Its no doubt that I loved Binary Domain when it was released last year. Don’t believe me? Check out our review. So for this episode of Sequel Saturday, we will talk about what we would want to see changed in Binary Domain 2, if there ever happens to be one in the future.
Better online advertising push
When the game was announced, I didn’t know what to think. I mean, the Japanese magazine scans said it was going to be a squad based 3rd person shooter that was a drama about questioning what it is to be human. Part of the scans revealed that you and your team would build relationships and work better together if those bonds where stronger. Then SEGA releases the above trailer when the game finally gets ‘officially announced’ and its a disaster. Watch the trailer, it makes no sense. These people can’t seem to work together and act like complete morons.
Then SEGA of America turns around and reveals this terrible box art for the title. I’m not going to pick the box art apart here, we already did that. But let’s be honest, the marketing and trailers didn’t actually show what was awesome about the game, didn’t highlight the best characters (Cain) and just made the game seem like a 3rd rate Gears of War set with robots. All they had to show was the big awesome battles, awesome destructible enemies and Cain for all the trailers and it would have been a success (well, more chance of it)!
Polish up the controls
Not to say that the controls on Binary Domain are awful, they aren’t, its the little things that developers miss sometimes. Like asking you to press a action button to jump over a obstacle or the fact that you stop reloading your weapon if you get out of cover (it breaks the animation), stuff like that is just plain annoying. Especially if it causes you to die.
Another thing that Yakuza Team seem to not be able to get right is animation. I love Yakuza series and Binary Domain but they always feel very tank like or unpolished when it comes to animation. I wish Yakuza Team as a studio would fix this for future titles, it would do quite a bit to make the experience better.
No more voice commands
Sadly SEGA and Yakuza Team decided that they probably needed some new feature to set it apart from other 3rd person shooters. Their gimmick that they advertised with the game was a voice command option, that will recognize what a player says and has the team mate respond. This was mean’t to built a bond with a character and the idea that you’ll just ‘speak’ to the computer controlled partner, would make it more realistic. Sounds so futuristic on paper, but it was obvious since the feature was announced that it would fail.
Sadly no game has done voice recognition well and Binary Domain wasn’t a exception. The idea didn’t translate well into gameplay, just didn’t feel that you really needed this option. They could have gone down the way of a speech tree like Mass Effect and would have possibly worked out better and gave the player more options for speech responses. If they make a sequel, the voice command stuff has to go and something more simple like speech trees need to take their place.
More variety in locations
The first game was a pretty straight forward mission, but it did get a chance to visit some of the other locations in the game and it was refreshing. Sadly, the game didn’t do this much and if there is a sequel I would love to see more of this. Maybe give us locations with more forest areas, because being in buildings all the time gives the user the ‘samey’ feel throughout.
Online co-op campaign
[Tell me you don’t want to play as Cain]
I could have lived without a online versus mulitiplayer, but this game screamed co-op campaign and didn’t have one. It did have Invasion mode, that is a survival mode with up to four players, but that isn’t the same as a campaign mode. Now that the first game ‘teased’ a sequel (spoilers) with the main characters on the run, this one could have its own separate co-op campaign getting to know the other people on the squad. Who doesn’t want to know more about Big Bo?
What would you want to see in a sequel to Binary Domain?
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In hindsight the trailer wasn’t as bad, this entire scene though re-scripted actually takes place in the game. Interestingly enough the reload assist feature didn’t make it in the final game.
Also I would like to play Robots Vs Humans in the multiplayer. They have the right robots already in the game and it would remove the threat of a head shot.
Oh and I would love some platforming, I mean this is coming from Super Monkey Ball studios. They needed to have platforming Uncharted style!
I highly oppose the idea of platforming, if it’s going to be like in the Uncharted games.
Uncharted platforming is the worst thing ever, I hope they keep it from a possible sequel or a spiritual sequel.
Good to see you back, Cube!
🙂
Okay, don’t make it like Uncharted.
But please let me jump.
I like Jumping and it bothered me that I couldn’t :P.
I thought the voice commands were useful at times, I could tell them to go ahead and start shooting to distract the enemy then I jump in and finish the job quickly, but most of the commands were not useful indeed.
I would also like that decisions really make an impact on the story’s course. The relationship system came out a bit half-assed. No matter what you did you still ended up having sex with Fei Lee, but the game gave an illusion that it was actually your choice.
Well the game did have 5 different endings based on your trust.
I think generally speaking you shouldn’t put features into a game unless they’re polished. Voice commands were a cool feature on paper but they didn’t well a lot of the time, so IMO the developers should have decided early on to axe them and focus more on aspects that do work.
I’d have liked to have seen more of an emphasis on your relationship with your teammates and dialogue trees that fit the situations better.
A sequel to Binary Domain would be awesome! I highly enjoyed the first game.
When will you, the “fans”, finally understand that SEGA was always about new ideas instead of milking? The main exception being Sonic. Of course i would like to see many sequels for games i enjoy, but i rather have new ideas. That’s why the majority of Sonicfa(g-or-n)s will never be real SEGA fans. There’s a big difference, i’m a big Mega Man fan, but i’m not a Crapcom fan, i hate Capcom and their other overrated games, i simply know my place and i’m not a poser trying to pretend that i’m something that i’m not… 80% of the SEGA fanbase is sadly made of posers that doesn’t know nothing about their history… yeah, call me a troll… whatever… i know it’s not exacly on topic, but, just listen to me, at least this time.
I’m going to leave this comment here so people can see the textbook example of an ‘elitist’ fan.
I’m tired of internet fans of companies to go around talking about how THEY are the only fans and ‘everyone else’ are posers. This is a weekly feature discussing why or what we want in SEGA Sequels. You know why we went out of our way to do it? Because we played the games and liked them so much we wanted to talk about possible sequels. Fuck us, right?
Honestly, get over yourself. I’m tired of this “I’m the only fan of x company” nonsense I always read online.
Also you are delusional if you think SEGA doesn’t milk franchises or makes sequels.
Split Screen Offline Coop like RE6, Gears, Borderlands 2 etc…
Is it me, or does that Yakuza dude look like Eric Cantona? D:
i remember when this game came out not to long ago sega was in a much worse place than it is now i remember hearing words about them focusing on more digital stuff and that this could be thier last boxed game for a while (rumors obviously) buut it made me love this game all the more and i spent alot more time with it then i ussualy would that sort of game
I brought this game not expecting much, but I was blown away! it is awesome, the design, the characters, the way the gameplay is broken up and must have done at least 9 play through’s by now and still not seen everything. It just a shame few people are online on the xbox version. Co-op would be awesome, a longer campaign would be great too, If I had to criticize BD at all it would be that its campaign is not long enough
Just finished the game. Liked it more than I was expecting. But I hated the fact that the A button was for running as well as for seeking cover – I died a dozen times when I wanted to run away, and instead took “cover” in plain sight of a charging enemy.