Boss Mog
Member
[Very MINOR SPOILERS Ahead]
So I'm not a big fan of David Cage games mostly because they basically have no gameplay or shit gameplay at best, but Detroit had really impressive graphics and a story that could be interesting so I decided to give it a go since it was free and stick with it until the end.
I was expecting a game that was going to make you think and reflect on the concept of AI being considered a sentient life form. Something along the lines of what Nier Automata did (fantastic game btw, so go play it if you haven't). But that's not the case at all. The game flat-out tells you that they are sentient and it does this because the game really isn't about AI or androids at all. It's about making you feel bad for US slavery.
The androids clearly represent black people in the US during slavery and segregation. They are slaves that do all the work, there's segregation where the androids have to stand at the back of the bus (there's zero subtlety whatsoever).
All the white male humans in the game are evil and are "racist" towards androids. The somewhat exception being Hank the detective that is forced to partner up with Connor, though Hank is heavily flawed. He's suicidal and a booze hound and he hates androids too, though throughout the game he realizes "they're just like us" if you make the "right" choices anyway. So lets go through the other white males in the game:
Todd: The drug addict father who beats his little daughter Alice that Kara then rescues.
Zlatko: A guy who pretends to want to help Kara and Alice but ends up wanting to torture and experiment on them. Luckily Zlatko's big strong black android Luther is there to save the two.
Gavin: A detective that is an antagonist of Hank's and loathes androids to the point where he's waiting for any excuse to kill Connor (and eventually tries). He's like a super racist KKK member equivalent cliché.
Agent Perkins: An FBI agent who gets assigned to the deviant android case that Hank and Connor are working after it blows up and becomes headline news. He doesn't hate androids like Gavin, but this is because he clearly doesn't consider them as people, and scoff's that Connor is even allowed to investigate on the case, he just wants to put an end to the tin cans running around saying they're people. He's a more subtle "racist", but yet still very eager to kill Markus if he gets the chance.
Leo: The son of Carl, the old man Markus takes care of at the beginning when he's still a "slave". He's also a drug addict and a thief, a real lowlife who only shows up to his dad's house when he needs money.
In contrast to this all the black humans in the game are good. Rose epitomizes this the most and she's the one that actually helps Chloe and Alice and other androids cross over into Canada which in the game is a safe haven for androids and is revered much like in real life by US SJWs and the like who always say they're gonna move there because it's so much better.
So during the story Markus becomes the de facto leader of the android uprising and you have to choose if you're going to do peaceful marches and speeches like MLK Jr or be more Black Panther style aggressive. One thing that I found hilarious is when Markus makes a list of demands for androids he wants the end of segregation but you can also choose to say that you want the US to give up a state that's only for androids, a sort of segregated safe space.
Out of the three protagonists Kara, Connor and Markus, Markus' arc which is about the android uprising is actually the least interesting and the most predictable despite the choices you have to make and at no time does it really make you reflect. Kara's arc is a tad more interesting but it's still a simple story of survival and escaping to the holy land of Canada despite many possible twists and turns. The most interesting arc is Connor's by far. He's actually the only character that is constantly asking questions about androids and if there's a chance they could be "alive" and questioning his own existence. The decisions you make with him have the biggest impact on the story as a whole. So while Markus is kind of made out to be the main hero since he's the leader of the android rebellion, he is the one on the cover after all, he's actually the least integral character.
The game felt very preachy at times and full of "racist" clichés. There's a lot of virtue signaling on display and so SJWs will certainly approve. Towards the end the "racist" humans are even turned in to "nazis" as androids are rounded up and put in death camps where they are dismantled.
That being said it wasn't a bad game. it had it's moments and probably has the best implementation of QTEs in a game; they can have serious consequences if you fail them. There are no do overs in Detroit (except if you exit the game and reload from a previous checkpoint of course) every decision you make, every action you take or don't take can have a huge impact on the story. QTEs are a part of that and failing some of them can mean death for certain characters. There's entire sections of the game and locales that you may never see depending on your choices. The only parts the drag it down are the typical David Cage "gamplay" moments where you're forced to do overly complicated controller motions in order to accomplish simple tasks that would only require a button push in other games or that would just happen organically without any input.
Surprisingly I was able to get the best ending (with everybody alive) on my first playthrough while making all my own decisions how I would if I were really in the character's shoes, instead of doing what I think the game would want me to do.
One last funny thing I wanted to point out is when Markus makes his first speech on TV he disguises himself by removing his skin and he actually looks like an NPC with grey face:
So I'm not a big fan of David Cage games mostly because they basically have no gameplay or shit gameplay at best, but Detroit had really impressive graphics and a story that could be interesting so I decided to give it a go since it was free and stick with it until the end.
I was expecting a game that was going to make you think and reflect on the concept of AI being considered a sentient life form. Something along the lines of what Nier Automata did (fantastic game btw, so go play it if you haven't). But that's not the case at all. The game flat-out tells you that they are sentient and it does this because the game really isn't about AI or androids at all. It's about making you feel bad for US slavery.
The androids clearly represent black people in the US during slavery and segregation. They are slaves that do all the work, there's segregation where the androids have to stand at the back of the bus (there's zero subtlety whatsoever).
All the white male humans in the game are evil and are "racist" towards androids. The somewhat exception being Hank the detective that is forced to partner up with Connor, though Hank is heavily flawed. He's suicidal and a booze hound and he hates androids too, though throughout the game he realizes "they're just like us" if you make the "right" choices anyway. So lets go through the other white males in the game:
Todd: The drug addict father who beats his little daughter Alice that Kara then rescues.
Zlatko: A guy who pretends to want to help Kara and Alice but ends up wanting to torture and experiment on them. Luckily Zlatko's big strong black android Luther is there to save the two.
Gavin: A detective that is an antagonist of Hank's and loathes androids to the point where he's waiting for any excuse to kill Connor (and eventually tries). He's like a super racist KKK member equivalent cliché.
Agent Perkins: An FBI agent who gets assigned to the deviant android case that Hank and Connor are working after it blows up and becomes headline news. He doesn't hate androids like Gavin, but this is because he clearly doesn't consider them as people, and scoff's that Connor is even allowed to investigate on the case, he just wants to put an end to the tin cans running around saying they're people. He's a more subtle "racist", but yet still very eager to kill Markus if he gets the chance.
Leo: The son of Carl, the old man Markus takes care of at the beginning when he's still a "slave". He's also a drug addict and a thief, a real lowlife who only shows up to his dad's house when he needs money.
In contrast to this all the black humans in the game are good. Rose epitomizes this the most and she's the one that actually helps Chloe and Alice and other androids cross over into Canada which in the game is a safe haven for androids and is revered much like in real life by US SJWs and the like who always say they're gonna move there because it's so much better.
So during the story Markus becomes the de facto leader of the android uprising and you have to choose if you're going to do peaceful marches and speeches like MLK Jr or be more Black Panther style aggressive. One thing that I found hilarious is when Markus makes a list of demands for androids he wants the end of segregation but you can also choose to say that you want the US to give up a state that's only for androids, a sort of segregated safe space.
Out of the three protagonists Kara, Connor and Markus, Markus' arc which is about the android uprising is actually the least interesting and the most predictable despite the choices you have to make and at no time does it really make you reflect. Kara's arc is a tad more interesting but it's still a simple story of survival and escaping to the holy land of Canada despite many possible twists and turns. The most interesting arc is Connor's by far. He's actually the only character that is constantly asking questions about androids and if there's a chance they could be "alive" and questioning his own existence. The decisions you make with him have the biggest impact on the story as a whole. So while Markus is kind of made out to be the main hero since he's the leader of the android rebellion, he is the one on the cover after all, he's actually the least integral character.
The game felt very preachy at times and full of "racist" clichés. There's a lot of virtue signaling on display and so SJWs will certainly approve. Towards the end the "racist" humans are even turned in to "nazis" as androids are rounded up and put in death camps where they are dismantled.
That being said it wasn't a bad game. it had it's moments and probably has the best implementation of QTEs in a game; they can have serious consequences if you fail them. There are no do overs in Detroit (except if you exit the game and reload from a previous checkpoint of course) every decision you make, every action you take or don't take can have a huge impact on the story. QTEs are a part of that and failing some of them can mean death for certain characters. There's entire sections of the game and locales that you may never see depending on your choices. The only parts the drag it down are the typical David Cage "gamplay" moments where you're forced to do overly complicated controller motions in order to accomplish simple tasks that would only require a button push in other games or that would just happen organically without any input.
Surprisingly I was able to get the best ending (with everybody alive) on my first playthrough while making all my own decisions how I would if I were really in the character's shoes, instead of doing what I think the game would want me to do.
One last funny thing I wanted to point out is when Markus makes his first speech on TV he disguises himself by removing his skin and he actually looks like an NPC with grey face:

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