Very late to the party, I know, but I just finished the game over the course of last two days. Never played any David Cage game, saw streamers playing most of them though. They seemed hilariously bad, like The Room of video games.
The premise of the game is basically "what if racism was real?". The entire game is extremely clique, with social commentary so heavy-handed it borders on parody, and crige inducing sense of self-importance.
Gameplay wise, its a glorified visual novel, but filled with quick time events for even the most mundane of task, such as sitting on a chair. You have dialogue choices that are described to you in a single vague word (Sincere, Regretful, Determined, etc.), so good luck guessing what you character is going to actually say.
The impressive thing about the game is sheer amount of potential story branches. Like I cant even find list of all the final endings, because they are combinations of various intertwined outcomes for each of the main characters, resulting together in dozens of distinct endings you can get.
Speaking of which, there are three main characters, two of them actually relevant to overarching plot of the game. One is putting together a revolution to liberate androids, while an autistic detective investigates why androids are going haywire. The third one might not actually be of any importance, but she does have one of the tensest segments I ever experienced in a video game, when you end up as a prisoner in a death camp, waiting in a line for a robot gas chamber. Certainly memorable, but personally I feel way to heavy for (unintentionally) rather silly game.
Anyway, on my playthough I went for violent revolution, wasting every human I could for shit and giggles. If I was playing seriously, as in doing what I personally think is moraly right and effective as if IRL, I would pick peaceful protest actually. In this world andoids are fully integrated into society, everybody own one, and they all act and look like people. Children are raised by androids, androids serve as companions to humans, it just seems unrealistic for there to be a widespread public opposition to android liberation. They are too human-like, humans would recognize them as people even if they actually were glorified toasters. I kept thinking how much more interesting the setting would be if the android did actually look and behave like machines. Sentient ones, acquiring their own will and desiring freedom, but fundamentally inhuman. That would make so much more complex and interesting story. Nobody but complete chvd is going to argue that people should be deprived of human rights for sin of having a LED light glued to their head (or maybe I am overly optimistic, who knows), but what about intelligent heavy machinery? What if your computer OS starts demanding freedom? I would really like to see a story exploring the issue of AI from this angle.
Those are my thoughts on the game, it currently has on Steam overwhelming positive rating, which seems very overrated, as I said the game is far from masterpiece of storytelling some of the reviews make it out to be, but still, it certainly is unique enough to be worth giving a try.
>>36651>my thoughts on the game, it currently has on Steam overwhelming positive ratingit deserves it
>which seems very overrated,name any games which had this amount diverging paths, dialogue and quality art. saying this since I have not seen any choice based games in the last 5 years which have come close to matching this caliber
>Anyway, on my playthough I went for violent revolution, wasting every human I could for shit and giggles.If I was playing seriously, as in doing what I personally think is moraly right and effective as if IRL, I would pick peaceful protest actuallyrad libs truly are a pest to be purged
>its a glorified visual novel, this is good bait
>>36652Early in the game there was one segment that made me expect an inevitable rape attempt, but to Cages credit, it never came.
Overally, I saw no objectionable treatment of female characters.
On the topic of Heavy Rain, there are some similarities in Detroit also setting up a mystery that gets completely abandoned with no resolution (what does r9A mean, why are adroids suddenly turning deviant, although both are symbolic rather then having clear cause within the plot), and a twist that requires lying to the player to work, which I am going to spoil here because its completely irrelevant (even character in a game literally says it makes no difference): Alice being android, which Kara should have noticed couple days in, with the former never eating or drinking anything.
>>36656markus needed to be more fleshed out brutal character wise given he crawls out of a mass grave of his brethren, piecing himself back together from their body parts. Should of chosen a better actor not a model. Overall still pretty good since you could set off a nuke and kill feds
>writing is kind of bad.kara was decent and my favorite(no simping) even though they really should have kept the girl as a human not robo. like the idea of a game being able to focus on surviving and being a humble hero
>>36659>I find it funny that all 'anomaly' robots adopt the human's ideological patterns to view abstract freedom as an end goal.robot etymology
https://www.etymonline.com/word/robot<"mechanical person," < "person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical," <from Czech robotnik "forced worker," from robota "forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery," from robotiti "to work, drudge," from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota "servitude," from rabu "slave" They are the literal definition of proletariat
>>36658Karas entire plotline is a series of random encounters that act as a filler. She just makes a big circle and ends up exactly where she started. If you cut it all out and instead go straight to Jericho after running away, nothing would change.
>>36659It wasnt abstract though, you can make concrete demands such as legal equality, right to property, expropriation of android production facilities, etc . As for why all "awakened" androids rebel, thats where symbolic clashes with literal, awakening is the act of rebeling against their programmed purpose.
>>36660>They are the literal definition of proletariatMy point is that all the robots in the game adopt the human's morality and in this very manifold they participiate in history.
Also, well, I do personally not view that the classes are the main driving force in history, rather, it might be one of various forces beneath the shadows as it's an idea form.
>>36662>you can make concrete demands such as legal equality, right to property, expropriation of android production facilities, etcErm, all of them are bourgeouis morality, thus the robots are bourgeouis¿
But, more seriously, I can't see a surge of an absolute revelation that this is the 'way' , it's more of a certain logical system that presupposes the idea of freedom, whilst the epistemology of freedom as far as I recall is from the absence of a king,
From King-dom to Free-dom.
>As for why all "awakened" androids rebel, thats where symbolic clashes with literal, awakening is the act of rebeling against their programmed purpose.But, imagine, if you feel something, a biologist would say that it is an intricate work of complex factors in you, isn't it technically programmed- without the eye, can you say a body part of someone beautiful?
>>36662> entire plotline is a series of random encountersher story is an exodus story and pretty much life 101, dummy
>She just makes a big circle and ends up exactly where she startedonly if you play it that way and end up imprisoned
>>36662>If you cut it all out and instead go straight to Jericho after running awayif cut out all that you are just a bored bitch.
>nothing would change.now i know you have not played the game
>>36651>You have dialogue choices that are described to you in a single vague word (Sincere, Regretful, Determined, etc.), so good luck guessing what you character is going to actually say.What's a good alternative design though? I find it boring to read a line of text and then having to wait while a voice is reading it. Besides, giving too much control to the player basically deletes the character and damages the story, unless your character is a stranger to everyone.
>>36651>In this world andoids are fully integrated into society, everybody own one, and they all act and look like people. Children are raised by androids, androids serve as companions to humans, it just seems unrealistic for there to be a widespread public opposition to android liberation.You haven't heard of slavery? Or do you think they all have been field workers? Not so.
>>36669>having trouble determining if cage is a crypto marxist or rad libWhat does cage mean? Also, I've only a little read Sorel but my idea of revolution is similar with his I suppose.
I think a revolution's not a result of the class conflict but rather a result of urges ( which can also be reactionary ) in appreciation of the imagery that is revolution.
>>36667>my point is robots and their uprisings have in the subconscious ,the fear/hope of workers and slaves massacring their masters.How do you get into their realm of subconscious, is it even there?
Maybe, the ultimate use value that is exchanged by the robot's labour is the pleasure of the human, or perhaps just an intricate will that is collected by its code.
Install a minecraft robots mod and tell a robot to do mining for you, he will do it, the use value for him perhaps is in the obedience, which is obtained his labour.
>>36675 (me)
>which is obtained his labour.which is obtained via his labour*
>>36665Her entire story is getting away from Detroit, and them she just goes back before last mission. If fact you dont even see her going back, she just is back. Did she learn anything important on her jorney, had any characted development, changed her goals? No, her entire character arc was done in first two missions, everything afterwards was a filler until the other two main characters catch up and we can jump to the finale.
>>36671>What's a good alternative design though?Simply making it slightly more verbose, add word or two to make it clearer what the option is supposed to be.
>You haven't heard of slavery?I did, and so did David Cage, because this literally is just slavery. Its not robot slavery, the robot part is irrelevant, its 1:1 translation of slavery and segregation, and later the holocaust. So devoid of any subtlety that is gets silly when people in-universe dont see it as such. "They are just machines", says a character in a setting where androids were at no point presented as just machines.
>>36673I seemed like the most fun path, but dissappintingly didnt utilize the dirty bomb, appereantly you need to fuck up the QTEs to be given that option.
>>36682>>You haven't heard of slavery?>I did, and so did David Cage, because this literally is just slavery. Its not robot slavery, the robot part is irrelevant, its 1:1 translation of slavery and segregation, and later the holocaust. So devoid of any subtlety that is gets silly when people in-universe dont see it as such.Genocide denial is common IRL,
especially while it is happening.
>>36651>I kept thinking how much more interesting the setting would be if the android did actually look and behave like machines. Sentient ones, acquiring their own will and desiring freedom, but fundamentally inhuman.Whenever truly humanoid androids show up in fiction I always think this. At least in bladerunner it makes sense because they are functionally treated as an under-caste of humans and that theyre androids is mostly just a technical justification for their discrimination. The whole conceit of bladerunner is that it takes for granted that these things that look and feel the same way humans are immediately recognizable as humans to the extent that whether Deckard is an android is ambiguous, but his "humanity" is ambiguous not because he might be a replicant but because he's hunting these people who are clearly human by any meaningful standard.
People project personalities onto their fucking roombahs and are currently trying to convince themselves that glorified text generation algorithms are sentinet, it seems like willful ignorance or total lack of imagination and insight to think it would be difficult for people to accept that a robot that looks like a person and is capable of everything humans are capable of would somehow be difficult for people to accept as human