The first thing I remember about Binary Domain, weirdly, is how it sounds. It has, as the best shooters must, a truly great shotgun; this one lets off a properly thunderous boom. Its SMG – god, I love its SMG – makes just the most racket, like someone dropping a box of nails on a corrugated roof. And amid all those crashes and bangs, I hear voices. Listen! There’s loveable wingman Big Bo roaring his encouragement. And there’s Cain, a flamboyant French robot wearing a red neckerchief, briefly pausing between volleys of machine-gun fire to praise my leadership.
That bears repeating, doesn’t it. . Binary Domain is full of things like that: the kind of characterful silliness that reminds you this is from the team that makes the Yakuza games. That fact alone would seem to disqualify it from double-A status, but back in 2012 Japan was still something of a plucky underdog when it came to third-person shooters. By the time it showed up, with its “and now on ITV2…” title and slightly naff box art, we’d already had three Gears of Wars and three Uncharteds, and it was hastily dismissed as an also-ran.