Binary Domain on PlayStation 3 Hands-On Impressions.

For us, Binary Domain was one of those games. Which is strange given that it's the latest project from the studio behind the Yakuza titles — one of our favourite PlayStation franchises of all time.

While Binary Domain has shown flashes of brilliance in its underlying art direction, everything else has looked by-the-numbers and predictable. It's a fair assumption — Binary Domain takes inspiration from a number of the top third-person shooters on the market, and feels instantly recognisable as a pseudo-Gears Of Wars crossed with SOCOM in a futuristic Japan.

While the gameplay itself is obvious and accessible, it's the under-lying ethos that makes Binary Domain so much more than the sum of its parts. Set in a futuristic Tokyo where robots control the city, you're part of a resistance team — a back-slapping group of military veterans thrust together to obliterate a robotic insurgence.

The game's most innovative component is its voice command system, which allows you to communicate with your AI partners using a Bluetooth headset. Unfortunately our demo was restricted to button prompts, so we weren't able to get a feel for the voice detection technology. The implementation seems fairly straight-forward though, offering a number of a simplistic context sensitive phrases such as "Cover Me" and "Hold" which are each mapped to the face buttons when playing without a headset.

SEGA's also keen on talking-up Binary Domain's squad dynamic. Different team mates will react to the way in which you treat them, meaning they might be less likely to put their life on the line for you if you treat them poorly. This mechanic surfaced itself pretty thinly during our demo, seeing us irritate one of the female members in our squad by talking up her sexuality with another soldier. While it wasn't the best showcase for the system, balancing squad dynamics is a genuinely interesting idea and we're looking forward to seeing how it manifests itself across the game's entire campaign.

While familiar, Binary Domain's gunplay is genuinely a lot of fun. Robots take a distinct number of hits, but are well animated, with armour chipping away from their body as the bullets register. The robots are desperate too, and will claw along the floor towards your position if heavily injured. It's fun, and surprisingly well polished for a Japanese developer — especially one that's just recently put out a game as archaic as Yakuza: Of The End.

The visuals are impressive too, channeling some inspiration from Vanquish, but with a much more urban setting. As we pushed forward through enemy forces, we happened upon an enormous, sky-scraper sized robot with heavy armour. "Shoot the red blob time," we cynically considered.

But no. What ensued was a much more layered boss fight, requiring us to blast off its armour with a well placed rocket, injure it by knocking down a nearby power-line, and then jump on its head to shoot out its primary circuit board. It's actually one of the most creative boss fights we've played in a while. SEGA's decision to side-step glowy red bits deserves all the credit in the world.

As the robot crumpled to the ground, our demo came to a conclusion and we came away wanting more. Binary Domain is clearly inspired by a range of other products, but its actually much greater than the sum of its parts. Great shooting, the potential for an interesting squad mechanic and some quality art design make this a surprisingly competent package. If the full campaign can maintain the energy from our demo, channel some of Yakuza's great narrative development tools, and introduce a variety of interesting boss encounters it could come as a surprise to many when it releases next year.

Binary Domain is set to release on Feburary 14th in North America and February 17th in Europe on PlayStation 3.