Detroit: Become Human (2018)

I didn't have much expectations from yet another David Cage interactive drama presented by Quantic Dream, due to its history of slow gameplay and flat overly predictable plots. And I'm here to say that this is by far their greatest achievement!

Finally, an action packed sci-fi adventure that brings the elements of the previous games but utilizes them in a more practical way to keep players awake.

With top of the line graphics and a well written script with inspirations from classic sci-fi robotics run amok mixed with civil rights, Detroit manages to captivate audiences with it's originality and action packed gameplay.

David Cage got it right this time, making the replay value much more tolerable and creating characters that you truly care about that bring the story to life.

Definitely worth a play, and hopefully any further games by these guys will maintain the same flow and attention to detail.

Would have worked better as a smaller story and not tried to do too much with all the allusions to the Holocaust it beats you over the head with. It fell short of generating genuine emotion in that area as it felt like a mockery—too over the top and not in any way equivalent no matter what the story says that androids are people too. Any notion of sacrifice is rendered moot when the person sacrificing themselves can come back if the story wills it. Marcus’ entire story was too clumsily handled.

The part of the story that worked best was Connor’s arc, as it was much more personal and less heavy-handed. It worked since the conflict was centered on identity and personal morality.

Kara’s arc was kind of just...floating there though and the “twist” pretty much lowered the stakes and investment so you have to ask why they thought that was a good idea at all. It was fine up to that point, however she and Alice just didn’t have much personality besides “mom and kid” which says a lot about the writer’s ability to write women.

No denying that the graphics and sound are stunning, though.

20 Games for 2020, #2 – Detroit: Become Human (PS4)

My wife and I played this together, deciding on narrative choices collaboratively, bingeing it over a few days like an interactive equivalent of a TV miniseries. I think this might be the ideal sort of game for playing like this, as most of the game’s pleasure is in its graphics and story.

That said, one has to accept that the story is something of a corny one—but I can enjoy the overblown pulpiness of Quantic Dream narratives (what I might describe as an unusually well-funded made-for-TV/straight-to-video/B-movie vibe*) in the right mood. Enough has been written, more eloquently than I could, about the allegorical elements of Detroit’s story, and its (in)competency as social commentary; all I’ll say on this matter is that it’s profoundly muddled in this regard and is better enjoyed if one reads it more simply than Cage would want you to—that is, literally as a story about androids and their experiences. Despite these apparent faults, in other respects Cage plays to his strengths (or rather against his weaknesses), as characterisation is marked more by variety and recognisability than depth and complexity.

I think the weaknesses of the storytelling in a Quantic Dream game can seem particularly pronounced because the experience is usually so on-the-rails that one doesn’t have the opportunity to draw pleasure from such extracurricular activities as exploration or NPC chit-chat. Also, even when their worlds are composed of a limited set of scenes, adventure games usually offer more freedom of movement than that in Detroit. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been spending more and more time with open-world games, but I’m finding the limited scope of the environments, combined with the linearity of their accessibility, in games like this (the ‘interactive drama’ model) more restrictive than agreeably focused—albeit there’s more to see and explore in the world of Detroit than something like The Wolf Among Us, which I was playing around the same time. (But I think the storytelling in The Wolf Among Us was more successful.) So, to enjoy games like this, I find that I need to play them in moderation.

Nevertheless, I still liked Detroit, in spite of its narrative flaws. I enjoyed playing through its story. The graphics are frequently lovely and seem to fully utilise the capabilities of the PS4. And the gameplay mechanics are perfectly serviceable, as far as I remember (I played it some months ago). I read negative criticism about the flowcharts shown after each chapter ‘revealing’ the pathways through the story, but I wasn’t put off by this—it foregrounded the game-ness of the game, but does every game have to strive for immersion? The effect is hardly Brechtian in its import, but I think it’s fun to see what choices one did/didn’t make as the story progresses.

I enjoyed our time in the world of Detroit (twelve hours), and I think this is something we’ll eventually revisit to try out different pathways.

[*] In the era of streaming, I realise that using ‘made-for-TV’ or ‘straight-to-video’ as bywords for inferior quality dates me terribly. [EDIT, 17/3/2021]: Some time after writing this review, I happened upon the modern variant, ‘straight-to-streaming’—albeit the significant improvement in the quality of ‘made-for-streaming’ films in recent years renders this term more neutral in meaning.

I am not the biggest fan of movie games. I found both Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls to be just okay, like its fine to experience the story once and then never think about it.

So I picked this up thinking its just gonna be another David Cage shtick, but I was genuinely surprised how fun it turned out to be. It's still a movie game but there are now more game-y elements and the addition of flowchart is simply genius. I love flowcharts in Zero Escape games and I love it here too. The story itself is interesting but seeing how your decisions affect the outcome from the flowchart is cool and really encourages you to replay the game multiple times.

The graphic is amazing, played this on PC with maxed out settings but I'm sure it looks just as good on PS4. The soundtrack is really appropriate with the setting of the game.

I tried my best to get the best ending for all characters but at the last few chapters I panicked and caused Kara to suffer the most while Markus and Connor get by just fine. I'll do another playthrough in the future, I have too much on my plate right now.

The game looks pretty, is voice acted well (besides a few notables) and has some interesting mechanics around story and gameplay.

The issues around sentience and human rights is quite shallow, not helped by simple writing. There is so much to delve into on the topic of liberation, self-awareness and AI, and the game touches hardly any of it.

Still has some underlying issues around women like Heavy Rain did, complete with a sexy fight scene involving two female androids in platform heels and bikinis outside a sex club, and the playable female character gets no special abilities unlike the playable males. Her story line has her striving for the ultimate goal of becoming a mom, while the men get to solve crimes and start revolutions.

The other major role for a woman is of course a love interest in one arc, and even gets promoted to “lover” when you agree with her enough. Quite the reward.

I have exhausted most of my time trying to get all of the outcomes of the game. And amazingly it's already taking a LOT of my time. But I'm not complaining. Lol. In my opinion, this game is just way on the top of all the other compared games of its genre.

To review this game is to appreciate the totality of it. While the game does seem to have a shallow plot, it was perfect for a game! And I understood that because how you'd go about playing it would determine how your experience would be. And it was so hard playing as a human that has empathy to play as an Android who's supposed to be non-living. Honestly I was quite disappointed with how I ended on my first playthrough. Despite having saved them all (except 1 minor character), I really thought it was just a mix of iRobot and Ex-Machina.

But when I played it again and again while understanding what's at stake and fully aware of the game's mechanics, I was able to enjoy the Detroit experience. It was like I played a movie that I directed myself which I totally liked.

At first this was a 3-4 star game, but when you've opened your eyes to the complexity of how this game was built, the many possibilities and unique experience you can encounter, I'd say it's worth the 5-star game.