"Detroit: Become Human" Review

So finally a proper article, more or less. My wife pushed me into FINALLY getting a PS4 and with it I was finally able to play my previously purchased copy of "Detroit: Become Human". Quantic Dreams as the studio is called has produced "Heavy Rain" and "Beyond Two Souls" both fairly decent hits in their time (with "Beyond Two Souls" boasting the acting talents of Wilem Defoe & Ellen Page) but these games have more or less put the choose your own adventure style of gaming in a Triple-A market, giving players the feeling that they're not exactly playing a game, they're more or less controlling a movie. I've played "Heavy Rain" and despite having issues with it (issues I'll get into when I discuss spoilers for "Detroit") the game was decent. "Detroit: Become Human" is what "Heavy Rain" was trying to be, therefore it's the superior of the two and undeniably the better game. But is "Detroit: Become Human" good? The short answer is yes.

Overall, I give the game a 7/10, it has a great cast, a fairly interesting (although predictable) story, the decisions actually matter and the Flow Chart feature helps you see what could have been without showing you EXACTLY what could have happened. I enjoyed this game but like "Heavy Rain" I won't be replaying it anytime soon, I might replay a few chapters here and there but diving in the game again, no. I won't bother discussing the obvious parallels it has with real-world events and I won't bother discussing the plot at length, it's basically androids become self-aware. The game misses a few opportunities to really consider the impact of where the story could go, and again I think it's become the game is bogged down in real-world parallels but overall it was a decent experience. 7/10 would recommend BUT ONLY if you enjoyed "Heavy Rain". Now on to Spoilers.

Let's talk about "Detroit: Become Human" proper. Yes, I enjoyed this game but I'd be remiss to not point out the obvious political message of this game, you can insert any (self-described) politically disenfranchised group in place of Android and you'd be 100% correct. When I said earlier that the game misses the mark in regards to the impact is the general assumption by Markus that all androids are slaves. I understand Markus's turn, but his interactions with Carl were genuine and Carl treated him with as much respect as he could. Markus was a caretaker and seemed to genuinely like Carl and I believe if given the choice he'd have liked to stay with Carl, so when Markus is going around freeing androids, were those androids like him who aided the elderly?

That aside I do like the origins of the deviants, giving an android an order that doesn't make sense leading to its own irrational behavior is an interesting way to go and one that I haven't seen before. With that said, this puts the androids in a primal state, a very hyper-rational form of self-preservation which makes sense from a computing stand-point, as in Program A is causing a problem, solution, fix Program A, Program A cannot be fixed, terminate Program A. Program A being their abuser. Likewise irrational orders such as "Hey lemme drag you behind my car." or "Hey let me put out cigarette butts on your arms." and so on don't compute logically. If androids are a logic program (which they are) and are all about calculating variables the one variable they can't calculate is human irrationality...because not even we can and to have that be referenced is good on their part.

"SHE MADE ME PLAY FORTNITE!"

One thing I can't go without discussing the elephant in the room, the reveal that Alice is an android. This essentially broke the game for me. Just like in "Heavy Rain" when Scott Shelby was revealed to be The Origami Killer, there are some people who appreciate this twist and that's fine but there are many others such as myself who understanding the narrative stupidity of this twist and hate it. Alice is a little girl saved by her android caretaker Kara from her abusive father. From the game's narrative, we understand that Kara has been destroyed and had her memory wiped of previous incidents of abuse (as when we're introduced to Kara we see Todd, the abusive father in question, buying her back).

Todd displayed a lot of anger towards Alice claiming that her mother left him for an accountant and that Todd struggles to get a job because androids took his job, so why would a man who professes to despise androids buy one who serves no purpose? Kara is a domestic unit, she cooks, she cleans and pretty much stays out of his way, a clean house is a benefit, a child is not. Furthermore, Todd doesn't interact with Alice on any level other than to yell at her, so why not deactivate Alice? Todd had a wife and daughter but obviously lost them in the divorce, so many speculate that he got Alice to fill the void...but...that's what the Red Ice was for. So we're led to believe that a divorced drug addict with very little money in a shitty house purchased not one but 2 androids, one as a housekeeper and another to fill a void? Not buying it.

The game's narrative would have been much stronger if Alice were human because she'd be the reverse Markus. Where Markus was scorned by humans (specifically Leo), Alice was scorned by humans as well (Todd) but for the sake of another human (Alice). Kara was proof that androids were capable of empathy and a reminder of who Markus was before the revolution, they were both caretakers but while Alice saw her role as a purpose, Markus saw his role as slavery. And that's the thing, Markus never references Carl (except when he visits his grave) as a sign that not all humans are bad and some can be reasoned with and I was hoping (before the Alice reveal) that Alice would be the bridge that connected that gap. I'll admit in hindsight there were subtle clues about Alice being an android that I can see was obvious but had I known back then she was an android I'd have slept in the car.

"Detroit: Become Human" doesn't give me pause about the eventuality of androids rising up and taking over, because truth be told, androids would still be in the image on failable man, and until we can create a gaming system that doesn't breakdown or a laptop that doesn't burn out after 4 or 5 years, I won't be holding my breath for the Android revolution. Besides an android's intelligence can only come from our own intelligence. Think of it like GPS, GPS can only tell you directions because of satellites but sometimes you know another way to get to your destination. But we're the ones who programmed GPS to find which route would be less time consuming, the GPS knows nothing more than what we tell it. Same with Androids, an android's intelligence would be like Wikipedia, it has as much information as we have access to and it can only tell you what we ourselves can discover.

"Detroit: Become Human" is a good game that could have been a great game had they not inserted the heavy-handed political message and the horrible Alice twist. It is entertaining and held my interest all the way through, the Flow Chart has my curiosity and would tempt me to play a few chapters over just to see what could have happened. However, the game doesn't give me much to mull over and doesn't offer anything new in the "robot suddenly becomes aware" genre and I think that's the biggest crime here, all in all, the story is sadly very derivative. Anyways, I'll leave it there. Catch you guys on the floppy-flip.