Binary Domain is a tremendously silly 360-era cover shooter from some members of the Yakuza team. Following on from Kalimba last week, it's another Back Page Pod recommendation - very much 'One of those sevens' - but I'd say I enjoyed it more than that cursed appellation suggests — it's great.
On the face of it, like a lot of third-person games of its time, there's a resemblance to Gears of War, but this feels a lot lighter on its feet both in terms of gameplay and tone. Instead of meaty aliens with lots of gibs, here you're fighting robot enemies who have a wonderful habit of shattering in a cascade of scrap metal each time they die. Shoot their heads off (with a dopamine-inducing 'PING!' every time) and they lose their marbles and turn on each other, which is always good fun to watch. There are a handful of bosses and set pieces, including an arbitrary power-sliding-down-a-long-slope bit, a shoot-enemies-from-a-moving-car section, and a for-some-reason-there-are-jetskis-in-this-sewer-so-we-can-copy-the-bit-from-the-end-of-Resi-4 episode, but they're all good fun.
The shooting is punctuated frequently by cut-scenes which tell you the luxuriantly stupid story. You play all-American Dan Marshall, Super Action Soldier and leader of a crew of unlikely military types. They're on a covert mission to Neo Tokyo to take out evil genius robot designer Yoji Amada. Alongside Dan, there's Big Bo, your muscle-bound, machine-gun-wielding sidekick. He has an afrohawk, unnervingly protrubent eyes, and he says things like 'Aw, shit' and 'Hell no' a lot. There's also Charlie and Rachael, two Cor Blimey, Guv'nah! Brits who have been sent along to keep them two crazy Yanks in line. Then there's Faye, the beautiful yet mysterious Chinese (though voiced by American actress Laura Bailey) sniper who's hiding a secret behind those dark eyes of hers.
Best of all, however, is my good boy Cain, an outrageously Fahrrrrech android who murders the baddie robots by bludgeoning them to death with his endless supplirs of baguettes and accordions. Not really, but for the amount of "Zut alors", "Mon dieu"s and "Merci monsieur"s he gets through in every single encounter, you'd be forgiven for thinking so.
Anyway, Binary Domain is eight hours long, it runs brilliantly on the Steam Deck, it cost me about three pounds, and you'll probably get through the entire game without dying once. What more do you want?
On the face of it, like a lot of third-person games of its time, there's a resemblance to Gears of War, but this feels a lot lighter on its feet both in terms of gameplay and tone. Instead of meaty aliens with lots of gibs, here you're fighting robot enemies who have a wonderful habit of shattering in a cascade of scrap metal each time they die. Shoot their heads off (with a dopamine-inducing 'PING!' every time) and they lose their marbles and turn on each other, which is always good fun to watch. There are a handful of bosses and set pieces, including an arbitrary power-sliding-down-a-long-slope bit, a shoot-enemies-from-a-moving-car section, and a for-some-reason-there-are-jetskis-in-this-sewer-so-we-can-copy-the-bit-from-the-end-of-Resi-4 episode, but they're all good fun.
The shooting is punctuated frequently by cut-scenes which tell you the luxuriantly stupid story. You play all-American Dan Marshall, Super Action Soldier and leader of a crew of unlikely military types. They're on a covert mission to Neo Tokyo to take out evil genius robot designer Yoji Amada. Alongside Dan, there's Big Bo, your muscle-bound, machine-gun-wielding sidekick. He has an afrohawk, unnervingly protrubent eyes, and he says things like 'Aw, shit' and 'Hell no' a lot. There's also Charlie and Rachael, two Cor Blimey, Guv'nah! Brits who have been sent along to keep them two crazy Yanks in line. Then there's Faye, the beautiful yet mysterious Chinese (though voiced by American actress Laura Bailey) sniper who's hiding a secret behind those dark eyes of hers.
Best of all, however, is my good boy Cain, an outrageously Fahrrrrech android who murders the baddie robots by bludgeoning them to death with his endless supplirs of baguettes and accordions. Not really, but for the amount of "Zut alors", "Mon dieu"s and "Merci monsieur"s he gets through in every single encounter, you'd be forgiven for thinking so.
Anyway, Binary Domain is eight hours long, it runs brilliantly on the Steam Deck, it cost me about three pounds, and you'll probably get through the entire game without dying once. What more do you want?