Alright, we have a bunch of new articles we’re working on. First I want to talk about the subject of the hidden gem. I see many people will say a game is one, and then we play it and it’s not.

I found a game that no one on my list has played. I had seen the name a few times but didn’t know too much about it. It’s called Binary Domain and I decided to look it up the other day. Looked decent yet generic, so I downloaded it to try and, yeah I liked it.

Binary Domain is a cover based third person shooter set in a dystopian future. Global warming made sea levels rise and flooded cities. They were rebuilt using robots made by the Bergen Corp and Amada.

A mass shooter has revealed someone has made hollow children. Hallow children are robots that look human and don’t know they’re robots. This is a violation of international law and you and a team are sent to Tokyo to investigate the Amada Corporation.

You play as Dan, who looks like Sam from Vanquish and is generic but likable. He’s teamed up with Bo, who is the most non generic person in the game. There’s a British guy named Charlie, a Frenchy, Faye whose Chinese Intelligence, and a British woman that I can’t remember the name of. The characters and story of the game are generic, but still good for what they are. There’s a few story twists I wasn’t totally expecting. Like other squad based shooters, you can issue squad commands, there’s a basic trust system and you can talk to them. The writing has its moments and cutscenes keep you engaged.

The environments are pretty diverse, you go from outside the sea wall, slums, sewers and the upper city of Tokyo. Level design isn’t bad at all either, and I don’t have really any complaints.

Gameplay is pretty good, you’re fighting robots. The cover shooting isn’t as good as the Gears of War or Mass Effect games, but it’s not far behind. It introduces some new elements, like where you take quite a bit of damage blind firing. When you’re on the edge of cover you have to move further in because you’ll take damage when your not peaking out. The guns feel good, except for the three round burst rifle.

In Gears 4 and 5, they introduced robots to fight. This was a chore and I hated it. In this there’s different types of robots and many of them act differently. There’s the regular green ones, the black ones who charge with shotguns, small electric ones, police and more. The whole disintegration system is cool. Robots will react where you shot them and parts will fall off. If you shoot their legs off a robot, it’ll crawl towards you and try to grab. If you shoot their heads off they’ll start shooting enemy bots. The boss battles can be a bit frustrating but those can be cool and diverse. Here’s a tease

This game is by RGG, the makers of Yakuza and has a few of the quirks. They have buy stations with familiar menus and mini game mechanics. The writing also has some of the humor of the series. If you have a Series console, play this. The frame boost and HDR work pretty well on this game. There’s also a regular multiplayer and horde mode. I think this game sold poorly because it came out when the third person cover shooter market was saturated and lack of marketing.