This November, SuperPod Game Club was tasked with playing Binary Domain. Chosen by Tony, who was the first to beat last month's game (Alice: Madness Returns), Binary Domain took many of us by surprise.

If you'd like to join the SuperPod Game Club to play along with us, and even write a small review for our website, join our Discord server HERE. We'd love to have you!

Let's take cover and see what we had to say.

Thrak

I didn't forget about the Game Club this month! Aren't you proud of me??.............................Anyway, this game was a treat. Leave it to the Yakuza team to make a fucking weird and fun take on the cover-based third-person shooter. Released in 2012, this was when Gears of War, Uncharted, and a bunch of other games in this style were the talk of the town and Sega decided to throw their hat in the ring.

The story involves robots that don't know they're robots and there has been worldwide flooding and some other shit, I don't know. There is a system where you can interact with your various teammates and try to make them like you or dislike you. This results in different endings as well, depending on who you bring into combat with you. The game tries to have a system where you can put on a real headset and talk to your teammates and give them orders, much like a multiplayer shooter. I was not able to get this to work. It was either too sensitive or not sensitive enough so I gave up on it.

The graphics hold up surprisingly well. Quite a few late era 360 and PS3 titles still look rather impressive and being played through backwards compatibility on a Series X, the game cleans up. The gameplay was really fun. Somewhere on the Gears of War and Vanquish spectrum (remember Vanquish?) this has your standard cover-based shooting, but it is faster paced than Gears and can border on something more resembling what Platinum was doing at the time, without really reaching those heights. It finds a comfortable middle ground that can accommodate different playstyles. The boss battles are decent, the level design is fun and the game is not super long, taking me around 12 hours to complete the story on normal difficulty.

While not the best game we've played for the Game Club this year, I certainly recommend this one as a hidden gem. It's on PS3, Xbox 360 (One and Series through BC) as well as on Steam.

Tony

I had the honor of picking the game this month, and what better way to show thanks in the month of the giving than sharing Binary Domain—an incredibly underrated game by the one and only Ryo Ga Gatoku Studio. For anyone who doesn’t already know, RGG is the developer behind the Like A Dragon/Yakuza games, with Binary Domain being their first attempt at launching a new original IP. The story follows a mercenary team called The Rust Crew, who are on a mission to stop the manufacturing of “Hollow Children”, robots disguised as humans that can become violent when discovered. The plot feels like something from an episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but with that unique RGG charm that keeps it from becoming too self serious.

The Good:

The combat feels great, which was a pleasant surprised considering the studios previous attempt at a third person shooter (Yakuza Dead Souls) didn’t turn out very well.
The game does a good job at mixing things up every so often, sprinkling in some action set pieces that really helps keeps the third-person shooting segments from becoming stale.
There is some decision making that can alter the way some of the story plays out and, while it is hardly as deep as something like Mass Effect, it was nice to see that choices did matter.
The story and all of the characters are well written; RGG’s signature sense of humor is sprinkled in for good measure.

The Not So Good:

There were a few battles toward the end that felt drawn out. Nothing too bad, but they edged on being a bit tedious.
The lack of a campaign co-op mode was a real missed opportunity.
The (optional) voice command feature, while an interesting novelty for the time, is kind of pointless and doesn’t always work very well.

Overall: Binary Domain is a short, but sweet action game that unfortunately drowned in a sea of generic third person shooters from the era. It has an interesting story, with well developed characters and solid gameplay. It is a very strong recommendation, especially for fans of RGG who want to see a glimpse of what could have been had the game gotten a sequel.

Aaron

This one completely blew me away. I was expecting a generic third-person shooter, but was instead treated to one of the coolest, most explosive hidden gems on the 360/PS3.

In the game's world, global warming has caused worldwide flooding, forcing humanity to build new civilizations on top of the water. Due to the immense number of deaths caused by the flooding, humanity relied on robots to help rebuild. As time went on and technology evolved, appearances of "Hollow Children"—robots disguised as humans that become violent and angry when they discover they are machines—start to increase, causing panic. The government formed teams called "Rust Crews" to hunt down and terminate any Hollow Children. The story is completely bonkers, but in the coolest way possible. It really reminds me of a 90s anime or sci-fi movie. And just like an anime or movie, the story has plenty of twists to keep you guessing as to what the hell is going to happen next.

Just like the story, the characters are very well-written and have so much personality to them. Each character is a different class, specializing in different types of combat and having different weapons to suit them. As you progress, you'll build relationships with your teammates which ultimately affect the story toward the end.

Being a third-person cover-based shooter, gameplay is a lot like Gears of War or Uncharted—you'll take cover behind a wall or some other structure to avoid gunfire and fire back at enemies. Combat was very fast-paced and slick, except for a few boss battles where they took entirely too many bullets to kill, and threw you and your teammates around like Barbie dolls.

I would absolutely recommend this game to fans of third-person shooters, or those who want to check out other games by RGG Studio. The Xbox 360 version is backwards compatible on Xbox Series X with FPS boost, and it looks fantastic! Seriously, go play it!