Platform: PS3
Genre:
3rd person shooter with a sci-fi premise
Setting:
Japan, 2080 AD
Story:
You play as Dan, a member of an elite "Rust crew" (a military style force) which takes action against people or organisations which breach the New Geneva Convention, specifically dealing with breaches concerning the research into, or the manufacture of, robots which could pass for humans (known as "hollow children" in the game). Occasionally you will meet "Hollow children" in this game, but the set pieces of this game usually involve battles against ridiculously large robot bosses! Most of the time you have to destroy humanoid looking robots (although these are not "Hollow children"), so this game is a departure from a lot of combat games where your enemies are humans.
During the game you can swap the two Rust Crew which accompany you for most of the game and you have 5 to choose from, not including some non-Rust Crew characters. One of your Rust Crew members is a humanoid looking robot...with a thick French accent!
Games which were brought to mind by Binary Domain included Mass Effect 2 (for the former's "trust" system, which bears a slight similarity to the latter's "loyalty" system, as well as for the cover system in combat); Metal Gear Solid sequels (for boss battles) and Uncharted (for gameplay). I could throw in, perhaps, Dead Space, for how the characters move but I'm not too certain on that front, as I stopped playing Dead Space quite early on, due to finding the gameplay frustrating.
Graphics:
Very good, although not outstanding like AAA (triple A) games can be. No complaints from me, in any case. The action is obviously funnelled at times, so you can't always explore environments.
Audio:
Amusing introduction as far as the dialogue goes. One character, known as "Big Bo" often says "A'ight" and "Booyah!"...which reminded me of the Ali G character, from "Da Ali G show" on TV. The script is serviceable, not aiming for the heights of games like Uncharted 2. Aiming for fun, the characters aren't really designed to have any great depth to them.
Good about the game:
* Playing on the normal difficulty setting, this game is a lot of fun. Some elements of it reminds me of the Uncharted series but I think that this game surpasses it in how the gameplay and narrative/cinematic elements hang together.
* Interesting philosophical themes concerning artificial intelligence.
* Collectible items are numbered – even the ones that you didn't find – and you can replay chapters which are indicated as having the collectible that you are missing. Even though I didn't use this system for that purpose, I assume that you have to – annoyingly – replay an entire chapter to find your missing collectible. So, that part counts as a bad thing about the game, i.e. an ability to go to a specific part of a chapter to find a collectible would be welcome.
* Enemy attacks can have good signalling at times, helping you to stay alive long enough to defeat them.
* Cutscenes can be skipped.
* Enemy AI is good.
Bad about the game:
* On a few occasions on the normal difficulty setting, the gameplay did get frustrating. However, when I played it on the hardest difficulty level available to you after first completing the game, the whole experience becomes intolerable. I've stopped playing the game twice, so far. Somehow I managed to progress past one section which I was finding impossible, and now I'm stuck at a section where you have to defeat a giant robot-motorcyle boss. It's the lack of save spots/checkpoints which are the real killer in this case...the difficulty is so great because the battles are interminable and if you die, you usually have to start right from the beginning again.
* I've favourably compared this game to the Uncharted series for the things that it does better than it, but, on the other hand, the parts of this game which I dislike the most (frustrate me) are those parts which remind me of those Uncharted moments which I hated in that game! The first Uncharted game had a section where you jet ski up a river. I hated that. Binary Domain also has a jet ski section. Which I also hate! Really, I just find the lack of save spots/checkpoints in the game to be totally unacceptable, especially on the harder difficulty settings. It really makes playing the game unpleasant and I wouldn't criticise anyone for just giving up the game in frustration and never returning to it.
* Like Uncharted, from memory, Binary Domain also can have frustrating camera angles, not giving you a good perspective of the gameplay, forcing you to fight the camera all the time, in some sections of the game.
* Beating bosses can feel random.
General observations:
* I recommend this game, especially on the normal difficulty setting, which isn't frustrating too often...but on the harder difficulty settings it may prove impossible to beat unless you are an elite game with a masochistic streak!
* Either late in 2016 or maybe in early 2017, I had a look at the online part of this game. There are still people playing this game! That surely is a positive comment about this game, right? I didn't actually play this game online though. One player I saw was Level 50...so, really hardcore.
Miscellaneous:
* Dan kind of looks like the male version of Shepard in Mass Effect.
* Rachael reminded me visually of Boss in "Metal Gear Solid 3".
* Squadmate says something like 'Is there no end to these enemies?'. Seems so!
