid and has been trying to bring him back to life. Now, here's where things start to get interesting. Remember how the instruction manual calls this group the Nazz, well Master-D looks an awful lot like a certain dictator that died on April 30, 1945. In fact, the likeness is so obvious that Capcom felt the need to change the group's name from Nazz to Badd inside the game. No matter what you call the evil army, it's pretty clear that this is Hitler.

So Spencer gets there just in time to see Generalissimo Killt resurrect Hitler ... I mean Master-D. We also learn that the top secret Albatros weapon has come online and our hero is going to need to take it down. This leads to a chance meeting with a fellow Federation soldier that has a bazooka waiting for Spence. The mission now is to jump towards the chopper, line up a shot, and then kill both Generalissimo Killt and Hitler before they escape. Here's how that works out.

With Nazz's leadership killed, it's up to Spencer to find his way out of the base before the whole thing blows up. Here's what happens next.

While everybody is excited that Spencer saved the day and rescued Super Joe, I want to go back to the moment when he blew up Hitler's head. It goes by so quickly, but this is easily one of the most gruesome endings I've ever seen on the Nintendo Entertainment System. It's so much that I'm a little surprised it made it past Nintendo's strict guidelines. Throw in the Hitler and Nazi stuff and it makes me wonder if anybody at Nintendo bothered playing to the end. But I did, and this iconic ending has stuck with me for close to thirty years.

Four years after NES owners fell in love with shooting Hitler in the face, Capcom decided to port the game to the handheld Game Boy. Instead of completely retooling the game (as they did when going from the arcade to NES), the developers simply changed the year, localization and changed some of the names. For example, Ladd Spencer became Rad Spencer and Generalissimo Killt's name was changed back to Director Wiseman, a reference to the original Famicom version. This brand new black and white Bionic Commando also found itself set in the future, giving Capcom the incentive to update some of the visuals and add more spiky hair.

But it's not the setting or the hairstyles that you're probably interested in, so let's jump to the very end and see if the blood and guts remain.

As you can see, Capcom ditched 8-bit Hitler. Sadly, they also got rid of the gory head explosion, opting instead for a bunch of sci-fi nonsense that isn't nearly as exciting or iconic as the NES game. That said, I like the animation on the exploding ship and some of the shots they have after it. This black and white ending isn't as memorable, but it's appropriately satisfying and pretty good for a Game Boy game.

Now let's talk about how "Rad" Spencer's wife ends up being locked away inside his bionic arm in the new game. On second thought, let's not.