Binary Domain

Sega has a problem. The Saturn was great, the Dreamcast was incredible, their games are amazing, and yet nearly all of their endeavors under perform, commercially. In an age where Gears of War is a house hold name, Binary Domain should have been a revelation. By now, we should have been hearing rumors of the highly anticipated sequel. Unfortunately, Sega just doesn't know how to market their products. Not only was there zero buzz for this game leading up to its release, look at the cover; it's terrible! The scene it depicts never even happens, and in no way does it even begin to get across how amazing the game truly is.Binary Domain is a third person, squad based shooter. While the concept isn't anything new what elevates this game passed series like "Gears of War 3 is something that rarely shines in modern gaming; its characters. Say what you want about Marcus and Dom, they are cardboard cutouts when placed next to Dan and Bo, the first protagonists you encounter in the game. It has always struck me how clumsy and unnatural in game dialogue has become and that is what sets Binary Domain apart; the dialogue is incredible. I felt like I was in the middle of an exciting Hollywood blockbuster every time the characters spoke. Witty one-liners, catch phrases, sharp retorts, playful banter, casual flirting; this game does it all and, more importantly, does it incredibly well.Now, all that wonderful dialogue in the world doesn't mean a thing if the gameplay isn't there to back it up and thankfully Binary Domain exceeds expectations. I jumped in on the most challenging difficulty first available and I never felt overwhelmed. If I died, it was on me. Dan, the character you play, moves well, and while I found the cover/run mechanic to be sticky at times, I can honestly say it never once caused me to die, and that is a lot more than I can say for other games in this genre. Each character has a main weapon, which you can upgrade through the stores littered throughout the game, with scrap you have collected from your enemies. This is a point of the game that I love, and it ties into another big part of the games; how much your teammates trust you.Binary Domain features a system where you can use your mic to order you team around. My mic isn't working at the moment, but the game lets you use buttons just as easily so it isn't an issue. The more your teammates trust you, the more likely they are to listen to you when you ask for cover. How do you earn their trust? Well, there are scripted moments where you can speak with them and provide common sense answers, but the best way to earn their trust is to be great at the game. Getting head shots, mulit-kills, melee enemies, and just being a beast in battle overall earns you respect with your squad, as well as nets you plenty of scrap to use on items, weapons, upgrades, and status boosters. It is so refreshing to play a game that actually rewards you for playing well. Be careful though; you can lose your teams trust through instances of friendly fire, or not holding up your end in battle.So, the dialogue is the best I have heard in a game in years, the gameplay mechanics are rock solid and reward players who do well; what about the story? I am happy to say that it, like the rest of the game, is amazing. In the future, after major flooding, humanity came to rely on robots. One day however, a man attacks the worlds leading robotics experts, and it is revealed that the man was actually a machine and didn't even know it. The government labels these beings as "Hollow children", which they believe are being made in Japan. They send a "rust crew", the protagonists, to take care of the problem. From there, the moral and philosophical laws of humanity are questioned, but it never becomes preachy or gets in the way of the blasting of "scrap-heads". It is, far and away, the most satisfying story in a third person shooter, I have ever played.Now for the handful of negatives. There is online multiplayer but it is very bare bones and there is hardly anyone online playing it. While your primary weapon is more than serviceable, the way the secondary weapons are handled could have been better. You will never find ammo for them laying around, not all stores carry ammunition for all secondary weapons, and they aren't upgradeable. Lastly, while the bosses are big and epic, the fights themselves drag out, on average, about five minutes longer than they should. Each boss has multiple forms, and certain weak points, but on the higher difficulty the amount of health they have is absurd, and the fights go from thrilling to monotonous very quickly. None of these minor quibbles are enough, in my eyes, to take away a star from the score, but they are there.For all you achievement/trophy hunters out there, Binary Domain is a mixed bag. The single player achievements range from story and chapter awards, a handful of skill awards, and lastly trust awards. The multiplayer achievements are more difficult than they should be just for the fact that so few people play this game online, and even fewer play seriously enough to get the achievements. Two achievements worth mentioning are "Big Bo Rescue" and "Comrades in Arms". The former comes towards the end of the fifth chapter, and on the higher difficulties is a pain, just because of how much health the boss has, so I recommend going for it on the lower difficulties. The latter achievement comes if you are trusted by a certain teammate, and for me, makes the ending much better.Overall, Binary Domain is incredible, and it is a shame that Sega did so little to promote it. The story is engaging, the characters will stay with you, the gameplay is fast and fun, and it is probably my personal game of the year. I highly recommend it. A new classic and a must buy.

This game is made by the same developers of the Yakuza series. You should expect the same great stories and cutscenes, with even better gameplay and the added benefit of having English dialogue. The game takes place in the future where humans have plenty of access to the assistance of robots. Think "Bicentennial Man" if you will. However, some organization is molding robots with synthetic human skin and many of the robots don't even know their not human. It's up to you and your comrades to ensure the continuation of the human race.Pros:- Shredding down robots with gunfire is excellent. You feel the destruction as pieces come flying off. You get a great sense of causing actual destruction, which seems to be lacking in many shooters- You can blast off limbs as the robots try to crawl towards you and grab you with the persistence of a Terminator, no legs and all- Disarm enemies by blasting off their weapon wielding arms and watch as they scour to reclaim their weapon with their remaining remaining arm (assuming you haven't blasted that one off too yet!)- You AI partners actually help you unlike many AI characters in games. They'll pick you up, ask if you need assistance, listen to your orders, and actually kill enemies aplenty. They'll even show you where ammo is if you start running low!- You can give your squad voice commands using a headset or use the controller if you're not up for chatting- You can press the Left Bumper (left trigger) to get ideas of how to respond. However, there is a huge list of orders, remarks, (even swears) that they'll respond to. You can easily pull it up anytime in the options menu or just use the left bumper hints or remember what's worked before.- Your actions reflect how well team members respond. It's not hard to keep them liking you, but you can always try to be an antagonist as you see fit- You have a handful of partners with various abilities and skills. You have 2 partners at all times to help reduce clutter on the battlefield and also helps to add re-playability as they react differently and have varied personalities and ways of handling situations- You get to choose which 2 partners you have with you the majority of the time- Dialogue and situations differ depending on which 2 partners you have with you. Your partners will react differently with different partners.- You can upgrade your weapons and abilities- You can upgrade your Team mates weapons and abilities as well- The guns are great with machine guns, pistols, sniper rifles, shotguns, heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, etc.- Your main gun as an alternate fire that shots out a huge wave of electricity with a great deal of push to it depending on how much you upgrade it- There are plenty of ways to take on the epic boss fights, and different team members will recommend different options. The boss fights are fun and engaging unlike some of those "just shoot them until they die" situations in many games. And some of the bosses are huge!- Gameplay is smooth and you can take cover, roll, run and gun. Their are other gameplay elements that I won't spoil for you, but they keep it varied- Gameplay is varied and has good pacing, and again, you have multiple ways of approaching certain situations and boss fights. You can decide to be the run and gunner and have your team hold back or you can let them take the heat while you sit back and enjoy some sniping, etc.- Story and cutscenes are great and are very engaging- Graphics and visuals are great, with nice and unique environments and plenty of explosions and destruction- Has plenty of multiplayer optionsCon's- Unfortunately, no co-op in the single player campaign. However, the AI is great as mentioned and your teammates will help you plenty and keep you engaged. This actually serves as a great benefit for any of you who don't like playing on-line, but desire a sense of comradeship and connection with a team- Some dialogue situations do come off cheesy and squeezed in to make more use of the voice commands and headset chatter. Many situations are very funny whether or not it was intentional- Press for this game wasn't that great as hardly anyone knew this game was coming and there isn't a lot known about it, which is sad because it really is a great and fun game.I know I am coming off biased towards this game, which I am because I really do like it! It's a fun run and you owe yourself the experience. Give it a chance as it is a remarkable experience. You should definitely check it out if your a fan of the Terminator movies, sci-fi, or great 3rd person shooter experiences.Some may claim that this is a Gears of War knock-off. It's a 3rd person cover shooter and you switch weapons with the d-pad. That's about the extent of the comparisons as far as I'm concerned. This game stands on it's own two feet and has plenty of elements that make it unique and it is unfair to call it a Gears clone. If anything, I'd say if you like 3rd person cover based shooters then you owe it to yourself to check it out. As a side note, I honestly enjoyed the story and presentation of this game better than the Gears.I'm greatful for this gem of a game that came out of nowhere. I'm looking forward to replaying it again and again to play with different team members to see the change up. And I want to play it more just because it's so much fun turning all those foes into scrap metal! I certainly hope to see sequel!

I recently bought Binary Domain for the 360, and to be honest, I really haven't kept up with Sega in the 7th gen nor have I heard anything about this game. I accidentally stumbled upon this game whilst looking up gaming videos on YT.This game reminded me of Sega's Vanquish title except with the inclusion of NPC talking and an excellent story. The story in this game is absolutely fantastic and ranks amongst the very best. Here's my review-Graphics-In the beginning of BD, the graphics were just so-so to me for some reason. Although I loved the way the first level was a fallen city to set the mood, upon closer inspection, it just didn't look too good. The first act includes some creative use of level design but it still wasn't giving me much. Everything came together from the second act on in my honest opinion. Although BD is reminiscent of Vanquish, the grpahics in Vanquish were really good as I remember and at times they were epic with the inclusions of huge bosses.BD uses huge bosses too, but Vanquish had gigantic bosses in comparison.One thing I really liked were the cutscenes; and some of them are brutal and violent; including a man ripping the skin off his face to reveal he's a "Hollow child" (aka Cybernetic humanoid)The character's faces look fantastic and the in game models are imaginative, at least in the case of the humans. However, the many robots you'll fight are simply a horde of clones sporting only minor differences with color being the main difference.Binary Domain is a good looking game but sort of pales in comparison to Sega's other 7th gen offerings such as the ever hard Sonic Unleashed, Vanquish, Alpha Protocol and perhaps Viking.Sound-The sound is good. The music is forgettable. The dialogue itself is incredible. I really loved listening to the cutscenes and in game dialog.Gameplay-Binary Domain takes place in the future and is about the U.S government's ongoing political and hushed war against "Hollow Children" which are cybernetic beings created in the likeness of humans. In fact, their likeness isn't the only uncanny thing about them. These hollow children can become pregnant, cry, feel emotion, pain and such which makes them extremely hard to differentiate from humans.In comes your character, Dan Marshall, who's sent on a mission to eliminate hollows and capture Amada, the creator of Hollow children.The game begins in a casual way but easily progresses to a story that rivals games like "Enslaved". The story also changes depending on who you pick or who you're more familiar with. I won't spoil the story; but it is excellent in every sense.The gameplay boils down to a third person shooter with some melee tossed in. It almost uses the same engine that Vanquish used just without the slowdown function and more melee without having to worry about a suit overheating. It also uses a "down but not out" system that's similar to Gears of War 2/3. Your team can revive you or you can revive them. In the meantime, you can shoot from a downed position.There were also a few gameplay notes worth noting like the fact that if a downed robot crawled and grabbed your leg, you had to shoot them to get them off you or hit them. I just thought that was a nice touch.There's an upgrade system for weapons and perks. Also, during conversations, depending on what you say will affect your stats or your team stats. This can be confusing at times being that some responses for questions have nothing to do with what's said. This game also uses voice support; so you can literally talk to your team mates or answer questions with your voice. Personally, I didn't test it out and don't intend to.I'm not sure how long the game took to beat but I got done with it playing it over the course of 3 days. It has a good amount of length to it and the best part is how the story will change based on who you choose which adds replayability.I highly, highly, highly, recommend getting this game being that it's a really good game with an excellent story, impressive visuals and a creative TPS engine. This is a must get.

IntroductionBinary Domain is a futuristic sci-fi third-person shooter that features unique aspects such as voice recognition and the consequence system. You play as Dan Marshall, a member of the IRTA task force, or 'rust crew', a multi-national team who's job it is to deal with violations of the New Geneva Convention. One of these violations is the creation of robots that resemble humans. Amada Corp, a Japanese robotics company is accused of this violation and a rust crew including Sgt. Marshall is sent into Tokyo to arrest its chairman, Yoji Amada, and bring him in for questioning.The game begins as Dan and his partner Big Bo infiltrate the Tokyo Bay seawall and move to rendezvous with the rest of their crew in the lower city slums...GraphicsThe visuals are very good. Faces are highly detailed, environments are varied, and the character models are solid. Animations are silky smooth and the cutscenes look fantastic. There's some minor hiccups with lip syncing at times.SoundThe audio is pretty good. The music fits with the setting and gets uptempo appropriately. You won't recognize any voices in the dialogue and while it can be a little cheesy at times, the overall voice acting is well done. Sound effects are crisp and the roar of gunfire and clashing of bullets with robot armor sounds nice.GameplayThe combat is smooth and the cover system works like a charm. Everything is implemented well and while it may be a 'gears clone', its definitely one of the better third-person shooters on the market. Enemy AI is great as well. Robots are aggressive and even when half destroyed, they will claw and drag themselves toward you with relentless fury.Replay ValueSome may want to play the campaign more than once to see the full effects of maximum trust with all companions, but the game doesn't offer much choice nor is there any kind of NG+ feature here. Some cutscenes and outcomes will change depending on trust levels and party makeup though, which may give some players a reason to play again. With the multiplayer being dead however, the replayability takes a hit. Otherwise, this might have rated higher.PositivesCombat mechanics are rock solid and the cover system is well designed. Your character has evasive moves and can really motor around the environment with ease. Controls are tight and responsive and the largely familiar control scheme is a welcome sight from a Japanese developer.The overall story is interesting and unique, and the characters (while cliche) are likable and well developed. There's a couple of nice plot twists here, and they can change depending on your level of trust with different companions.As I mentioned earlier, the graphics are good. For example, there's nice detail in the way enemies blow apart. The sound effects are solid for the most part and the dialogue is surprisingly good for an english dub.This a polished game. Its easy to learn, fun to play, and largely bug free. The AI programming is definitely above average. The menus are easy to navigate and the minor RPG elements in the form of weapon upgrades and nanomachines are a nice touch as well.NegativesThe voice recognition was a neat idea but unfortunately, its just too inconsistent. When it works, its great but too often it reads words incorrectly or completely ignores them. Since voice commands are time critical, this feature is basically unusable. Its far better to just issue commands off the left bumper.The boss fights can be a little long and tedious. The fact that the game throws other enemies into the fray while facing some bosses can prolong the fight, especially when the boss is enough to contend with on its own.A lot of enemies don't drop weapons for you to pick up when they die, which is rare to see in a cover-based shooter post-Gears of War. The revive animation needed to be a bit faster as well.Even though friendly AI is aggressive and involved in the action, they often walk directly into your gunfire, lowering their trust if you hit them. This is can do a lot to undermine the trust system, even for a fairly good shot.Final Score 8.1Binary Domain is an interesting game. Its got strong shooter mechanics, an interesting story, and employs some character customization & upgrade features that are uncommon in the shooter genre. The graphics and sound are surprisingly good and while the campaign is too short and the multiplayer feels tacked on, this is a game any shooter, sci-fi, or Gears of War fan should enjoy.

I have a massive collection of games, (a couple hundred), and this game is one of my favorites!Graphics: 8/10 This game is almost two years old as I write this, (12/19/13), but the graphics are still quite nice. Even more so during these stagnant years of gaming where there hasn't been as much advancement in this field.Gameplay: 9/10 The cover system, while similar to Gears of War's, is, in my opinion, more fluid. Instead of the simple, Crouch/Stand mechanic, Binary Domain utilizes the Crouch/Stand/Laying cover mechanic. This allows you to use short things like a small crate as cover, and helps you stay alive, because this game can get difficult if you just "run n' gun". Speaking of, this game also lets you shoot while sprinting! No, it doesn't have very many practical applications, but I appreciate it as I don't see that in games very often. There is a system where destroying robots in unique ways gets you points, which then can be spent on weapons, upgrades, and ammo, (Think Bulletstorm). The enemies are robots, (obviously), and you have to shoot them. It does sound bland, but the robots are unrelenting. There is the ability to shoot limbs and armor off enemies, and it gives a feeling of satisfaction. You can shoot off their legs, arms, it doesn't matter, they will crawl towards you and bite you if they must. It makes for a very enjoyable experience. You can order your squad to hold position, advance, and so forth. There is even the ability to use voice commands. I only used it a little, but it seemed to be fine, (in today's standards of course). Boss battles are good ol' arcade-y shoot-ups, and while they can be challenging, they are enjoyable. There also is a survival mode. I didn't play it much as I don't know anyone else with this game, but it seems like fun. If you get it, add me, "Jackjss", and we could play together.Story: 6/10 Okay, the story is the same old, "ROBOTS TAKING OVER". There is some deviation from this formula, more than you'd expect from a shooter, but not much.Characters: 9/10 First off, let me say that at the end of this game I was in tears. I won't spoil anything though. This game is similar to Mass Effect in the way that you only get out of it what you invest in it. I became emotionally attached to the characters, and I was hanging on the edge of my seat the whole time. That being said, there is some stereotypes, (ex. macho man), but the protagonist has a sensitive side, a nice change from the nitty-gritty.Overall: 8/10Fun game. -Good shoot-outs -Character Development/depth -Decent length (took me about 10 hours) -Generic Story (Robots with skin) -Character's a bit "cheesy" -Survival mode adds reply valueI bought this game for $40, and at that price even, I think it's a steal. It's going for less than $20 now, and at that price I highly recommend it.