Tech Olive

Bio Menace was one of the many games that I played as a youngling. It was one of those games that spawned in the 90s when the entertainment industry was enamored with gritty, bullet-proof hero-with-bad-guy tendencies that have awesome names like Snake, Ace, Maverick, Duke, Bunny and so on.

Built on the Commander Keen engine, Bio Menace never did much of anything new or radical, but it managed to grab my heart in my early days of gaming and for that, I honor it today with a Retro Review. Bio Menace is a fairly standard side-scroller that follows a mullet-wearing, CIA-employed bundle of manliness by the name of Snake Logan who must save Metro City from the mutant invasion being led by the obligatory evil Dr. Mangle.

Boss fights aside, each level has you jumping around platforms, trees, buildings and laboratories while killing all manner of brightly-colored mutants as you struggle to free the captive humans in each level. These hostages hold the keys to each level’s exit. While the game didn’t get great reviews, it still somehow captured the mind of my much younger self and that, my friends, is what nostalgia is all about.

Apogee actually released the full game for free back in 2005. So, if you want to give it a shot, have at it.