Review for Detroit: Become Human. Game for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 25/05/2018
We turn on the PlayStation 4 with the Dualshock in one hand and the popcorn in the other: we now know that those directed by David Cage cannot be considered video games in the strict sense of the term, as much as real interactive game-films. Already on the occasion of Heavy Rain and the subsequent Beyond: Two Souls we had observed how the titles developed by Quantic Dream were a sort of Darwinian evolution of the old point and click, not to mention game books and text adventures. Detroit: Become Human takes up and amplifies these concepts, focusing (mostly and fortunately for us) on the solidity of the narrative component, the real beating heart of the experience and partly the Achilles heel of the previous productions, unfortunately suffering due to some hole in the script.
It is with these premises that we threw ourselves headlong into our trip to Detroit, with the sincere hope that that gorgeous Kara tech demo had evolved into yet another thrilling game-film. We tell you right away that our expectations have been confirmed, but only in part: as we will explain, Detroit: Become Human is an excellent story, but the almost total abandonment of the playful part makes it vulnerable to criticism from those who expected that the path taken by Beyond could be at least partially maintained.
Detroit, droid city
This is how Kiss would have sang if their famous hard rock anthem had been composed in 2038: Detroit is home to Cyberlife, a company that in a few years developed the perfect artificial intelligence, creating human-like androids and putting them in practically every home . It starts from the modest sum of 899 dollars (but if you want you can also rent them) to have the perfect butler at home. Whether you need a gardener, a worker, a maid or a "bedmate", Cyberlife has thought of everything: you can safely go to the nearest store and return home with your shiny new android ready to break your back. place.
Now put yourself in the shoes of the androids: it is evident that no one at Cyberlife has ever seen Blade Runner, Terminator, Metropolis or the more recent Ex Machina, because any writer who has dealt with the subject has supported the thesis of sentient artificial intelligence. The latter also manifests itself in Detroit androids that, more and more numerous, become aware of themselves and demand the recognition of their rights, showing that they are willing to commit crimes against humans to get the recognition they want.
The player lives the adventure as three androids: Markus, an android who looks after an elderly man and who is unjustly accused of his death; Kara, a domestic android on the run with her young mistress Alice, who was being mistreated by her father; Connor, a police android specially created to investigate deviants - as the androids who develop consciousness are called - and to stop them. As per tradition, the three stories are apparently unrelated but, when the plot begins to unravel, the paths of the characters meet and their reciprocal destinies change according to the choices that the player is called to make.
The basic idea, basically inflated and substantially already old at the time of Short Circuit (and we are talking about the 1986 film season), is however well told and made interesting by the characterization of the characters and the empathy that they make the player feel. , Kara and Alice in the first place. The topics covered are strong: the sentient android race is the expedient to talk about slavery, racism, violence and fear of the different. It's just a pity that, Kara aside, the characters aren't charismatic like in Heavy Rain: empathy is created, but only in some sporadic moments in the story. Compared to the previous works of Quantic Dream, we have already said, the good news is that the plot is more structured and - at least in our test, in which we faced a first run all in one breath to then resume different crossroads in the points more significant and witness the numerous endings - remains solid despite some of the choices radically change the fate of the characters and consequently the scenes shown.
However, the fact remains that we are faced with a well-written story but lacking that originality that was, for example, in Beyond: it makes a little laugh that an android just needs a pair of scissors to detach the LED that identifies it as such from the temple, allowing it to pass itself off as a human, and leaves just as perplexing as some characters in the game do not notice the obvious signs that even a deafblind would grasp, shocked to discover that whoever believed human is actually an android. We are deliberately vague so as not to spoil the surprise of the story which, despite the numerous endings offered, still presents some fixed points that we would never allow ourselves to spoil. Suffice it to say that the plot holds up and, while not memorable, Detroit: Become Human is a good science fiction story with numerous twists and as many hours of fun.
So many choices, so many stories
As per tradition, Detroit: Become Human's gameplay is reduced to the bone and is characterized by fixed moments: there are a (meager) part of exploration, there are some quick time events and there are choices. These are the real characteristic of the works directed by David Cage: you have to do or say the right thing at the right time, choosing in a limited amount of time and considering what happened in the previous chapters. The wrong decision - which more than once might seem the right one, and here's the beauty - will lead to the wild unraveling of the plot towards unpredictable crossroads, determining the life or death of protagonists and supporting actors.
First the good news: some chapters, especially the final ones, offer a fast pace and a series of truly remarkable crossroads. The latter materialize in as many moral choices that put the player in difficulty and distort the history and events following each choice in a clearer way than in previous works. What's the bad news? If in Farenheit and Heavy Rain there was the component of novelty, and in Beyond: Two Souls there was the gameplay related to Aiden's ghost that guaranteed a minimum of puzzles and variety, in Detroit you play too little. The feeling is really that of the interactive film where yes, moral choices are able to make you jump in your chair, but at the same time some actions are almost useless and seem to be placed there on purpose just to not make the player feel passive spectator. If once the surprise factor for the different approach to the classic game we were used to could turn a blind eye, today after the excellent Until Dawn, Life is Strange and the story driven games in the style of Telltale Games have shown the maturity of the genre is a more critical approach is mandatory, also and above all towards those who invented this type of experience.
Similarly, in the rare cases in which you find yourself having to retrace your steps and solve environmental puzzles in order not to be discovered and captured, the in-game aids make everything disarming simplicity. Those who have played Heavy Rain will surely remember the scene in which in the role of Madison you had to erase the traces of your passage or, in The Taxidermist expansion, explore the house without leaving drawers or objects out of place: in Detroit: Become Human there are similar scenes, but the hud that can be called up with the R2 button always tells you what to do, how many actions there are still to be completed and which goal to pursue next. In conclusion, a sort of guided experience that removes that patina of uncertainty and risk that could be experienced especially in Farenheit and Heavy Rain which, together with the lack of active gameplay as there was in Beyond, really makes this game-film a lot of film and little game, almost completely nullifying the playful part of the experience.
Where the title gains is instead in longevity and replayability: it will take you about ten hours or less to complete the first run, but the presence of detailed diagrams for each character will show you in which chapters there are multiple endings, prompting you to re-tackle entire parts of adventure, fascinated by the butterfly effect that a single event can generate. For the first time, it is also possible to choose the difficulty level in the game menu, in order to facilitate or complicate QTEs and make it more or less simple to save the various characters. However, this is not an option that can significantly vary the experience in its entirety, let's just say that if you are a veteran of the genre you would do better to increase the level of challenge and the relative psychological pressure, just to avoid reaching the titles of tail and the best ending with too much tranquility.
The charm of 2038
Graphically Detroit: Become Human does not look bad in front of the most famous productions of recent years, but in any case it is not surprising enough to leave its mark and does not worry even from a distance Naughty Dog and his Uncharted 4, still today perhaps the highest point reached by a technical sector on PlayStation 4. The atmospheric events (with a snow that recalls Farenheit so much), the Detroit of the near future and the settings are fairly well taken care of, even if the long shots are a bit too bare and poor in texture. The three protagonists and the closest supporting actors are quite different (including the android who will welcome you in the game's initial menu, a funny girl with whom you will not miss the opportunity to exchange important thoughts): the facial expressions and the animations are credible and well recreated with motion capture, as we expected. On Playstation 4 PRO obviously things improve, even if in the last chapter of the adventure we encountered an annoying glitch for which in some shots the gun held by a character who was pointing it at us disappeared. A trifle in the face of the monumental work carried out in the realization of the numerous game scenes, but in a product closer to the cinema than to the videogame it is legitimate to nitpick, especially if, as in this case, we are faced with the fourth incarnation of a type of game born in 2005.
Nothing to complain with regards to the audio sector and the relative localization, both cinematically efficient and on average with the previous Quantic Dream products. For those wishing to enjoy the original audio, the game also offers the possibility to activate or not the subtitles and to choose the size, just to minimize the impact that these could have on the cinematic experience: one more, but certainly a ' welcome option.
Detroit: Become Human embodies the essence of the titles developed by Quantic Dream and directed by David Cage: an interesting story, charismatic characters to empathize with, moral choices and the related butterfly effect that generates multiple endings for the individual chapters and for the whole adventure. Too bad for the playful part of the experience, never as it is now reduced to the bone and sidelined, in favor of a story so effective, but in our opinion less rich in emotion as was that of Heavy Rain. If you've been playing the genre since Farenheit, you've been warned, but at the same time you know what you're up against. Likewise, if you are looking for gameplay in the true sense of the term, you know that you have to look elsewhere. The games / films of recent years, Until Dawn and Life is Strange in the first place, offer a more exciting and empathetic experience. Too bad that the pioneers of the genre have not fully exploited this opportunity, giving us a video game that is really too much video and too little game.
► Detroit: Become Human is an Adventure-type game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 25/05/2018
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