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Binary Domain |OT| BUYING THIS GAME IS Not up for Nagoshiation

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
Depends. Why do you love Binary Domain?

Different look and style than what Im used to playing, in a good way. Something about the style kinda reminds me of metal gear. I like the characters and the gamey dialogue. I like the pacing of the cutscenes/story and action. I bought this knowing nothing about it but what I played in the demo, so I thought it was going to be pure action. The storytelling surprised me in a good way. The cutscene in ch. 2 or 3
where the hollow gets captured by the yakuza, has a shootout, then commits suicide... so awesome
. I love the little details like how the robot AI reacts depending on what you shoot off.

The whole presentation is just fun and slick, and the combat is great. I've never played a Yakuza game but if it's by the same crew Im interested.
 

Riposte

Member
Different look and style than what Im used to playing, in a good way. Something about the style kinda reminds me of metal gear. I like the characters and the gamey dialogue. I like the pacing of the cutscenes/story and action. I bought this knowing nothing about it but what I played in the demo, so I thought it was going to be pure action. The storytelling surprised me in a good way. The cutscene in ch. 2 or 3
where the hollow gets captured by the yakuza, has a shootout, then commits suicide... so awesome
. I love the little details like how the robot AI reacts depending on what you shoot off.

The whole presentation is just fun and slick, and the combat is great. I've never played a Yakuza game but if it's by the same crew Im interested.

Yeah, you'll probably like Yakuza. 3/4 at least.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Different look and style than what Im used to playing, in a good way. Something about the style kinda reminds me of metal gear. I like the characters and the gamey dialogue. I like the pacing of the cutscenes/story and action. I bought this knowing nothing about it but what I played in the demo, so I thought it was going to be pure action. The storytelling surprised me in a good way. The cutscene in ch. 2 or 3
where the hollow gets captured by the yakuza, has a shootout, then commits suicide... so awesome
. I love the little details like how the robot AI reacts depending on what you shoot off.

The whole presentation is just fun and slick, and the combat is great. I've never played a Yakuza game but if it's by the same crew Im interested.

If you like everything about the writing, yes. I just say you should get Yakuza 3 because it's pretty cheap and then you'll know if you should get the sequel.
 
Started playing it yesterday and finished it this afternoon. I wasn't expecting to fall in love with this game, but here I am. This may seriously end up being in my top games of 2012; normally the gameplay in third person shooters is hit or miss with me.
 

Teknoman

Member
If I love this game will I love the Yakuza games? And what would be a good starting place with those?

Do you like:

  • Contra
  • Yakuza
  • Terminator
  • Ghost in the Shell

Then you'll love this (on survivor mode).

I'm going with PS3 version now since my PS3 headset seemed to have better recognition than my 360 headset. Just gotta wait for an Amazon gift card and i'm good to go. Also everyone with PS3 version, we need to get together and play Invasion mode.
 

skullwolfgp

Neo Member
Just a heads up, it starts slow. You might even hate it until you get to the city. Personally, I liked the slow start. But yeah, the drama and twists are vintage Nagoshi

Starts even slower if you watch the (very long) videos recapping Yakuza 1 and 2.

That said I also love the pacing. Yakuza 3 takes a lot of time to set stuff up and develop characters/relationships in order to create a more compelling story, which I really appreciate.
 

eshwaaz

Member
Still getting disc read errors with my second copy of Binary Domain. I'm beginning to feel like I'm not meant to play this game. Tried three other games, and they all work fine.

So frustrating.
 

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
I am just playing for 20 minutes or so, but am I alone in my initial impression that the animation is stiff/janky? There's something about how the main character moves around that's just... weird.

It's very... robot like (heh).
 
I am just playing for 20 minutes or so, but am I alone in my initial impression that the animation is stiff/janky? There's something about how the main character moves around that's just... weird.

It's very... robot like (heh).

Yeah, I felt that way about the opening chapter. It was more noticeable with Big Bo to me. Either it gets better as you get further in or I stopped noticing it. I experienced some slowdown in the demo levels on 360, but I didn't notice it in the full version.
 

Teknoman

Member
Anyone get a strange "transformers double voice" coming from Big Bo when he's far away/speaking through the communicator?
 

IrishNinja

Member
got through state 1/prologue, up to demo stage 2 now! man, cool MGS feel early on, then kinda bleeds into Vanquish.
i'm gonna have a hard time sending this one back if it holds up like this. ps goddammit chinese sniper-chick, is there nothing i can say that pleases you

Anyone get a strange "transformers double voice" coming from Big Bo when he's far away/speaking through the communicator?

kinda yeah (PS3 version); id assumed that effect was from partially hearing him and partially hearing over the comm unit?
 
can you play in japanese w/ english subs? i might do this, might make the game feel more authentic or something

no, and its actually more authentic with english voices. Since all the different nationalities have their accents and most japanese people still speak japanese with subtitles.

the plot is all about noisy westerners making a mess in japan.
 

deim0s

Member
Anyone tried playing invasion mode yet?

They need to adjust some ammo availability if there are less than 4 players.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Wow, this game is really a lot of fun. I'm thoroughly impressed. I planned on picking up the 360 version, but went with the PS3 version at the last minute (I won't pay for Xbox Live, so I'd miss out on the multiplayer if I went that route). I'm glad I did--the performance and visuals are mostly just fine. I still can't believe this came from the Ryu ga Gotoku guys. They really upped their game all around. The shooting is a ton of fun.

Anyway, I guess this game has all the languages on the disc or something, because even though I bought a US copy, it detected my system region or language settings and the entire game is in Japanese. I'm enjoying it this way so far, but I think I'll end up playing it again in English to enjoy the dynamic of IRTA guys speaking English with regional accents and Japanese people speaking Japanese. The IRTA dudes speak in that really cheesy way just like in Japanese-dubbed Hollywood action movies. Everything's super over-the-top.

Anyway, I'm loving the characters, atmosphere, and setting most of all. That the shooting is great is just icing on the cake. The upgrade system seems pretty neat, too.
 

CTE

Member
Wow. This sucks. Now i have to buy this game. Too many good reviews not to. Thanks, guys. Thanks ALOT!...
 

glaurung

Member
I completed the story a second time last night. But considering how much I have spent time hunting for collectables in the Chapter Select mode, I bet I have played through the campaign more than three times already. And I haven't even gotten to the cool difficulty settings yet.

There is one major issue with the game for me.

It feels incomplete. Not based on the graphics or animations or sound or story, no. It feels incomplete as in there should be more to it. For example: we see the Japanese policemen intersecting the protagonist crew time and time again. It feels like there should be a side story that deals with what they are doing when Dan and the other misfits go massacring robots and destroying the city. Same goes for the B-team of the main campaign - Dan selects his companions and goes on, but what happens with the people he does not pick. I say there should be another side story, detailing their actions and the route they take through the city. Or what happens to Jean and Cain before you meet up with them?

There are so many opportunities to extend the campaign or at least provide a meaningful extension and a chance to earn more credits. The way I see it, it is quite difficult to max out all the characters or even the three guys you carry around with Dan the most. Plus at the higher difficulty levels, you need the extra power investment into Dan's main gun, that thing becomes ridiculously overpowered in the end.

If this was a game by any other company, I would bet that all the stuff I describe above arrives in the form of DLC. But this is Sega and Sega hates story DLC. So maybe we get some new characters or character skins, but the chance to get more meaningful campaign missions is zero. Unless they do a sequel.
 
So is the full version completely different then the demo? Being a huge Gears fan and knowing how cheesy those games are I found the demo embarrassing. Seems like they intentionally made the game into a parody to cover up how mediocre the mechanics and voice work is.
 

duckroll

Member
Finally picked it up today. I think I'm in the middle of chapter 2. The Spider fight was REALLY fun, but goddamn the PS3 framerate tanks BIG TIME whenever it gets close. Lol.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Different look and style than what Im used to playing, in a good way. Something about the style kinda reminds me of metal gear. I like the characters and the gamey dialogue. I like the pacing of the cutscenes/story and action. I bought this knowing nothing about it but what I played in the demo, so I thought it was going to be pure action. The storytelling surprised me in a good way. The cutscene in ch. 2 or 3
where the hollow gets captured by the yakuza, has a shootout, then commits suicide... so awesome
. I love the little details like how the robot AI reacts depending on what you shoot off.

The whole presentation is just fun and slick, and the combat is great. I've never played a Yakuza game but if it's by the same crew Im interested.
Well, the Yakuza games have a very similar type of presentation and story telling.

However, the gameplay itself is vastly different and much less polished. Binary Domain is a huge leap forward for the team in that regard.

Just know that Binary Domain is to Gears as Yakuza is to Shenmue. Yeah, it's more of an adventure game with hand to hand combat scattered about. It has more RPG elements than Shenmue and a faster pace, but there are a lot of similarities between them.

This game is not for you.
What are you talking about? I'm a huge fan of Gears as well and I absolutely love Binary Domain. The gameplay is actually surprisingly comparable and stands up very well against Gears. It simply has a very different style of story telling and more one off gameplay sequences.

Seems like they intentionally made the game into a parody to cover up how mediocre the mechanics and voice work is.
Honestly, the voice work is a lot better than you might first think. They did a surprisingly convincing job with the dialog and the cutscenes are pretty damn fun to watch.

Here's a look at the story telling...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JexOLNelh1Q
 

neojubei

Will drop pants for Sony.
So is the full version completely different then the demo? Being a huge Gears fan and knowing how cheesy those games are I found the demo embarrassing. Seems like they intentionally made the game into a parody to cover up how mediocre the mechanics and voice work is.

hmmm no. I played the gears 3 demo and hated it but I am loving this game. I hope for a Binary Domain 2 in the near future.
 

duckroll

Member
I think making a sequel for this will be hard. It took a full team in the Yakuza Studio about 2+ years to make this game, and it doesn't look like it will be able to sell anything close to even 500k worldwide. Retail awareness for this game is completely -dead- outside of Japan, and even in Japan the game is struggling to sell even 100k.

If I were Sega, no matter how much I enjoy the game I would just make the team work on more Yakuza games instead.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
I think making a sequel for this will be hard. It took a full team in the Yakuza Studio about 2+ years to make this game, and it doesn't look like it will be able to sell anything close to even 500k worldwide. Retail awareness for this game is completely -dead- outside of Japan, and even in Japan the game is struggling to sell even 100k.

If I were Sega, no matter how much I enjoy the game I would just make the team work on more Yakuza games instead.
Hopefully they can apply what they've learned from a technical standpoint to the next Yakuza game. They've been using the same outdated technology for years and by the fourth game and "Of the End" it was starting to feel pretty awful.

The animation and camera was also very poor in their past games, which is not the case here.
 

duckroll

Member
Hopefully they can apply what they've learned from a technical standpoint to the next Yakuza game. They've been using the same outdated technology for years and by the fourth game and "Of the End" it was starting to feel pretty awful.

The animation and camera was also very poor in their past games, which is not the case here.

The camera is better here, but I really don't agree about the animations. It definitely still feels super janky, and definitely worse than the animation in an average AAA shooter. The running animation, the animation when you get incapped, even the various talking animations when characters are interacting with you... all very poor. When I was fighting the Spider, a missile hit me while I was behind a low cover, and Dan kinda floated onto the ground with 2/3 of his head clipping into the piece of cover the entire time while waiting for help. It was hilarious... hilariously bad.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
The camera is better here, but I really don't agree about the animations. It definitely still feels super janky, and definitely worse than the animation in an average AAA shooter. The running animation, the animation when you get incapped, even the various talking animations when characters are interacting with you... all very poor. When I was fighting the Spider, a missile hit me while I was behind a low cover, and Dan kinda floated onto the ground with 2/3 of his head clipping into the piece of cover the entire time while waiting for help. It was hilarious... hilariously bad.
Oh, it's not amazing by any means, but it's a large improvement over the Yakuza games. Simply running around in all of those games felt like shit to me as a result of the poor animation and camera placement. The camera was always aimed towards the ground while your character stomped around in a very jerky fashion.

BD features improved animation over that AND uses object motion blur to smooth things over. Those two changes definitely improve the experience. That plus the better camera system.
 

duckroll

Member
Oh, it's not amazing by any means, but it's a large improvement over the Yakuza games. Simply running around in all of those games felt like shit to me as a result of the poor animation and camera placement. The camera was always aimed towards the ground while your character stomped around in a very jerky fashion.

BD features improved animation over that AND uses object motion blur to smooth things over. Those two changes definitely improve the experience. That plus the better camera system.

I don't really feel that it's a large improvement over Yakuza though. The thing is, what makes Binary Domain few a bit "tighter" than Yakuza games in terms of camera and animation is entirely due to the fact that it basically copies the traditional TPS camera/animation format which is tried and true with Gears.

The next Yakuza game is not unlikely to control and look like this, so while it's possible that some areas will be improved if they use a new engine at least, I still think the animations and generally jankiness will still be there, and be much more pronounced because of the type of game Yakuza is.
 

JB1981

Member
Wow that cutscene was really disturbing but very well done.

Dans terrible voice acting grates though. He sounds like a Japanese voice actor desperately trying to sound American or something
 

neojubei

Will drop pants for Sony.
Wow that cutscene was really disturbing but very well done.

Dans terrible voice acting grates though. He sounds like a Japanese voice actor desperately trying to sound American or something

Didn't have any issues with any of the voice actors, myself.
 
finally got my copy. Ps3 version, pretty damn cool install screen lol.

I got the asian release, loks like it has dual language, which voice acting is better?
 

neojubei

Will drop pants for Sony.
finally got my copy. Ps3 version, pretty damn cool install screen lol.

I got the asian release, loks like it has dual language, which voice acting is better?

The install screen is cool. I wish there were parts in the game can would you control that device.
 
Honestly, the voice work is a lot better than you might first think. They did a surprisingly convincing job with the dialog and the cutscenes are pretty damn fun to watch.

Here's a look at the story telling...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JexOLNelh1Q

Agree. Other than some spotty writing and the fact Big Bo never shuts the hell up, the banter is actually damn good. As I said before, I especially love the VA for Dan. Dude is straight out of a late 80s/early 90s Anime.

Oh I guess another knock is how loud the dialog is in comparison to everything else and you seemingy can't tweek that volume. Like when Dan and Big Bo are sliding in the tutorial level, Big Bo is so damn loud and drowns everything else out. This is compounded by the fact that he's CONSTANTLY talking so it kinda ruined that sequence for me =/
 
There is one major issue with the game for me.

It feels incomplete. Not based on the graphics or animations or sound or story, no. It feels incomplete as in there should be more to it. For example: we see the Japanese policemen intersecting the protagonist crew time and time again. It feels like there should be a side story that deals with what they are doing when Dan and the other misfits go massacring robots and destroying the city. Same goes for the B-team of the main campaign - Dan selects his companions and goes on, but what happens with the people he does not pick. I say there should be another side story, detailing their actions and the route they take through the city. Or what happens to Jean and Cain before you meet up with them?

I felt that the policemen side plot was meant to be a running joke, especially
when you see them when you to the highway leading to Amada
. Maybe it's just me, but that interaction felt absurd.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Love Binary Domain but I never played any Yakuza games. Do you think I would like Yakuza Dead Souls?

I only played the demo of Dead Souls, but the environment graphics and controls were horrendous. It seemed like a really, really low-budget game. Kind of an experiment really. I like the Ryu ga Gotoku series a lot, but that demo put me off from buying Dead Souls.
 
I only played the demo of Dead Souls, but the environment graphics and controls were horrendous. It seemed like a really, really low-budget game. Kind of an experiment really. I like the Ryu ga Gotoku series a lot, but that demo put me off from buying Dead Souls.

Is the IQ absolute garbage like what I played of the Yakuza 3 demo? I remember being blown away by how muddy that game looked. Since I loved Y1 and 2 I should probably just suck it up and play it.
 
Love Binary Domain but I never played any Yakuza games. Do you think I would like Yakuza Dead Souls?

I played through the Japanese version over the summer. Entirely different engine and game-play system. OF THE END doesn't control at all like Binary Domain, it's a hybrid of typical RGG controls with some janky TPS system. It's weird at first, but makes sense after an hour or so.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Is the IQ absolute garbage like what I played of the Yakuza 3 demo? I remember being blown away by how muddy that game looked. Since I loved Y1 and 2 I should probably just suck it up and play it.
Yeah, just play it. The image quality is totally shit in ALL Yakuza PS3 titles. Binary Domain is the first game they've released this gen with 720p resolution and realtime cutscenes.
 
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