Yakuza Team’s Binary Domain hasn’t made a lasting impression. The third-person shooter garnered favourable, but not glowing reviews upon its 2012 release (the PC version holds a 68 on Metacritic), but it seems to have been largely forgotten in the years since—a shame for something that, however imperfect, deserves far more attention than it’s received.
Developers spend a lot of time trying to make things as pretty as possible in videogames and sometimes that effort kind of misses the point. While fantastic visuals are easy to talk about in a preview or review — and translate well to short promotional videos and screenshots — they aren’t nearly as important as how a game actually feels. So subjective, but so important, the minute details of play contribute much more to how enjoyable a title is than any breathtaking vista or lovingly animated character.
Describing how this works is difficult (unless, I suppose, you create your own critical vocabulary), but is well worth the effort. It’s also essential that critics of any stripe point out good examples of videogames that just plain feel good to play.
This, I think, is the best way to start talking about Renegade Ops.
digital love child 