Bio Nick 2

Bio Nick 2

Bio Nick 2 is a native Windows port of Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 (XBLA, "World" release). The game's Xbox 360 code is statically recompiled to x64 Windows code. It runs on a Direct3D 11 renderer with the original game's assets, which you supply yourself.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with a Direct3D 11 capable GPU. No Visual C++ redistributable is needed.

• Your own copy of the game file: the XBLA "World" release of Bionic Commando Rearmed 2. It is usually named 52F33688A9A36ABD078C31F43611F166352655B958, has no extension, and is about 1.41 GB. Its checksums are:

  Hash	Value
  SHA-256	22fdb63f0fef1aa948d15db130868113f59c43bd9fc35515fe74d65613b44fbe
  SHA-1	162c25adea84fdc8534808ee0e2560bb0f7f2bcd
  MD5	24a9cfc28ff5546e202aa07e40fd3923

• An Xbox-style (XInput) controller is optional. Keyboard and mouse are supported.

First run

Run bcr2.exe. If the game has not been unpacked yet, you will be asked to browse for the file above. It is checked against the SHA-256, unpacked into a game folder beside the exe (about 1.5 GB), and you are then offered to start the game. The first start compiles the game's shaders, which takes a short while. Later runs go straight to the game, and the original file is no longer needed.

Files created next to bcr2.exe

Path	Contents
game\	The unpacked game (basefile.bin, extracted_out\)
saves\	Your save data
bcr2.ini	Settings, written by the in-game menus
shadercache\	Compiled shaders
screenshots\	F12 screenshots (PNG)
_debug_logs\, _debug_capture\	Only with --log

Keep assets\ and shader_manifest.txt beside the exe.

Keys

Key	Action
F12	Save a screenshot to screenshots\
F11 or Alt+Enter	Toggle windowed and borderless fullscreen
F9	Only with --log: save the last 3 seconds of frames and draw lists to _debug_capture\f9_<frame>\

Keyboard defaults for the actions: Jump Right Shift, Extend Arm Space, Fire Numpad 0, Upgrade E, Next/Previous weapon Page Down / Page Up, Cycle Active upgrade Delete, Biovision Numpad 1, Cycle Passive upgrade End. In menus: arrow keys or W/A/S/D, Enter to confirm, Esc or Backspace to go back. All of these can be rebound under Help & Options > Controls.

In-game options (Help & Options > Settings)

Graphics Settings (display mode, internal resolution, render resolution, vsync, texture filtering, antialiasing, FPS display, gamma), Controls (press-to-assign pad buttons and keys), button labels (Xbox, PlayStation or Switch), Disable Jump, God Mode, Skip Splash Screens, Swap Confirm & Cancel, and a Music Test. Changes to internal or render resolution need a restart, which the game offers to do. Achievements and Leaderboards are not available in this port and are hidden.

Command line

bcr2.exe [--log]
bcr2.exe --extract <package file> <output folder>
bcr2.exe [--log] <basefile.bin> <game content folder>

Option	Meaning
(no arguments)	Normal start. Uses the game folder next to the exe, running the first-run setup if it is missing.
--log	Turn on logging. The log is written to _debug_logs\bcr2_<date>_<time>.log beside the exe. Also enables shader recording into shader_manifest.txt and the F9 capture. Off by default; without it nothing is logged. May be placed anywhere on the command line.
--extract <package> <outdir>	Unpack the game from the package without starting it. Writes <outdir>\basefile.bin and <outdir>\extracted_out\. Exit code 0 on success, 1 on failure, 2 for bad usage, 3 if the unpacked program image is not the one this build was made for.
<basefile.bin> <content folder>	Advanced: start with files in other locations, such as an unpacked game kept elsewhere.

bcr2.ini

Normally edited through the in-game menus; you can also edit it by hand while the game is closed.

Key	Values (default first)
display	window, borderless (an old fullscreen value is treated as borderless)
scale	auto, 1, 2, 3, 4
outres	auto, 720, 1080, 1440, 2160
vsync	on, off
filter	default, bilinear, trilinear, aniso2, aniso4, aniso8, aniso16
aa	off, fxaa, fxaahigh
fps	off, on
gamma	100 (50 to 150, percent)
buttons	xbox, playstation, switch
nojump, god, skipsplash, swapconfirm	off, on
b_<action>	The pad input for an action: a b x y lb rb lt rt l3 r3
k_<action>	The key or mouse button for an action, such as key_space or mouse_left

Actions are jump, arm, fire, upgrade, next, prev, cycleact, biovision and cyclepas.

Known issues

• On the Robot Factory level, boxes on the background conveyor belt sometimes pop in or out. The cause is not found yet.

AI Disclosure

AI coding tools were used in developing and debugging this port. My focus has been on matching the original game as closely as possible while comparing builds with hardware and emulated references, identifying discrepancies, testing gameplay and prioritizing fixes.

The project uses the original game assets from the player's own Xbox 360 copy. No original game files are included, and the game’s code is not distributed in its original form.