Binary Domain
In the cyber punk future of the year 2080, the world will be populated as much by robots as it is by humans. It’s actually a 3 way split tie Humans, Robots and waist high cover. Binary Domain will do a pretty convincing job of taking you to this future where the change in techno culture has given birth to military units called a Rust Crews. Tasked with enforcing a new set of global laws the most important of which bans the research into “Hollow Children”, robots that could pass for Human. Just because it’s policed it doesn’t mean people won’t do it and after a Hollow Child attack headquarters of the American robotics company Bergen, a Rust Crew is sent to the island fortress of Future Japan to ‘question’ Yoji Amada, the head of the Amada Corporation and rival company to Bergen.
The story, whilst being a pretty well established sci-fi archetype, is pretty well executed, and although the dialog is a little cheesy it’s at least better than some games which have gone on to be big hits. Binary Domain is at its heart a 3rd person cover based shooter and if you have played a game like this before you won’t have any issues coming to grips with it. There are of course some things that set this game apart from the run of the mill but really it doesn’t redifne the genre in any new way.
One of the neat features that helps binary domain stand out is the enemies, you fight hordes of robotic soldiers who are seemingly fully destructible and parts will fly off them as you blast them to bits. If you don’t actually deliver a killing blow then what ever remains of the robot will relentlessly keep coming for you. This behaviour is a great thing to watch and gives the robots a ‘terminator’ like quality.
The game also features a whole lot of noise about trust systems and voice recognition and to be honest, don’t really come across to well… I will start off with saying that the voice recognition is no reason to get a mic for your console, its patchy at best, misinterprets most words I say despite trying a variety of tones and accents and playing with the sliders a whole bunch. Seriously, if you are going to bother either make it work or add a voice training feature so the game can learn your voice. You can select options from a menu, if like me you can’t be understood.
The trust system really comes down to this, your team mate isn’t very effective, sure they may distract a few enemies but at the end of the day you’re going to be pulling the weight of the team. If you’re not trusted by your team mates they will ignore your orders which is pretty much what most AI’s in games do anyway.
From the get go I got a strong Metal Gear Solid vibe from Binary Domain and indeed this game seems to be all about the cinematic set pieces. The presentation of the game is pretty good and they definitely aimed for an achieved a movie like atmosphere with the game. The level design is less than stellar; there are plenty of corridors that occasionally break out into a really nicely done area.
In spite of the things I dislike about the game, it’s actually quite fun and certainly has appeal as an interactive sci-fi story. The set pieces are quite spectacular and the boss fights, whilst being a little to drawn out have some epic moments. If you got a good 9 hours of gaming time to fill up this is worth the effort.
In the cyber punk future of the year 2080, the world will be populated as much by robots as it is by humans. It’s actually a 3 way split tie Humans, Robots and waist high cover. Binary Domain will do a pretty convincing job of taking you to this future where the change in techno culture has given birth to military units called a Rust Crews. Tasked with enforcing a new set of global laws the most important of which bans the research into “Hollow Children”, robots that could pass for Human. Just because it’s policed it doesn’t mean people won’t do it and after a Hollow Child attack headquarters of the American robotics company Bergen, a Rust Crew is sent to the island fortress of Future Japan to ‘question’ Yoji Amada, the head of the Amada Corporation and rival company to Bergen. The story, whilst being a pretty well established sci-fi archetype, is pretty well executed, and although the dialog is a little cheesy it’s at least better than some games which have gone on to be big hits. Binary Domain is at its heart a 3rd person cover based shooter and if you have played a game like this before you won’t have any issues coming to grips with it. There are of course some things that set this game apart from the run of the mill but really it doesn’t redifne the genre in any new way. One of the neat features that helps binary domain stand out is the enemies, you fight hordes of robotic soldiers who are seemingly fully destructible and parts will fly off them as you blast them to bits. If you don’t actually deliver a killing blow then what ever remains of the robot will relentlessly keep coming for you. This behaviour is a great thing to watch and gives the robots a ‘terminator’ like quality. The game also features a whole lot of noise about trust systems and voice recognition and to be honest, don’t really come across to well… I will start off with saying that the voice recognition is no reason to get a mic for your console, its patchy at best, misinterprets most words I say despite trying a variety of tones and accents and playing with the sliders a whole bunch. Seriously, if you are going to bother either make it work or add a voice training feature so the game can learn your voice. You can select options from a menu, if like me you can’t be understood. The trust system really comes down to this, your team mate isn’t very effective, sure they may distract a few enemies but at the end of the day you’re going to be pulling the weight of the team. If you’re not trusted by your team mates they will ignore your orders which is pretty much what most AI’s in games do anyway. From the get go I got a strong Metal Gear Solid vibe from Binary Domain and indeed this game seems to be all about the cinematic set pieces. The presentation of the game is pretty good and they definitely aimed for an achieved a movie like atmosphere with the game. The level design is less than stellar; there are plenty of corridors that occasionally break out into a really nicely done area.