Topic: Detroit: Become Human

@RogerRoger IIRC Deus Ex on the ps2 was not a very good port and is probably better played on the pc version playing with a keyboard and mouse.

lol

My headcanon is that Zlatko is actually Sid from Toy Story in a timeline where Woody and friends didn't cease his diabolical experiments. So, naturally, when androids became a thing, his Mengele-esque sadism turned toward them.

Anyway, I just finished with the chapter where you investigate the tower after Markus and friends raid it to broadcast a speech. After exposing the deviant responsible for the breach into the control room, Connor ended up eating a bullet and apparently dying to save my depressed detective buddy.

It's hard to stick to my guns in this game. People keep trying to pull Markus in different directions, and, when I try to appease both of them, I just end up making a mess of things. Tried not to kill the two security guards and drew attention for my trouble. Once I breached the room, I killed the dude who tried running out, which... apparently was a terrible idea. Simon got shot (and killed by me) for his troubles, and because Markus killed the one dude, public opinion still swung in the direction of our group being terrorists. Ugh.

I will admit I did reset one of my decisions. All of my hard work trying to get Hank to like me went to pot when I shot the deviant sexbot in the nightclub, so I ended up quitting and replaying that entire section to spare them.

The game is really good about making Markus and Connor feel the stress of being pulled in different ideological directions. Kara... is there a point to her story? She seems very much like a narrative third wheel.

@RogerRoger You're a better person than me. I spent a lot of time taking crap from that lush to get him to the point where he could tolerate my character, and I wasn't about to let one hair-trigger decision with a deviant change that!

Although that's the only change I'll be making. I largely want to have to live with my decisions, and there have already been a few decisions I regretted making, especially in Markus' storyline (killed that security guard dude at the warehouse in a panic, which seemed to excite North a bit too much). With that said, I'm heavily considering getting the platinum trophy for this game, and, regardless of whether I do end up getting all the trophies or not, I'll be playing around with the chapter select after beating the game to explore some of the other possible routes I might have taken.

Still wondering if I should play Markus' route by ear or RP him as a pacifist/militant. It certainly seems like hemming and hawing around the question of whether to behave "morally" or with brutal efficiency is putting me in a very tough spot where I don't look particularly good to anyone.

RE Zlatko, yeah, when I saw that cage full of abominations he had been "playing" with, I instantly knew how the man would end up going out. It's almost inevitable that the mad scientist types will be destroyed by their own unholy creations.

I've quite enjoyed reading your impressions @Ralizah

Interesting you like this more then Until Dawn. I watched a playthrough of this (It's one of the few games where I feel playing it doesn't make too much of a difference from watching) and thought it was a bit eh all over and fairly unremarkable as it's been done before in various media, especially Sci-Fi-ish ones.

Not to memtion Cage is rather overt with this themes and it's all a bit too hamfisted for my liking

The Connor stuff is pretty good though, as is Hank (When is Clancy Brown not good though?).

I'd prefer a game just all about them solving crimes rather then marcus' fairly boring revolution and Kara's mostly pointless, caught in the middle of it all, side adventure

Like RogerRoger I do quite like your alternate take on who is he is!

Looking forward to seeing your eventual review on it!

I don't disagree with any of that. I guess the difference for me is...

• Until Dawn pulled a bait and switch on me halfway through, and I never really forgave it for that. The idea of a horror game with a human stalker was unique, whereas horror games with random monsters are all-too-common.
• Until Dawn's cast is, intentionally or not, thoroughly unlikable.
• The facial captures, animation, and general presentation in Detroit are pretty decent, whereas Until Dawn kept one of its feet planted firmly in the uncanny valley the entire time.
• Until Dawn has a lot of slow and boring spots to it, whereas almost every chapter in Detroit has something interesting to it.
• Most of the decisions in Until Dawn weren't immediately interesting, and only gained relevance because of how they influenced events down the road. Detroit's choices (the consequential ones, anyway), do a much better job of signposting different narrative branches.
• Detroit seems to be more immediately accessible when it comes to allowing the player to replay part of the story to see different outcomes. The flowcharts, in general, are actually quite helpful.

I guess those would be the biggest points of differentiation for me.

One thing I don't like is the way the game makes you hold series of buttons for prolonged periods of time. When I was hiding from Zlatko in a closet, I eventually eased my hold on, like, three different buttons, which resulted in the unexpectedly comical site of Kara straight-facedly stepping out of the closet when the dude she was hiding from was standing right in front of her!

I quite liked That Josh was only messing with them in some twisted payback for the loss of his sisters only for it to go horribly right with the wendigos also being there. I'm a sucker for supernatural stuff though admittedly

Can't disagree with you there really. I liked Mike and Sam by the end But I bumped off Emily 'cus I'd had too much of her. Didn't really like Chris or Ashley either

Oh Detroit's exceedingly pretty no doubt. I personally thought Until Dawn was fine but ya know... Opinions lol

Even following graffiti for 30 minutes?

Can't deny that. Especially them nice little flowcharts as I did try the demo myself before watching a playthrough.

If it was purely Hank and Connor detective adventures I'd actually put Detroit before Until Dawn @Ralizah (And would've actually bought it to play)

Just Marcus and especially Kara's storylines drag down the experience for me

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy In fairness, I did say almost every chapter has something interesting in it. Although I thought it was quite clever how graffiti was used as an out-in-the-open clue to lead stray androids to that hiding place.

I did wonder why nobody was paying any attention to this giant abandoned boat in the middle of the city, but, in fairness, the real Detroit is filled to overflowing with run-down and abandoned structures.

Markus' story might not be very compelling in terms of character growth (there's precious little narratively to justify his transition from caretaker of the elderly to leader of a revolutionary movement), but I do quite like how I have to constantly choose to behave ruthlessly or with some level of compassion, with team members trying to pull me in either direction. It also has a sort of genre fiction appeal to it as characters raid warehouses, broadcast demands, fight with soldiers, etc.

Kara... her story does feel pretty pointless, although I did quite like when she first escaped and was forced to find creative ways to survive. I stole wirecutters and broke into a seemingly abandoned house with a deranged android squatting in it.

Connor's route isn't too bad, although it easily has the most obvious, black-and-white moral choices in the entire game so far. The interrogation scene was pretty cool, though.

@Ralizah Yeah, fascinating to read your thoughts. It’s a game that is interesting to talk about due to the variety of outcomes. Most everyone who has posted their thoughts all have had different endings. And to have missed entire sequences and character introductions because you had someone die, well that’s just a testament to the complexity that’s built into the divergent paths.
You’ll find some of my thoughts on the earlier page with Rog’s as we compared and contrasted our outcomes. The game does force you to fish or cut bait eventually on the moral dilemmas.

lol I chickened out and ran at the last second during the march. Didn't especially like the sound of "sacrificing" my character for some stupid march, but I also didn't want to go charging in and start some sort of war. Especially after having totally committed to the pacifist route.

@Th3solution I gather this thread will make for fun reading once I'm done with the game.

I'm happy to hear that choices actually apparently do matter in this game. More and more, I'm thinking that this style of game design is sort of what I wanted (but never got) from Telltale's games

So, I beat the game. I don't know that I'm done with it (there's a lot of possible alternate routes, extras I unlocked at the end of the game, etc.), but I wanted to briefly discuss the endings I got from the choices in my initial playthrough.

Kara - So, I managed to save Luther a few times and get to the border with him and Alice in tow thanks to some stolen bus tickets. It appears the child was an android all along (I'll take plot twists that make no sense for $1000, Alex!). We managed to pass some soldiers who I almost ended up shooting, but didn't. At a checkpoint set up to ferret out androids, I chose to sacrifice someone named Jerry that Kara apparently knew (sorry, Jerry, but I can't even remember when or where I first met you!) and arrived in Canada with my bf and kid in tow (although, based on the public stats, most people weren't so lucky), ready to live our lives as free canucks.

Connor - So, based on the choices I made up until now (ingratiating myself to Hank by not murdering deviants; not murdering the Chloe to squeeze info out of the tech dude; etc.), I decided Connor would become a deviant. He infiltrated the Cyberlife tower successfully and was met by Hank and another Connor unit. The two tussle, forcing Hank to play the Spot the Imposter game that crops up in so much western media. Well, I remembered the names of his kid and dog, so he killed the impostor. Connor fended off the hacking attempt by Cyberlife near the end of the game and, based on the mid-credits scene, lived happily ever after with Hank. Maybe they'll adopt a robot child together?

Markus - Decided to go full pacifist with him until the end, marching peacefully and swearing off all violent choices. Near the end, when my core group of people were surrounded, Markus decides to defuse the situation by... singing. Yes, you can sing. I couldn't not pick that option, and it's every bit as hilarious and cheesy as it sounds. It's a pity the people at Waco didn't save themselves from the soldiers by singing a soulful tune. Anyway, this apparently moved President Hillary Clinton, who decided to tell the military to back off. So Markus got the city of Detroit and became North's lover.

Seems like reasonably happy endings all around, with almost all the principle cast coming out alive and well (sorry Simon, and... er... Jerry). It was all incredibly tropey and cheese and ham-fisted, but I think the game does a good job of making you feel like you're in the middle of a fun sci-fi movie, and I found the entire experience to be consistently engaging.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have the characters do crazy stuff to see what happens. Do I still get trophies if I choose not to overwrite my current flowchart progress?

@Ralizah Lol, that’s a wonderful summary of your results. I may need to replay the game just to see the cheesy Kumbaya handholding sing-a-long
You may have seen my previous posts about how I was trying to go pacifist but in a moment of frustration at how unfair my Markus and co. were being treated I made a snap decision to decimate the city of Detroit with the dirty bomb.
Oh and Jerry is(are) the android(s) at the amusement park. You must have saved one of them when you saved Luther at gunpoint while you were making it to the border, whether you realized it or not. You save the Jerry too and he shows up later to be an option as a sacrificial lamb so you can get through the border. If you don’t save him and Luther, then obviously it’s different, but I did what you did there, including stealing the family’s tickets. (Which is I recall, @RogerRoger couldn’t bring himself to do) And as for Alice, the android twist took me by surprise (as strange as it was) but Rog actually saw it coming and had predicted it. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who was taken aback

As for the trophy question, my guess would be you probably don’t need to overwrite your current progress, but I’m not sure. I didn’t go back for the platinum. I can’t remember who it was but someone on here who platinum’d it said it’s not that difficult, and unlike other games of this ilk, you don’t have to see and do every inch of the flowchart to get the platinum. It seems to be just a few select major moments you have to probably clean up.

Oh and I agree — Detroit is really more the bill of goods that Telltale sold to us. I still like Telltale games for their story and chill factor, but the illusion of choice there is dwarfed by what Quantic Dream has done.
And on that — don’t expect Heavy Rain to be nearly as intricate and solid as Detroit. It’s still fun and has variable outcomes, but it’s not quite up to this level in narrative choice, or in the quality of presentation. I still liked it though. I haven’t played Beyond Two Souls yet.

I didn't see any posts. I tend not to look at posts for games I've not extensively played, which is why I completely ignored this thread until now. It'll make for good reading now that I've got a full playthrough under my belt, though.

That's one heck of a "moment of frustration." I didn't even have that option, because I refused to even consider taking the detonator. I like keeping my options open, but pretty much nothing good could come of detonating a dirty bomb.

Does it just kill everyone, or what?

Oh, so all the creepy robots at the amusement park are called "Jerry?" I feel even better about my decision, then. I wish I had a Jerry meatshield for every difficult moment in this game. Connor wouldn't have had to die if he could have just tossed a Jerry at the violent deviant.

I don't feel too bad about stealing the family's tickets. They're human, so they'll probably be fine. They don't have a military actively trying to exterminate them.

RE Alice being an android, I wouldn't say it surprised me in a "shocking twist" sort of way. I can actually see, looking back, the ways in which the game attempted to foreshadow this development. I just think it's a borderline nonsensical plot twist, and one that, hilariously, makes large swaths of Kara's story completely pointless (most of the time you're hunting for shelter and protection for this ostensibly human child).

I looked into it. It's going to require MULTIPLE playthroughs to get the plat at minimum. I need a playthrough where everyone survives. I also need a playthrough where Connor dies at every available opportunity, so that's two playthroughs right there. There are also a number of other trophies I'll have to change my save file to get, because they depend on certain events happening in-game (such as Markus becoming a violent revolutionary, or Connor choosing to remain an android).

Thankfully, I can at least find a bunch of magazines without having to actively change my playthrough (although I will in order to find them all, because some magazines appear in mutually conflicting story routes).

@RogerRoger Wow, you REALLY hate North! She's a bit misguided, but considering her history and experiences of oppression by humans, I understand the tendency to think the worst of them and desire to behave accordingly.

Clancy Brown... is that the name of the voice actor for Hank? I have no complaints. Most of the acting in this game was pretty decent, all things being equal.

I enjoyed the game — am enjoying the game — a lot, often because of the elements that make it more like a B movie. It avoids the Until Dawn trap of being aggressively obnoxious in spots, and feels like someone genuinely believed in the value and worth of the script, which is what, I think, makes something like this feel worthwhile.

@Ralizah Yeah, I won’t reiterate the extensive detail as I put before, but check out my comments #64 and #67 (and even the discussion in between from Rog) in this thread for my rationalization of my actions. It gets pretty philosophical toward the end of my comments, so apologies for that. But at the time I felt like if my uprising is all slaughtered right here, and I and all my companions die, this will all be for naught. So I went for it. As I recall, a large portion of the city is destroyed but the android revolution survives and becomes a haven for androids with the humans gone. I think I’m remembering that correctly. Honestly it’s all a blur after I pulled the trigger

@Ralizah Wow, you got ridiculously lucky with your endings! Good job. If those are what are considered the good endings, I got the bad endings all around. Kara and Alice are both killed at the border because Luther and Jerry have died and Marcus decided to do a violent demonstration. I was very pacifist with Markus up to the point where the police were going to shoot the androids in the MLK-style protest. At that point, I was over it and just attacked. Add the attack on Jericho afterwards and I was absolutely done with humanity and let my deviant emotions take over, haha. I think I kept the entire Markus gang alive, but I did start a war between androjds and humanity so maybe not quite a happy ending. Connor died like, 3 times in my playthrough (and was even shot to death by Hank during the bridge chapter). I think my Connor ending was him also helping Markus, but having to get Hank to sacrifice himself in the whole Connor vs. Connor situation. Not quite a happy ending on that front either.

I think I had a lot less of the B-movie complaints while playing that everyone else seems to have, because I was just so invested in my characters and immersed into this world. None of it really bothered me personally, but I can understand the criticism for sure. But as you said, it's still very entertaining and really that's all that matters. I would have to say I actually enjoyed the Alice plot twist though, and would defend that. It was quite shocking in the moment to me, but I'd have to disagree with you saying it renders most of Kara's storyline pointless. They let you bond with Alice thinking she's a human, and then pull the rug from out of you when she isn't. I think the question that plot twist poses, with whether or not it affects your relationship to this character was very clever and meaningful. I definitely found myself thinking about her differently afterwards and trying to analyse what makes the difference to me. The message the game delivered with that twist was, I think, actually quite powerful. None of that would work if they didn't initially let you get to know Alice as a human. As for the logistics of the twist, I'll concede that, haha.

Gods, trophy hunting is going to be annoying in this game. You know that thing VNs do where they help you skip past previously seen dialogue and events so you can get to choices you didn't make more quickly? Yeah, this game doesn't do that. It doesn't even let you go though scenes without player input more quickly. Also, there only being one save means I'm going to have to pull some cloud save antics if I don't want to replay this game three or four more times trying to get all the trophies.

@Tjuz I had to make a deliberate choice to not behave violently in my playthrough. Which was hard, naturally. When people don't listen to you and want to shoot and oppress you for daring to speak up, one's first inclination is to react violently. On the other hand, I had faith in the shallow liberalism and Gandhi-fetishism of the game's writers, so I figured everything would turn out alright if I kept answering violence with love.

Anyway, the player is used to seeing and treating androids as 'real people,' so the revelation that Alice wasn't human did nothing for me. Especially as the game itself never really does much to address the implications of this twist outside of Kara briefly dealing with her own feelings about it. We don't really get Alice's view on things as an android terrified of revealing her android nature to another android. No discussion of the implications this had for her family life (if we're to conclude that Todd's violent behavior against her was motivated by his animus against androids, then why make him a substance abuser who would be the sort of person presumed to harm young girls in the first place?) Good twists recontextualize entire sections of the game for the player in a way that is thought-provoking. The only recontextualizing that happened here is that I now regard several parts of the game as both annoying AND pointless, because it was motivated by a needless false belief.

@Ralizah I agree that staying pacifist is absolutely the better and more logical way to go. That's how I'd usually think with these choice/consequence games as well. I think that only speaks to the quality of the game, that they managed to immerse me into the game so deeply that I started acting emotionally rather than rationally. Not many games have had that effect on me.

I would still have to disagree with your elaborated thoughts on the Alice twist, but I think the dispute ultimately comes down to what effect that twist had on us personally. Both of us reacted differently to it, and I don't think we're going to find common ground in our experience with it. I will agree that the effect this twist had on the relationship we saw between Alice and her father is strange, and could've benefited from some in-game clarity rather than us having to fill the gaps ourselves. It's a shame you didn't get out of it what I got out of it, since it was a rather thought-provoking moment for me, but luckily it's not a dealbreaker for the entire game, since you've been talking about double dipping for the platinum. I'll have to as well at some point, but I want to wait for when there's more time between my first and second playthrough. Platinuming this will be hard I'm sure, since you'll be making a lot of what you considered to be the "wrong" choices initially throughout. One hell of a fight against nature!

@Frigate They must collect information on player decisions, because each choice in the game is accompanied by a percentage telling you how many other players chose to do a particular thing.

@Tjuz I might be coming down hard on the game, but, make no mistake, it's a VERY engaging experience. I actually spent a good five or six hours today replaying various chapters to collect trophies. Currently I'm replaying the second half of the game in order to get the "Survivors" trophy. When all is said and done, I'll have probably done the equivalent of three or four full playthroughs, and even more for certain individual chapters (I had to replay four or so chapters in a row earlier in the evening to get the last magazine I need for the bookworm trophy).

So, I did 2/3rds of a new playthrough to get the Survivors trophy, and now I'm doing the same thing AGAIN for that trophy where you have to kill Connor off at every available opportunity (thankfully, this one will be shorter because I can just kill Kara and Markus off and skip most of their chapters in the second half of the game). Also, I need Hank to shoot Connor, so it's kind of fun just being a total jerk to him after sucking up to him so much in my first playthrough. Feed me your hatred, Hank!

After that, I have only a few trophies left that I'll mop up with a final playthrough of the last few chapters.

I've played through these chapters so many times at this point chasing trophies, though. I feel like I know the game like the back of my hand at this point. I'm both impressed by the scale of the plot differentiation in this game and honestly kind of sick of hearing the same stuff over and over at this point.

@Ralizah i beat it for the first time yesterday i lost connor but survived with Kara and Markus to have a peaceful solution to the androids being free! Definitely playing through at least one
More time.

@MightyDemon82 Lost Connor how? You can't really lose him since replacement units are sent out any time he happens to die.