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Binary Domain


DANGERMAN
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I'm not too sure what to say about Binary Domain, despite everything it's actually pretty standard stuff. Once the game gets going properly you spend most of your time with a team of 3 people from a choice of 5 (6 later on), and because of the trust mechanic it seems like it's always worth picking the same people. You start the game with Big Bo (big brash black guy, not to be confused with sarky english bloke and serious chinese girl) and through conversations and actions (like destroying lots and lots of robots) I've got really high trust with him, so it was then a case of picking 1 other person who seemed to have the attributes I wanted (I picked the english girl because she's got a shotgun) and developed the trust there.

I've got to say though I've not found a massive amount of use for the trust yet. I've been downed a couple of times and they've revived me, that probably wouldn't have happened is they hated me, but in terms of the main voice commands (cover me, retreat, form up, fire) I've barely had to use them to need their trust. Apparently if you have a mic plugged in it'll respond to your mutterings, more so that just the default sayings, stuff like swearing will get them to respond. I might test it at some point but I've really not needed it so far.

The trust thing can get a bit annoying, the A.I. aren't quite smart enough not to walk in to your line of fire, you if you've unloading with a machine gun and they decide the safest place for them is right in front of your muzzle then you're going to get moaned at and lose trust. Early on before you know the characters you'll get a lot of questions 'wrong', but eventually you learn to answer in a way they'll want to hear. The problem with that though is that both you and the characters you're talking to understand the subtlety of language, however the game doesn't cater for it. As an example a young girl asked me out at one point, I said yes because saying no seemed harsh, and I thought the game wouldn't let me anyway, but instead everyone disapproved. The other problem with it is that sometimes you miss what you've been asked and annoy everyone by not doing it, or their instructions aren't clear enough ("cover left" when there's no set way to be facing)

This all sounds a bit negative so far but I've actually been quite enjoying things. It does mix things up but generally it's cover based shooting, and it works fine, better when you level up your gun a bit. I was a bit indifferent to it, but pretty much since I met the yakuza I've been really enjoying it. You also eventually meet a french cyborg who is easily the best character in the game, probably the best character in any game this year.

What's killing me is the plot, I know I've seen an anime with the exact same story but I can't place it. There's cyborgs living amongst humans, only they dont know they aren't humans, you have to hunt down the guy who's probably responsible for making them. I know it shares a lot of similarities with Bladerunner, but beyond that all I can think is Appleseed, but I know there's some other late 80s/90s anime

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yeah I was thinking that and Bubblegum Crash / Crisis. I still feel like there's one that fits perfectly

Anyway, the game suffers a bit like Gears 3 does with pacing, it just about gets the balance right though. Your goal right from the start of the game is to get to the Amada organisations headquarters in Tokyo, which means coming in from under the city and then making your way through the city. I'm inside Amada now so assumed I'd just have to get to the top of the building, instead though I have to find some information first. In practice that just means killing things, but it's the first moment of the game where I felt like I was being unnaturally held back from progressing the story. What it does better than Gears for the rest of the game is make it feel like you're always progressing forward, so I guess when it all of a sudden stops doing that it becomes more noticeable.

Cain the french robot is still awesome, but it's worth mentioning the enemies. I assume I'm within a couple of hours of the end of the game but I still come up against the same kind of robots as I was at the start of the game, the difference is now my gun is nicely levelled up so they die quickly and I feel like a god. They do mix things up though, be it more aggressive enemies, stronger, or lightning quick. The bosses though are really inventive. There's the typical spider boss, but then there's also a robot that is a motorcycle and is probably the size of a plane

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  • 5 months later...

not sure what i think to this, agree with most of what Dangerman said, but in addition the bosses have been annoying me quite a bit, they are quite different which is good, but also insanely frustrating sometimes, its hard to know what's going on till you've died a few times, and that's on easy. and some annoying fixed gun and jetski sections. but the normal combat, which is the majority of the game is good fun.

^ wrote that a few hours ago and it's strange how much my opinion of it has changed, it's like they put all the crap and annoying stuff in the first half of the game, where i almost gave up a few times. i've not finished it yet but must be close to the end, and the last few hours have been great.

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  • 2 months later...

Got to chapter 2, am enjoying this muchly. :)

Have picked my squad of me, Bo and the Chinese woman, mostly because as Ben said earlier, Bo has built up my trust already, plus the woman is a sniper.

And the conversations with them about her are great!

The basic plot has been outlined and I'm curious to know whether they end up doing the usual twist with this kind of robot story. Hopefully it will be something surprising.

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it affects the ending, ideally you'll get everyone to full but there's only 3 people you need to get full

Cain, Chinese girl for a scene you'll get in about an hour, Bo

I never added the British guy to my team, and only had the British girl for a few missions, I think I missed out on Cain being full

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I started this yesterday, so far i've only really scratched the surface, I've met the British pair and the Chinese woman, and took down the lancer thing from the demo.

It's odd how much better the game looks and plays after that first chapter (which was just about the grayest thing i've ever played, and stealth swimming wtf?)

Looking forward to getting into it a bit more.

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This game is very odd at times. The voice acting generally isn't great, especially when characters are shouting the same thing over and over during combat and the controls and movement feel a little off, but the action is fun and the interaction between the characters is enjoyable. I got to the upper levels last night after a strangely crowbared-in jetski section.

I don't really know how much trust is coming into things, I can't see many places so far where it would make a difference. Unlike Dangerman, when my dude was asked out by a 15 year old, I didn't jump at the chance. I said no and got a trust increase from everyone. I guess this to help increase trust with characters you don't use in your squad (i.e. Charlie), but again, I have no idea what for.

I also lost trust with Bo because i thought being lead through the slums with the rest of the team by a child wasn't a good time to go looking for prostitutes. Silly me.

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  • 1 month later...

Well the twist came and then they kept on coming. I lost track of how many twists but they just throw them at you.

I really enjoyed it but didn't get the love for Cain that everyone else did. I lost him when you meet Amada and never saw him again, I don't know if that's normal or my trust with him wasn't high enough.

If there's a NewGame+ where you keep all your stats and upgrades then I'll whizz through it again.

EDIT: sadly, there isn't :(

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