How far will you go to be free?At first there was DnD, Choose your Own Adventure, and text-based computer games in the suit of DnD style. Then came Point and Click titles such as King's Quest, Monkey Island, Legend of Kyrandia, Eco Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and later evolved into titles such as Telltale's The Walking Dead and the recently reimagined King's Quest. Along that same path came another style in a similar category such as Until Dawn and Heavy Rain. Now, we have the latest evolution in the chain:
Detroit: Become Human.
This is the latest game released by Quantic Dream, the same people behind
Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in the US), Heavy Rain, and
Beyond Two Souls. Much like those games, this is more of an interactive story that you can't lose, but will merely alter how the game progresses and ends. However, this is done at a deeper level than the others to where most of your options can completely alter the story in some way. Took too long investigating during a hostage situation? Well, because of that, someone got shot. Decided not to investigate that window? Well, that just took away an escape route later on in the game. Thought about choice A? Well see how that affects one of your other characters further down the road.
Think of games like
Until Dawn or
Dragon Age/Mass Effect, games where the choices you make may not make an impact right away, but will come back to haunt you later on. That's what this game revels in, in giving you quick and painless, long lasting, near-future, or near-end consequences. It makes you think carefully in places about how you want to progress, and exactly what kind of game you want to play. In my opinion, it's a game that takes interactive story-telling to a level that I've rarely ever seen done effectively, and feels much more like an immersive "choose your own adventure" that actually does make you think about your choices.
StoryYou play as Connor, an android sent to investigate a hostage situation. You quickly learn that androids are suddenly starting to become "Deviants," aka sentient and aware of their surroundings, and you're tasked with figuring out why.
You also play as Kara, an android placed in the care of a little girl named Alice and her father. When things go south, you decide to take care of Alice at all costs.
But you also play as Markus, an android that cares for an old painter named Carl. After a visit gone wrong from Carl's son, you're destroyed by the police and sent to the scrap yard. But little do they know that you're not down for the count, and they've potentially put into motion something major that won't be silenced.
Now, these are the basic plots without giving anything major away. Like their past games, Quantic Dream's strongest suit with this game is its story. The characters are interesting even at their most vanilla forms at the beginning, and the story gives everyone enough development to where they stay interesting. Even the characters that seem like there's little to no progression are given reasoning as to why, which in a way makes them even more engaging.
What was interesting about this game specifically was that there were actual multiple ways it could end. Sure, their previous titles have had this as well, as have previous games. But what I particularly enjoyed was how both Public Opinion as well as certain characters' relationships could change based on how you choose to do things...or how the entire climax itself would be different based on how you decided to go through the story. And also, like Until Dawn (which was a completely different company), any wrong actions could lead to your character(s) dying either late in the game, or very...VERY early.
Overall, because it was such a complex, changing story, it's the one of game's biggest strengths. As I said, it's a game that makes you consider your choices, because the story itself will unfold based on those choices, and it can unfold in ways that can make you regret those choices.
GameplayNow, this is normally the weakest part in these types of games, but Detroit actually pulls off the simple gameplay quite a bit better than a lot of games in this category.
Like most interactive-story types of games, there's a LOT of QTEs. There's a lot of "hit this button quick, mash this button" types of situations, ones where you have to hold one button, and then hold another one as well, and sometimes a third one in succession. At that core, it's very basic.
But there's also a fair amount of actual interaction. Outside of QTEs, you're also exploring a lot, picking up and examining items, talking to people, and in the case of Connor you're also investigating crime scenes and the bodies of victims. But at the same time, like the image shown above, even some of those simple interactions have a hitch of difficulty with things such as a tension or suspicion gauge. Interacting with someone who is highly suspicious will go differently than if you made them far less suspicious ahead of time. There may be times you'll be asked to be stealthy and not get caught, and you'll occasionally be given multiple options and different types of interactions to get through a particular area...any of which will impact the story or a character's relationship with you in different ways.
There's also a feature of pre-constructing events (think Batman: Arkham City/Origins in that sense), where you'll be given a short timeline leading to that person's death, and you can scroll through until you find a moment of interest (marked in yellow), and you can hit the button prompt to make note to help you progress. Likewise, in certain situations where you have to, say, be creative with an escape, you can use a similar feature to pre-construct the best way out of said situation. It's actually kind of a neat little feature.
And there's more interactive options that appear in the game, but I won't spoil some of them since it would involve having to spoil parts of the plot.
What I like is that a lot of these interactions are simple, but to me that's okay. You'll be using the PS4's right-stick a lot to interact, and on occasion using the touch pad in certain ways which I think was pretty well implemented. It's actually kind of neat when my character plays the piano, and to hit the keys I have to just tap the touch pad. But if that weren't enough, I'd have to continue tapping it to continue playing it, and the character will play as fast as I were to tap it (and it's not a set speed, if you're tapping incredibly fast, they will play incredibly fast). It's little touches like that to where I enjoy how it plays out.
The most unique feature, however, is the flowcharts you're shown at the end of each episode. Now, you've heard me go on and on about how your choices matter, and the flowchart is more proof of that. Like I said, at the end of each episode, you're shown a flowchart for that character you played as. In that flowchart is every little choice you made versus a hidden choice with a red lock (unless you've had multiple playthroughs, in which it'll show those hidden ones). It'll show the result of where that choice led, and progress all of the way until how they affected the chapter entirely (which will be the bigger boxes, parallel choice/consequences also being hidden behind a red lock unless you've played multiple times).
It's actually really cool being able to really see how everything you do plays out and how it affects the game. Some will go farther to affect later chapters (which will be marked with a black/blue lock on a yellow background).
Overall, gameplay is simple...yet not. It's definitely very detailed at its core, and for an interactive game, I very much appreciate all of the little touches that make this game a bit more immersive.
GraphicsMy goodness, this game is pretty. By far, outside of the story I feel like this is also one of the game's strongest suits. The characters for the most part look good, the visuals were nice, the environments looked wonderful...I really could go on. It looked like a realistic future city, one that I could actually see appearing within the time period that it established. Overall, as far as I'm concerned, this is just a very visually stunning, very detailed game. Sure, like all games I've played, I was always aware that this was still an animated game, it's definitely still just below looking 100% completely real, but this game plays it real close with the style.
Some of the characters weren't as refined as they could be (normally supporting characters rarely seen), but overall the visuals were wonderful. Specifically I enjoyed how in depth the motion capture for expressions was, because it just shows how far we're coming with expressions looking much less odd and much more real to the actual expression.
AudioAgain, I enjoyed this part of the game. The sounds were spot on, and voices were actually a good fit. But that's also partially because since it was full motion capture, it wasn't weird voices coming out of a character's mouth...it was that actor providing that voice. So I guess in that sense, I was more impressed that they actually had what I considered a good cast overall that actually both looked as well as sounded perfect for the role they were playing.
But I liked that the city actually sounded busy, that characters that you didn't talk to still talked to others when they interacted, and the talking advertisements. It made it feel like a fully alive futuristic city that people actually lived in, which since it's not a completely open game I enjoyed all of the little touches they added so that it still felt like one.
Music was very non-intrusive and minimal outside of the intro, certain situations, and sometimes background music. There was a lot of piano music which I enjoyed, because it fit the overall feel of the game especially near the beginning. While it was never incredibly memorable, I don't think every game needs a memorable soundtrack...just one that goes with the feel and pacing of the game, which I think the soundtrack for this one was spot on.
ReplayabilityNow, I've gushed about the game's graphics and story, but this is where the game truly shines. There are countless ways to play through this game, options on each flowchart to open up, magazines to obtain, and overall this is a game that, even if you finish it the first time, you'll want to play again just to see how different things can go. It's one of those games that, unless you do everything exactly the same each time, it changes with every play through. It was a reason I enjoyed Heavy Rain, but this game takes it much further and really makes it a game worth playing multiple times. If you played through the game peacefully once, try playing through it chaotic, or a mix of the two, or just try to play through without getting anyone killed...or everyone.
OverallOverall, if this is where PaC games have evolved into, then I'll be very content. This is an example of taking those "choose your own adventure" games to an entirely new level, to where you can visually see every reaction to every action you've taken, where you can see every consequence for the choices you've made and how those choices really unfold and shape the world and characters around you. It's a game where friends can be your greatest enemies, where the world will love, hate, or fear you, and where what you do really will change the course of everything.
It's a game I highly, highly recommend to anyone to play. It's definitely one of the best PS4 games to come out in a while, even if it's much more simple in the gameplay department and impossible to lose. But even then, it still shows just far games have come along even in their "simplest" forms, and it makes me look very much forward to Quantic Dream's next title.
