{"id":22221,"date":"2018-06-10T12:13:21","date_gmt":"2018-06-10T02:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22221"},"modified":"2018-10-29T12:27:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T02:27:14","slug":"detroit-become-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22221","title":{"rendered":"Detroit: Become Human"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"detroitbecomehumanposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Developer:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Quantic Dream
\nPublisher:\u00a0<\/strong>Sony Interactive Entertainment
\nPlatform:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Playstation 4<\/p>\n

I<\/span>nteractive storytelling has come a long way in recent years.\u00a0 Telltale Games had an incredible rise and fall where their fortunes soared upon the release of\u00a0The Walking Dead<\/em> in 2012 before mismanagement and market saturation saw them go bust before they could even finish\u00a0The Walking Dead Season Three<\/em> this year.<\/p>\n

Graphic novels have exploded in popularity and are a prominent feature on the Playstation Store and Nintendo eShop.\u00a0 There’s also been some sleeper hits in the form of Dontnod’s\u00a0Life Is Strange<\/em> and Supergiant Games’\u00a0Until Dawn,\u00a0<\/em>both excellent games in their own right.<\/p>\n

With that said, there are few modern developers who have focused exclusively on the interactive storytelling medium longer than David Cage and his team at Quantic Dream.\u00a0\u00a0Detroit: Become Human<\/em> is their latest game.<\/p>\n

\"detroitbecomehumanthumb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Set in the near future,\u00a0Detroit Become Human<\/em> explores the idea of what happens when androids are introduced into society to replace the working class.\u00a0 They are the waiters, drivers, caretakers and street sweepers of the future.\u00a0 Tensions run high as the unemployment rate of humans soar and resentment towards androids who have taken their jobs is barely contained by law enforcement.\u00a0 As this hostility begins to turn into actual violence, we see how the androids respond through the eyes of three playable characters – Markus, a caretaker for an elderly artist; Connor, a detective for the police force; and Kara, a housekeeper for an abusive drunk.<\/p>\n

As a B-grade sci-fi action\u00a0adventure\u00a0told in the vein of\u00a0Upgrade<\/em> or\u00a0I, Robot<\/em>, this is a thoroughly entertaining romp.\u00a0 The visuals in\u00a0Detroit<\/em> are very striking and it has some of the best characters he has ever conceived (Connor in particular is a hoot).\u00a0 Perhaps its not David Cage’s intention but his writing has generally had a stilted quality to it, so putting that language into a game about androids is perfect.\u00a0 All three characters – Connor, Kara and Markus – are quite distinct and although their journeys momentarily overlap – I think players will be engaged in the outcome of all three.<\/p>\n

The game makes an interesting choice in showing you all the available branching paths at the end of each chapter.\u00a0 Although you might think it hampers the storytelling to be so open about the wires and string that hold it together behind each sequence, it actually heightened my engagement with\u00a0Detroit\u00a0<\/em>and I’m genuinely impressed at the expansiveness of each chapter and how it can unfold.\u00a0 You can compare your journey with that of your friends and again, it’s neat to see that out of the ten or so friends on my friend list that played\u00a0Detroit<\/em>, there were many chapters where the outcome I saw was a wholly unique experience to me.<\/p>\n

\"detroitkara\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There have been some ambitious interactive storytelling games recently that have made me rethink what the medium can achieve.\u00a0 Consider a game like Dontnod’s\u00a0Life Is Strange Season Two<\/em>\u00a0which is tackling the tale of two young migrant boys who flee America for the Mexican border.<\/p>\n

David Cage has never been shy about his narrative ambitions and his previous games have often aspired to say something about the Human Condition.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Cage seems to lack a basic level of self-awareness about his own creative limitations and that has lead to some pretty cringe-worthy moments in\u00a0Beyond Two Souls<\/em> and\u00a0Heavy Rain<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Detroit Become Human<\/em> is no different.\u00a0 When it gets it wrong, it\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>gets it wrong.<\/p>\n

There’s a scene in the game which portrays domestic abuse and specifically, child abuse<\/em>.\u00a0 Hank, an unemployed drunk and drug user, lashes out at the dinner table and strikes his daughter Alice.\u00a0 Now, I don’t think that video games should\u00a0necessarily avoid exploring challenging subject matter like this but it should be handled with a deft touch and with a modicum of understanding of the seriousness of what is being conveyed.\u00a0 Cage’s Choose Your Own Adventure jaunt probably isn’t the ideal vehicle for such an endeavour.\u00a0 At the end of the scene in which\u00a0Hank strikes Alice, a cheerful\u00a0ding!<\/em> noise alerted me to a game trophy I unlocked for completing the chapter.\u00a0 It felt so tacky to couch that moment with a Congrats On The Video Game Achievement signifier and I can’t quite believe that sequence made it QA testing without something saying something.<\/p>\n

Despite that, overall I had a good time with\u00a0Detroit: Become Human\u00a0<\/em>and I think it is Quantic Dream’s best game to date.\u00a0 It’s a game that seems to have magnified the best and worst traits of Cage’s style.\u00a0 I think he’s a good Ideas Man that conceptually has dreamed up some great concepts for interactive storytelling.\u00a0 I just think he needs an editor with a firm hand to reign in some of the blind spots he has.\u00a0\u00a0Detroit: Become Human<\/em> is a mixed bag but its not without merit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the future, a civil war is brewing between androids who have been created as a subservient underclass and resentful humans whose lives have been displaced by them. Detroit: Become Human follows the fortunes of three androids caught in the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2777,1702,2778,2779],"class_list":["post-22221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-david-cage","tag-playstation-4","tag-quantic-dreams","tag-sony-interactive-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22221"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22232,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221\/revisions\/22232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}