Binary Domain

I know I said I probably wouldn't do a review this week, but I picked up Binary Domain on the cheap and smashed it in a surprisingly short time frame. I also thought to myself, "I haven't really trashed a game in a review for a while, maybe it's time to do that again". Well, if anyone was looking forward to me doing that, you're gunna have a bad time. And by that, I mean everything went better than expected. Though it's not perfect. Allow me to elaborate!

STORY
To sum it up nice and quickly, Binary Domain is the best I-Robot/Terminator game never made, and it's narrative shows it's influences proudly.The game is set in a world where robotics has become a massive part of society, and androids are present in almost all aspects of everyday life. As a result, The New Geneva Convention was written, restricting and monitoring the use and misuse of this technology.
Players control Dan Marshall, a former US Army Special Operative, who is now part of a Rust Crew; a team of highly trained Special Operatives utilized solely to uphold the New Geneva Convention. In this case, that means hunting down Yoji Amada, head of the Amada Corporation, who has been accused of creating Robots who look exactly like humans (and don't even know that they are robots themselves). Dan must now infiltrate the heavily guarded upper city of Tokyo with his associates, earning their trust and kicking robot ass in the search for answers as to how and why the human robots (known as hollow children) are being made.

The basic plot of Binary Domain is one that hasn't been tried in recent memory, and it works surprisingly well. It presents players with the plot point of human-seeming robots, and a cast of allies who, at any moment, could turn out to be androids. Hell, even Dan himself could be a robot. It's certainly interesting to see how the characters deal with the revelation of the Hollow Children, and if/when the doubt sets in.

PRESENTATION
Binary Domain is a somewhat decent looking game. The animations are smooth, and the graphics are crisp and pretty to look at. The visual style certainly has a lot more variety than other games of the 3rd person variety. For example, the game begins in the dark, grimy harbour surrounding Japan's seawall. It's in the middle of a storm, and it all looks very dark, and grungy and kind of depressing. Later on, however, the game transitions to one of Tokyo's upper levels. The city is very bright, with nearly all white surfaces, neon lights all over the place: the typical futuristic city setting. Those are just two examples of the variety to be found in Binary Domain's visuals.

The soundtrack has a suitably techno vibe, but is otherwise fairly uninteresting. The voice acting, on the other hand, is delivered with a surprising amount of feeling. The script itself may not be much to write home about, but the way the repeatedly cheesy lines are delivered really endeared many of the characters to me. So yea, good delivery doesn't excuse bad writing, but the characters do seem like almost real people.

GAMEPLAY
On the most part, Binary Domain has some pretty standard gameplay. It's a third person shooter with a cover mechanic, and it's honestly pretty good at what it does. While very Gears of War in nature (from the roadie runs, to the weapon wheel, to the love of cover), the gameplay differentiates itself in two very unique ways.

The first way is through deep squad control via either quick button presses, or voice control. Now I've had mixed functionality with the voice control, and when it doesn't work for a long time in a hectic gunfight, you'll find yourself more inclined to use the buttons. Some dialogue options are also available to nurture your squad's trust in you, leading to some branching storylines near the back end of the campaign.

The second way that Binary Domain really sets itself apart is in the class of enemies you encounter. You won't fight Russians, Zombies or Aliens here. Just robots. All robots. And despite you never killing an organic being in this game, the gun fights maintain a sense of visceral violence, mostly due to the high amount of destructibility your foes present. Shoot a robot in the legs, he'll crawl like crazy at you and try to grab you. Shoot him in the head, he'll begin to fire at both friends and foes. Shoot him in the arm, he'll use the other arm.
Add to this the fun visual of scrap metal flying as you unload into an enemy, and it really does feel like one of the more violent games out there. Yet you'll never shoot another opposing human being. Odd.

There are several huge boss battles that pepper the main campaign, and despite them all appearing different and attacking you differently, the way these go is usually the same. Shoot the glowing bits til you can safely stop. It kind of cheapened some of the boss fights for me, but they are still entertaining despite this.

There are also light RPG elements involved, and the way they're equipped is somewhat interesting (you have a set amount of spaces for nanomachines which take up varying amounts of slots), but the effects are so minuscule that you'll barely notice.

REPLAYABILITY
As I mentioned earlier, there is a trust system in the game, and I personally would be interested in going back through and trying to see what differences there are when you neglect certain characters etc. However, if you aren't looking to see different branches to the storyline, the gameplay will be more than enough for me to come back. I really enjoyed taking down bots, as it felt somehow really removed from what you'd normally battle in a game like this. Yes, I'm sure you fight robots in other games, but this is the first title to make me really FEEL like they're robots that I'm shooting, and not just standard characters dressed like robots.

OVERVIEW
Despite being a game that received very little publicity or hype (or perhaps because of this) Binary Domain may be one of the better shooters that I've played recently. It's one of the few games where shooting robots feels like shooting ACTUAL robots, and the gunplay is just so visceral and awesome that I can't stop thinking about it. The graphics are decent, and the varying visual design keeps the game looking fresh, while the characters are all (mostly) likable. Couple that with a fresh, new story, and we have an under the radar hit.

Next week, look for my Starhawk review. See you next time!!!