Detroit: Become Human

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Chopper
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by Chopper »

KSubzero1000 wrote: June 5th, 2018, 2:19 pm
DomsBeard wrote: June 5th, 2018, 1:51 pm it all falls down
It falls down because you're looking for intellectual honesty and logical consistency where none exist. The vast majority of article writers are ideologues and not analysts.

In this case, I'm not even disagreeing with the article's conclusion. Cage does have some issues with his portrayal of female characters. But it's pretty obvious to me that the writer reached this conclusion first and that the evidence was haphazardly cobbled together to support it afterwards. Which is a pretty questionable methodology. But why go looking for contradictory evidence if both the author and the target audience are already in agreement?

It's better to take this sort of stuff with a grain of salt, I think. They probably mean well.
I do think that a lot of this has a basis in QD's tendency to go straight to a cliche/trope instead of writing things properly. So 'female in peril' is always going to be there. Whether it's a conscious thing (save time and money) and whether they recognise that their writing is the weakest point, I don't know. I was pleasantly surprised that they handled the 'sexy android' (because you knew there would be sexy androids) mini plot line quite well, in an understated manner, so maybe there is hope. :lol:

Something I've been thinking of recently is the role of the auteur (as perceived) in games. I personally don't like that a game is identified so much with one person, eg Molyneaux, Cage, the Nazi guy from Kingdom Come Deliverance :)

It seems unfair to me to reduce a studio to one easy target (or one revered guy like Kojima), though I know they put themselves on that pedestal in the marketing push. And I'm not really interested in the gossip/showbusiness side of gaming, but I guess all this gets clicks.

I would read an article that tells me what the hell Clint Hocking is working on though :)
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Chopper
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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DomsBeard wrote: June 7th, 2018, 9:42 am The "worst" ending is horrendous. I watched James Farleys ending and thought his was bad but this was something else.
I got a reasonably good ending but harking back to someone's comment about stuff coming out of left field, it was achieved in a bizarre and preposterous way!
Spoiler: show

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Flabyo
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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I can’t speak for other studios, but during my time at Lionhead Peter wasn’t ever what you would typically call an auteur. He had oversight, but it wasn’t ever assumed to be an outright veto vote. A lot of what went into the Fable games never went through his hands at all, and he was fine with that.

Each project had its own design lead and other designers tasked with specific parts of the game design. I don’t recall ever having a lot of direct interaction with Peter during the development of the creatures for Fable 2 and 3. But I spent a lot of time with Dene Carter on 2 and Josh Atkins on 3, who were the ‘lead’ designers for those games.

He was happy to be the point man for press, but he did try to get the press to speak to other members of the team too, just most of the time they only wanted to speak to him.
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Chopper
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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Yeah, Auteur is not quite the right word, so I did qualify it a bit. Perhaps 'Face of the Franchise' is better...
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chase210
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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In the excellent Edge review of Detroit, they said 'David Cage has never been a model of subtlety, but here he wields allegory with a similar grace and lightness of touch to which leatherface uses power tools'
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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Finished it!

Overall... I don't loathe it as I loathe heavy rain, but I think its pretty standard David cage shallow all surface no substance rubbish. A few stand out scenes don't make up for an overall mediocre game.
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by DomsBeard »

The OST is now on Spotify for those interested.
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by Sean »

As is usual for a Quantic Dream game, the music is fantastic. Gonna check out the OST. Good lookin out, Dom!
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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Sean wrote: October 2nd, 2018, 3:37 pm As is usual for a Quantic Dream game, the music is fantastic. Gonna check out the OST. Good lookin out, Dom!
Yeah, I do like the fact each had different composers. Connors is my favourite
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JaySevenZero
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by JaySevenZero »

Decided to start playing this since I got a copy as a joke from my better half back in November and I've been wanting to give it a playthrough at least once.

Perhaps surprisingly, I'm actually enjoying it!

Sure, it's as obvious as you'd expect with its heavy-handed manipulations but so far, (about 3 hours in) it's keeping me interested and keen to see where it goes next.
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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Yeah I'm enjoying it too. It's a bit heavy handed, but the story is interesting so far at least. I've only played up to the first bit where you meet the painter guy and his son turns up asking for money.
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by James »

I played a couple of hours last week too, and I'm also enjoying it, oddly enough. Completely agree that it's heavy handed, but in much the same way as I felt Heavy Rain was.

A couple of weeks back I tried Beyond and was completely turned off by the controls and the way scenes were playing out, right from the off. For whatever reason, I'm buying into this world much more and am interested to see how the story/characters develop. Certainly going to play some more.
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by JaySevenZero »

Yeah, it's definitely presented more slickly than any of the previous QD titles and I like the way it flicks between each of the protagonist's stories quite briskly so that none feel like they're overstaying their welcome.
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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Be really interested to hear how everyone's characters end up if you see it through to the end!.
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DeadpoolNegative
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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I finished a play through last night and...

.
Spoiler: show
..wound up getting Markus and Connor killed, which was embarrassing. At least Kara and Alice made it across the border... to FREEDOM!

It's an extremely compelling game, though so much falls apart if you give it too much thought. Like, would things really change that much in 20 years, would the android boom really result in people putting that much money into Detroit over ten years? What purpose to child androids serve? How can so many people afford expensive androids if they've put so many people out of work, particularly Todd (though I think we're supposed to infer he deals Red Ice in addition to smoking it)? But it's not as egregious as Heavy Rain is, which has a crazy-ass twist that pivots on one of the lamest protagonists ever. And takes place in a Philadelphia I've never seen, having been a resident of the city my entire life. But that's another post.

I think it really helps that Valorie Curry and Bryan Dechart in particular worked very hard to make their androids seem very "off" yet also compelling. Curry has a way of smiling in a way that it doesn't quite reach her eyes, making Kara seem warm yet alien. Dechart uses his inflections in a way that sounds like someone who's TRYING to sound normal but just quite can't do it. And the more uncertain and deviant he gets, the more "normal" he sounds. I like how when he's thinking he's just all fidgety Contrast that with Jesse Williams, who's a good actor but Markus never FEELS like something not quite human; he just sounds like A Determined Protagonist. I was much more invested in Kara and Connor's storylines than Markus. I suppose the issue is both Kara and Connor struggle with deviancy. Markus is supposed to be "Freed" in the confrontation with Leo but he apparently has enough imagination to actually paint something original and not just copy it, which means he's already way more advanced than Connor. He's hugely charismatic with the other androids and becomes their leader quite easily. Also he has super powers which are never explained (which Connor somehow gets if Markus dies early). His decisions don't feel like part of his "arc" like they do with Kara and Connor, who have close relationships- Markus has North, but their connection doesn't feel as deep as, say, Connor's need to please Hank or Kara's need to keep Alice safe.
I have more to say, but I think I want to do another playthrough first.

--Dan
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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DeadpoolNegative wrote: July 14th, 2019, 6:43 am I finished a play through last night and...
Spoiler: show
wound up getting Markus and Connor killed, which was embarrassing. At least Kara and Alice made it across the border... to FREEDOM!

It's an extremely compelling game, though so much falls apart if you give it too much thought. Like, would things really change that much in 20 years, would the android boom really result in people putting that much money into Detroit over ten years? What purpose to child androids serve? How can so many people afford expensive androids if they've put so many people out of work, particularly Todd (though I think we're supposed to infer he deals Red Ice in addition to smoking it)? But it's not as egregious as Heavy Rain is, which has a crazy-ass twist that pivots on one of the lamest protagonists ever. And takes place in a Philadelphia I've never seen, having been a resident of the city my entire life. But that's another post.

I think it really helps that Valorie Curry and Bryan Dechart in particular worked very hard to make their androids seem very "off" yet also compelling. Curry has a way of smiling in a way that it doesn't quite reach her eyes, making Kara seem warm yet alien. Dechart uses his inflections in a way that sounds like someone who's TRYING to sound normal but just quite can't do it. And the more uncertain and deviant he gets, the more "normal" he sounds. I like how when he's thinking he's just all fidgety Contrast that with Jesse Williams, who's a good actor but Markus never FEELS like something not quite human; he just sounds like A Determined Protagonist. I was much more invested in Kara and Connor's storylines than Markus. I suppose the issue is both Kara and Connor struggle with deviancy. Markus is supposed to be "Freed" in the confrontation with Leo but he apparently has enough imagination to actually paint something original and not just copy it, which means he's already way more advanced than Connor. He's hugely charismatic with the other androids and becomes their leader quite easily. Also he has super powers which are never explained (which Connor somehow gets if Markus dies early). His decisions don't feel like part of his "arc" like they do with Kara and Connor, who have close relationships- Markus has North, but their connection doesn't feel as deep as, say, Connor's need to please Hank or Kara's need to keep Alice safe.
I have more to say, but I think I want to do another playthrough first.

--Dan
Hey man, you might wanna spoiler tag that post up a bit, a lot of us are playing it for the first time at the moment, and it's rather spoilery. :)
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by JaySevenZero »

Yeah, I've adjusted that post so as to not give anything away
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

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I finished my first playthrough last night and whilst the ending I had felt a little abrupt, overall, I have to say I quite enjoyed the experience. In point of fact, it's the first QD game that I actually want to play through again just to see how the different decisions play out.

I did think that the way they utilised the Chloe on the menu screen was kinda interesting both in the way things change as you play through the game and her comments to you when you load in.

I've always had a hard time separating art from the artist and prior to this Cage has regularly gotten under my skin with his self-importance and general dismissal of the games medium - not to mention having played his previous efforts - which resulted in me having a skeptical reaction to any project with his name attached by default. However, I gotta be honest if this had been the first QD game that I played and hadn't watched any interviews with DC I'd certainly have come away thinking that there's serious potential in this studio to produce something great down the line.

That said, how much of what I enjoyed about this game is down to Mr. Cage himself is unknown at this point so I'm not willing to forgive his past sins just yet! :D
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by Alex79 »

Well that was unexpected - glad you enjoyed it! I'd recommend going and playing Beyond Two Souls now, but that's never gonna happen is it :lol:
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Re: Detroit: Become Human

Post by JaySevenZero »

What? I've already endured that particular hairshirt of a title, you'd know this if you'd listened to the podcast we did on it back in volume 5 :D
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