Binary Domain

cover based third person shooter sci fi twist which feels polished with good controls. very cinematic lots of cutscene and story heavy. combat is mostly based around taking cover and popping out to shoot robots. its all a bit uninspired and boring feeling. the combat is a lot of holding down fire and pumping bullets into metal objects (robot enemies). you can buy upgrades and mostly the only thing you'll be doing is spamming firepower upgrades on your weapon and ignoring your squad for most of the game. theres not much to it. you can buy special stat upgrades but i barely cared or noticed a difference. upgrade system feels forced in and unfinished.

out of most enemy types i can think robots are the most dull. theyre just not that satisfying to fight. just a ton of machine gun fire and pew pew gunfights. the game is broken up by plenty of cutscenes and you're suppose to get to know the other members of the squad but they're slightly cookie cutter... its all a bit tongue in cheek and lighthearted and it is a nice break to the monotonous gunfights. you'd think a game so heavy around teammates would have a coop campaign? nope think again, its just solo with a terribly gimmick mic to control squad option, screw that.

you move objective to objective, mostly fighting waves of robots (of varying types?) triggering the next checkpoint, watching a cutscene... its standard third person shooting.

the mechanics feel fine, nothing too memorable. the gun fights can feel weightless and bullet spongy, atleast it gets better with upgrades but still isn't too exciting. you cant swap characters and you'll mostly be using Dan's machine gun 90% of the time. you can only buy 1 other weapon slot that cant be upgraded... its just well enough done where its slightly satisfying, and the cutscenes in between are a needed change of pace. maybe not worth playing twice, its not too long about 8 hours (including cutscene) there are boss fights which can be really tough and frustrating, and theyre kind of cool because of the scope of things (and the decent - to good graphic fidelity) other than those the game is mostly the same from beginning till end

was enjoyable while it lasted

7/10

Binary Domain is a 3rd person cover-based shooter set in futuristic Tokyo, circa 2080. The Amada Corporation have violated the New Geneva Convention by producing 'Hollow Children': robots which look identical to humans and are convinced they are human.

The 'Rust Crew' is sent to take the leader of Amada Corporation into custody. You play as Dan Marshall, accompanied by his trusty partner Big Bo, and later joined by a group of mercenaries. The characters aren't that likeable, but they do have much more personality than the ones in Gears of War. Binary Domain also has a much more interesting story driving it, so you are eager to play to see how the story pans out. As it goes, the ending is fantastic and is full of twists and moral dilemmas.

There's quite a lot of cut-scenes and dialog throughout the game. Most of the dialog is often cliché action banter, but is well presented. The overall look to the game is quite arcade-like, much like Alpha Protocol was, and it fits well alongside Sega's other published titles.

At certain points, you have to choose which two companions you want by your side for that section of the game. Each character specialises in a certain type of weapon, but your choice will mainly come down to personality. You do most of the shooting, but your team-mates do chip in with some kills, and are always prepared to come and revive you providing they have a health-pack available.

As you destroy your enemies, you are awarded with credits. You can then spend these at the shopping terminals which you find at regular intervals. You can purchase ammunition, gun upgrades and nano-tech. The nano-tech upgrades let you boost certain skills which gives the game a slight RPG element to it, although I don't think it makes a huge difference to the game-play.

Binary Domain essentially controls like Gears of War. You can snap to cover, hop between objects, and roadie-run to navigate the battlefield. Behind cover, you have the option to pop out and aim, or stay behind cover to blind fire with lower accuracy. In close combat, you can use your mêlée attack. D-pad switches between your equipped weapons. You have a stock machine gun, specific to Dan, a pistol with unlimited ammo, leaving you with two slots for a gun and grenade of your choice.

Shooting robots is refreshing since other games in the genre have used human or humanoid aliens as the enemies. The destructible nature of the robotic foes gives a satisfying feeling as appendages can be blown off separately. Robots with missing legs attempt to crawl towards you and will claw at your feet until you put them out of their misery. Robots with missing heads will wander aimlessly and can shoot their own kind.

Throughout the game, the action is varied to help keep it from becoming tedious. There's some chase sequences where you are shooting from moving vehicles, static turret sections and plenty of arena boss battles.

The bosses are huge robots that can often knock you down in one hit. The bosses are pretty varied in their design, so you need to apply different tactics to them. Sometimes you will have to hide behind cover, whereas others require a run-and-gun approach. They usually involve targeting weak spots, or destroying parts of their armour before taking them down.

The game has voice recognition support to give commands to your team-mates, or respond to their statements. This feature is entirely optional, and you can just use LB button to pop up dialog options mapped to the face buttons on the controller. You can tell your squad to retreat, cover you, charge, or wait whilst on the field.

The game also features a relationship system between you and your squad mates, which is affected by your actions during battle and your responses during each conversation. The idea is if you have a good relationship then they will obey your orders and provide extra dialog, but a bad relationship will mean they will be less helpful and ignore your commands. They will never abandon your team if they hate you though, and I don't think the relationship system has any impact on the story.

For the majority of the game, I was convinced I would give the game a 4/5. It's a good cover-based shooter with enough variety to keep you entertained. The story was interesting but I was afraid it wouldn't have a good conclusion. As it goes, the finale was well executed, delivering enough action and adding some plot twists to the mix. The characters started to show more emotion and personality as they are faced with moral dilemmas. This pushes the rating to a 4.5/5.

Binary Domain is a game that shows that japanese developers can reign in whatever genre they like if they put the effort in. Even more than Vanquish, for reasons i will discuss further own, this is THE japanese third person shooters, a highly engaging and fun experience that manages to eclipse practically all games made by western developers in the same genre.

This game is cheesy, but its the japanese brand of cheesy that managed to remain fun throughout the whole thing. You lead a small team of extrovagant personalities, as you battle wave after wave of robots in order to defeat the threat that is threatening the last remains of mankind. The game lets you chose who to stick around with, and develop thrust bounds through gameplay, essencially by talking to them and helping them out in battle. Having max trust with your teamates will affect the ending and who survives or not.

I was really impressed with the detail and quality they managed to insert into the cutscenes, for a game whose premise and gameplay are as silly as this one. Characters behave realistically, and some of the personalities are so likeable that you will no doubt love being around them in no time. It makes choosing your limited team for missions really hard.

Gameplay is somewhat generic cover shooting, but its really satisfying because of how well it feels. Guns have great impact on the enemy robots, essencially destroying parts of their armor and body, which can be used tactically. This is more important early on though, as with weapons upgrades basic enemies start dropping likes flies to your machine gun fire. There are quite a few boss battles, and these are intense and challenging affairs, requiring the player to dodge their attacks and keep their reaction times in check. The game has a very linear level design structure, but this just means that the action is non-stop, and the mix between story moments and action is finely tuned.

Overal its a great, moderatly lenghty, single player campaign, with a lot of satisfying action, memorable characters and a cheesy story that is a lot of fun to watch. It even offers one of the best cheesy feel good endings in gaming i have ever seen. Recommended for sure.