Finished Binary Domain on the highest difficulty. Here's a quick review:
+ Good combat. Being able to target independent body parts makes the combat more interesting than most TPS. Shooting an enemy's head off will turn him against his robros, shooting a leg off will incapacitate them, shooting an arm off will make him drop his weapon, etc.
+ The upgrade system rewards playing well. You earn credits from each enemy you kill, and you get extra credits for getting headshots, destroying more body parts, melee kills, double kills, multi-kills, etc. You spend these credits on nanomachines from the shop that grant bonuses (eg. extra health, faster health regeneration, increased invulnerability when rolling) and upgrades for you and your squad's weapons.
+ They introduce new enemies pretty frequently and mix them together to keep things interesting throughout the game.
+ Good story, characters, voice acting.
- The boss battles. They're fine conceptually, but some of them have at least 3x as much health as they should. I hate bullet sponges more than anything, so fuck em.
- The difficulty levels are pretty lazy. I was hoping No Mercy would have remixed enemy waves (like all good action games), but it looks like they only made some basic adjustments (like how much damage enemies do, how much health they have, maybe increased accuracy, etc.). Disappointing.
- Weapon variety. Your arsenal is pretty basic: assault rifles, sniper rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, grenades, pistols, etc. I usually didn't see much reason to use anything but the standard Assault Rifle (and a rocket for bosses). It would have been nice to have a few unique weapons, especially since the game takes place in a futuristic setting.
= The trust system. I'm kinda indifferent toward it. Your squad's trust will increase if you're issuing smart orders and they'll ask you questions every once in a while, but as far as I know having high trust doesn't do much besides change the ending.
? There are some multiplayer modes that I haven't played. I think they might be like horde mode or something. shrug
So the game has its flaws, but overall I really enjoyed it. It might not be on the same level as Vanquish mechanically, but I'd still put it above most of the other modern TPS (like Gears, Uncharted, and Mass Effect).
