Detroit: Become Human

Introduction

In my ongoing journey to try new things in gaming, I picked up Detroit: Become Human on sale and gave it a shot. This and Telltale's The Walking Dead, which I tried at the end of last year, are the first two games I tried in this genre of choice-driven narrative experiences. To cut to the chase, I simply think these games are not meant for me. They feel so tedious and boring despite interesting subject matter and, ironically, it's because of the elements that make it a game in the first place. It sounds reductive to state out loud, but when I sit down to play a game, I want to play a game. The same sentiment goes for movies. These games dance between games and movies and I simply do not enjoy it. Quick time events, on rails parkour, choosing between doing the dishes or taking out the trash, going into x-ray vision mode so you can hover your cursor over the right pixels to get more info... these things do not make interesting gameplay to me and only obstruct the pacing of the narrative.

Detroit: Become Human isn't a terrible game; I have a few complaints about it. I'll list out a few issues I have for those that may want to try something like this. Just know, this one is clearly not for me because I keep asking myself: why is this even a game?

The Good

Connor

Connor is one of three point-of-view characters in Detroit: Become Human and by far the one with the most interesting stuff to do. He's a prototype android assigned to the Detroit police force to investigate deviant androids; it's a blade runner type situation. He benefits a lot from being tied to the most interesting gameplay segments, the crime scenes investigations. His partner in the deviant investigations is an anti-android detective whose life and personality fit every trope for a washed up/troubled police detective. Connor gets to do interrogations which are a fun and dramatic use of the branching dialogue/choice system in these types of games. There's a reason the demo and the game lead with Connor, his stuff really sells you on what this game could be.

The Bad

The Camera

The closest descriptor for Detroit's camera would be a typical third person perspective. Many of the more open gameplay sections control this way. At other times though, the game semi-forces certain angles. At all times, the game lets you rotate the camera. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but always sluggishly. I'm a huge fan of fixed camera angle games so that's not an issue. The issue is the inconsistency and overall sluggish camera controls. The game would've lost nothing by being simply a smooth third person camera in my opinion. As it is, it's hard to tell when the camera will start misbehaving. It's almost like the developers knew this and added a button to change the camera angle too. I don't understand this because every time I got into a spot where I couldn't see something or the character wasn't moving properly, I pressed this button, and it just found a worse angle! 

Also, camera relative mapping of the movement controls suck. If you don't know what this means, it's when you're holding up on a stick to move forward and then the game changes the camera angle and up is no longer forward for the character. This means the character will turn around or swerve a little right after this camera change. Tank controls are classical survival horror's solution to this. It's a retro feel but an elegant fit. That wouldn't work here though with all the segments where the camera is under your control. This is why I suggested it should just be a standard third person camera.

Quick Time Events

I am by no means a quick time event aficionado, but the implementation here doesn't feel great. I think they work best when they flow with the action, keeping your mind off of how simplistic and pointless they really are. But here, sometimes, the QTEs feel very stilted. Like an action is in progress but the QTE only shows up right at the end of it, so if your press isn't instantaneous, the game all out pauses. This isn't always the case, some of the QTEs flow nicely with the action, so I know the developers/engine are capable... Overall this is pretty minor but it's easy for me to critique a "gameplay" mechanic I think is pointless.

The Ugly

Graphics

Based on the promotional material I was under the impression that Detroit was going to be a sleek visual experience. The first level didn't let me down either. As Connor, you’re called in to resolve a hostage situation in a luxurious apartment. In this contained environment the visuals shine. A lot of reflective surfaces: tall windows, the swat team's polished body armor, tile floors. The first time seeing the facial animations is even more impressive. This kind of stuff works great when your main characters are androids and there isn't an expectation to 100% meet human realism. Nonetheless, the facial expressions are convincing and add to the experience. 

Despite this start, the visual presentation begins to slip immediately. In particular open areas, where textures are more than 10 ft from you, turn into a blurry mess. Any detail in the environment is smeared over, the lighting is completely flat, and characters look test build quality. Turns out the depth of field implementation is just straight broken on PC. Installing a hex editor and changing a value in the exe fixes it... but you got to love when this shit gets sold to you and then some random on a forum fixes it just like that. Even with this fix the visual presentation is still all over the place. The good: main characters and shiny/reflective stuff in smaller/dark environments. The bad: everything else. Surfaces are very flat looking. It's like everything is plastic. Edges are rough and blurry. Non-main characters drop off in quality. But at the end of the day, none of it, outside of that depth of field issue, is a showstopper. I just find the inconsistency annoying. I'd rather things be consistently mediocre than this.

Verdict

★1/2

Detroit: Become Human and other choice-based narrative driven games are decidedly not for me. I think I already knew that, but it was good to give them a shot.