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Free Guide Friday – Prototype 2

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Prototype 2 strategy guide

Who’s up for kicking off the weekend right? What better way to do so than with a guide that will help you kill lots and lots of things in a game? I can’t think of a better way to spend my weekend, personally. BradyGames and I want to help you do just that with a free strategy guide for Prototype 2.

How? It’s simple.

Since today is Star Wars Day, leave your absolute favorite GENUINE Star Wars quote below. Quotes from The Clone Wars animation series and movie will not count, I don’t care that George Lucas is behind those as well.

Winner will be drawn at 3 p.m. CST on May 4th. International residents, if you are willing to pay for shipping, feel free to enter. I can’t wait to see what you all enter.

May the Fourth be with You!

Binary Domain Mini-Review

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Binary Domain box artBinary Domain is going to be one of those really fun games that just falls by the wayside. I hadn’t heard of it before Gaming Angels asked me to review it, and after playing it, I want to smack Sega for not promoting this more. Or I guess I should say, for not promoting it at all.

It released right before Mass Effect 3, so that didn’t help matters much. I think most things that released within that two-week period were overlooked and forgotten. However, that’s not much of an excuse for not effectively marketing a super fun shooter. It’s only been a few months, and already retailers are not carrying it. Many haven’t even heard of it, and that’s a damn shame.

The best way to explain Binary Domain is to say that it’s a Gears of War with robots. Lots and lots of robots. However, it has a bit of some Mass Effect-dialogue-choice features mixed in.

One very unique feature to Binary Domain was its use of dialogue and dialogue trees. When NPCs talked to Dan, occasionally Dan could respond and prod a conversation of some sort. Depending on how you responded in these dialogue trees affects the NPC’s level of trust in you. The level of trust actually influences how well your team will listen to you when you give orders, how your team responds to certain cut scenes, and if your teammates will be willing to come to your aid if you’re down. Inputting dialogue could be done one of two ways: via controller with a BioWare-like radial or via your headset mic. If you use the mic, you aren’t limited to what choices the radial provides, and the characters will respond to a wide variety of voice commands. I tried this once just to see how it worked, and I had to turn the mic off after I was losing trust from my team because they thought I was cussing at them. Apparently I yell at my TV more than I thought I did. The trust feature isn’t solely based on the dialogue either. Friendly-fire is most decidedly turned on in the game, so if you shoot your teammates, you will lose their trust.

I was also completely blown away by the story. Just when I thought the final twist had reared its head, another popped up. And then another. And all were fantastic.  If you want to read more about the story, then you’ll just have to pay a little visit to Gaming Angels to see what I had to say.

In the end though, I cannot recommend this game enough, something I gushed about in a recent (not yet posted, grrr) episode of the EvilCast. If you like third-person shooters at all, pick this game up. You will not be disappointed; I can almost guarantee it.

Binary Domain Strategy Guide Review

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Binary Domain strategy guide reviewI had zero expectations for both the game Binary Domain and the e-guide Brady Games released. I’m not a huge fan of e-guides thanks to experiences with the horrific writing in GameFAQs guides and the current disappointment that is the IGN wikis. But this is Brady Games, so it should have some sort of high quality standards that’s different from the usual online guides, right?

RIGHT.

Unlike most e-guides on the market, this is a PDF download that you can use on your computer, your iPad, or even your Kindle Fire (as I did). I actually couldn’t use my Kindle Fire for very long, because a lot of the PDF file didn’t survive the transition and conversion. On the iPad, however, iBooks converted the links perfectly. Score one for iBooks. No content was lost, so don’t think I mean that. All of the inner document links, however, were. I couldn’t interact with the maps, tap forward to different chapters, leave bookmarks, etc. On the iPad though, there were zero problems.

The most important of these links were the map links. At the start of every scene, the guide had a mini-map of sorts that was clickable. Once it was clicked/tapped, it transported the user to the back of the guide that had more detailed and large-scaled maps for each scene. These maps displayed all of the collectibles and stores in the area. Normally I would hate this, because that requires some unnecessary and inefficient page flipping for something that should be all together. However, since the maps also had a nifty in-page link back to the chapter, at least it made the back-and-forth tolerable.

Binary Domain strategy guide Binary Domain strategy guide

Overall, the guide was pretty fantastic. If I had been following the guide closely enough, I would have earned more achievements than I did, such as the SECURE-COM packet collectibles, finding and shopping at every store, and finding every piece of DNA. At least now I know I can definitely do all that when I play it again at a later date.

Binary Domain strategy guideThe walkthrough was particularly useful when it came to boss fights. There were a ton of boss fights in Binary Domain, and not all of them were that obvious in how to defeat. The idiocy of your team at times didn’t ever help matters. The last few boss fights were by far the worst (as usual), so several of the guide’s tips were absolute lifesavers.

I never want to see paper guides disappear, as even though I love my e-readers, there’s still just something about holding a book in your hands and flipping pages. That said though, I’ll complain less if e-guides turn out like this one–more of interactive PDFs than anything else. It’s what separated it from GameFAQs and the IGN wikis. It’s true that the wikis have videos, but none have interactive maps.

SGR Rating: 4/5

Authors: Rick Barba and Tim Borgenn
Publisher: Brady Games
Editions Available: PDF
Acquired via publisher

Monday Gaming Diary: I’ve been witchered

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I’ve kind of had and RPGtastic week this past week with both Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and The Witcher 2. Sad to say, I’ve already gotten a bit bored with Reckoning just because the number of sidequests are not only overkill, but they’re virtually the same. They also rarely affect anything in the main storyline, so I decided to limit my sidequesting to just the faction quests and the main story.

They’re still boring. It sucks. The combat is really a lot of fun and I really want to like this game. I have a feeling, though, that the game is best played in short bursts and sporadically so that you aren’t spending hours at once playing the same quests. A Twitter friend said that Reckoning was incredibly padded, and I’m starting to definitely feel that. Such an incredible shame.

I broke it up a little bit to sample The Witcher 2 before I went on the EvilCast that night in order to discuss it a little with Ross. HOLY CRAP that game is hard. The combat is ungodly complex, and there’s so much to remember to do that the tutorial (that was specifically added for the console version) is almost worthless.

The Witcher 2 Penny Arcade Analysis

If it wasn’t for the guide, I never would have survived my first battle. Note I didn’t say first boss fight; I mean my first regular fight with grunt knights. I also need the guide just to remember how many spells Geralt has at his disposal. I’m so used to being led along and gradually introduced to spells and combat techniques. This one literally throws everything at you, kicks you out the door, and says, “Yeah, have fun out there!” This is going to be one interesting ride, that’s for sure.

Since I went out of town this weekend, no Halo 2 was accomplished, but I did manage to get some much needed Vita time. Finally checked out Escape Plan, a game I bought way back around the Vita’s launch but never got around to. That is one adorably frustrating game. I see the appeal, and it’s fun for the most part, but my lack of patience makes it very difficult for me to play it for long periods of time. I have to admit though…all the ways Lil and Laarg can die are quite hilarious.

I meant to play some Uncharted: Golden Abyss on the return flight, but instead, I zonked out while listening to music. Sad…maybe. But I really enjoyed that nap.

BradyGames Has iBook Strategy Guides??

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BradyGames tweeted this morning about picking up their Darkness II strategy guide on iBooks, and I about did a double-take. Electronic guides are obviously nothing new, but on iBooks? Really? Sho’ enuff.

Not only did that surprise me, but the fact that this isn’t even their first iBook guide shocked me. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 strategy guide was in fact their first iBook.

It’s an interesting new option for e-guides, as I found that using PDF files on my iPad sometimes loses a lot of the links the PDFs have embedded. With iBooks, at least there will be no conversion when it comes to using an iPad or iPhone for the guides.

That doesn’t help me when I use my Kindle Fire, but now I’m just getting picky.

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