DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN (2018)

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i can't tell what i love most about david cage's latest incompetent masterpiece... is it the world ripped straight from deus ex: human revolution and bladerunner 2049 without the nuance or subtlety of either? is it the complete inability to followup on what should be meaningful choices? is it cage refusing to follow the rules of his own world while constantly making up new bullshit as he goes? could it be even the way the female protagonist's route is dead bottom the most boring, straightforward SHE IS WOMAN SHE IS MOTHER story within this genre possible, complete with a worthless twist? perhaps even the unbelievably heavy handed civil rights metaphors that cage himself vehemently denies? i don't know. i just do not know. but let me tell you, cage is a thoroughly entertaining writer in ways completely unintended. detroit's just so fucking fun to play because of how drop dead serious he is at writing this pseudo-intellectual slop. i mean i just fucking love it, i don't know what else to say. it's incompetent writing in a way that's fun versus something bad but stale, you know? like icarus trying to fly towards the sun with a set of wings made from construction paper and mayo. just for clarity, i'll tell you how my playthrough went. kara? tried my best to have her surrogate daughter hate her, but despite everything i did, they were simply inseparable. now, towards the very end you've got kara and revealed robo daughter walking towards the gas chambers, and you have ample opportunity to start stressing her the fuck out. so i did so, because i know the rules of this world: a robot gets stressed out... a robot explodes. i figured if the girl exploded, the surviving bots (including kara herself) could escape. so i build her up and up and up aaand... she hits 100%, runs over to kara, gets shot, and dies. consistency, cage. consistency.

as for marcus, i played him as an ultra pacifist to humanity with a mightier message at heart that valued less his android companions and moreso the overall goal. so what this meant was i had every human spared throughout the game, but i let my robobuddies die. it was pretty awesome seeing marcus give a speech completely alone, admittedly. what was hilarious was towards the very end, as humanity marched towards my peaceful marcus and co, that he began to sing. and they all sung, and they all sung the same song together. did i sequence skip the chorus recital chapter or something? taking a step back, i adore marcus's robo jesus deal where he can just tap the shoulder of an android and force them into sentience. and let's be clear: it is forcing. imagine you're asleep and someone suddenly wakes you up, gives you a gun, and says "start firing". and it's not like you have a choice now, because you're going to be found out for going deviant any day from here on out due to marcus' meddling. man, what a guy.

connor was the best, though. i played him as a completely soulless policebot dead focused on solving the case and not a scrap more. that meant he didn't give a shit about android lives, didn't give a shit about deviancy, and most certainly didn't give any ounce of tin can shit about hank. and what this resulted in, surprisingly, was a badass scene. connor ends up going deviant without actually going deviant, which is oddly... brilliant, as he sets up his sniper rifle in an attempt to assassinate the peace loving marcus, and he's stopped by the same police squad from the beginning of the game. connor proceeds to fuck. these guys. up. and it's brutal, and i love it. and cage doesn't do much with it at fucking all after--we get a choice to assassinate marcus at the very end with absolutely no followup. not even a final meeting with his creator or whoever the hell kept bitching at him to kill some androids. come on, man. and here i thought arkane games had no ending.

yeah, anyway, this is great and terrible. wish i played it drunk