May 2019 Playthrough - Detroit: Become Human

[Pam]

I was finally able to sit down with this yesterday. I got my wife to play who NEVER plays video games. I don't mean rarely, I mean NEVER. I'm just sitting and watching her learn and make decisions which is really cool for this game specifically.

It's also very cool to hear about this experience. It's hard to mentally go back to a place where all of this stuff doesn't seem like second nature, and it really shows the value of having some inexperienced players test out a game during its development.

[MetalFRO]

Very cool reading about that experience, Crabby! My wife was briefly interested in video games in the late 90's, so we could play together, and we had some great experiences with Tekken 2 & 3, and VirtualOn, even if much of it was button mashing.

[Crabmaster2000]

Something happened today that made me happier than I can really explain. My wife came to me and asked if we could play some Detroit. She really seems like she's getting into it. I think part of it is that we are both kind of disappointed by Game of Thrones lately and this may be filling that void somewhat, but I also think she is really getting into it. During the chapter with Kara where Todd starts to get aggressive she ended up having to defend Alice against his assault she was was so tense it was crazy. She was yelling at the TV about not being able to get the buttons in time and was worried that her failure to hit every prompt was going to end poorly for Alice and Kara. She made it out of the house with Alice, but in pretty rough shape. As soon as that chapter was over she just sat at the flowchart screen for a minute to collect herself and then said "ok we need to keep going" and started the next chapter. This was also the point she started asking me questions about the decision I had made, because she noticed in the flow chart that some of the other paths were opened up that she didn't take.

I mentioned previously that we lost Connor in the first mission to save the hostage. It was actually really cool to keep playing and not reset that part. He came back and continued on like nothing happened to help Lieutenant Anderson solve the deviant homicide (which my wife nailed this time and knew how to search for clues and rebuild the crime scene) and during the interrogation of the deviant he ended up pulling a gun and shooting Connor and then himself which surprised the hell out of me. When Connor meets Sarah for the first time she was wondering around the garden and knelt down by a couple of tombstones. The tombstones where for Connor (Mark I) and Connor (Mark II) and then Amanda chastised us for not being careful and having the previous Connors killed. Then you have a cool scene where you have to reintroduce yourself to Anderson and explain how your consciousness is transferred to another Connor upon death. Really cool stuff that I missed out when I played through originally.

When we got back to Kara and Alice on the run we also ended up in a completely different path than I took originally. My first playthrough I was able to stay in the house, but my wife tried to steal some new clothes and failed the steal and then ended up sleeping in the car over night which led to a much different avoid the police scene in the morning than I experienced.

I think prior to Markus getting scrapped he was my wife's favorite character, but after that I think it may have shifted to Kara. She was really tense navigating the junkyard and repairing herself and then upon entering Jericho it was kind of horror movie-ish with the flashlight, creepy boat and weird noises. She was getting a bit freaked out. I had to help her with the final puzzle to enter Jericho also (where you have to line up the pillar to complete the symbol you need to scan), but up to that point she was able to figure everything out in the game without my assistance.

It's been really cool to both see this game from the decisions of another player as well as play a narrative game with my significant other which is something we've never done before. Really loving revisiting this one.

I mentioned it back when we played Beyond, but I don't think anyone else in the thread had played Detroit yet at that time so no one else may have picked up on it. Todd bares a crazy resemblance to one of the would be sexual assaulters from the bar when Jodie sneaks out to the bar. Is Detroit the future world of Beyond (in the good ending) and Todd has always been a piece of garbage, is it an easter egg reference to an older game, or they just liked the character model and wanted to use it again?

Todd? - Beyond:

[img width=639 height=339]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47862071441_ee5abe2cfc_z.jpg[/img]

Todd - Detroit:

[img width=639 height=340]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47072595434_13b62a0d23_z.jpg[/img]

[Pam]

It’s so interesting to hear the stories about playing this game with your wives. And it is pretty cool how differently things can go based on decisions. When I played I played Connor as very sympathetic. He was lenient on deviants and trying really hard to make friends with Frank. But I also watched a playthrough that played him as a straight up deviant hunting terminator and it changed the game so much. It also meant there were no characters that I enjoyed.

I swear the Todd model is used multiple times in the game. Not really a spoiler but...

Spoiler (hover to show)

 later on when Kara and Alice get to the house of the man who says he’ll help them, that also looked like Todd with a beard. I began to wonder if he was an Android because of how many characters look like him. There’s no evidence that he is, but it’s a weird decision to make other characters look like him.

[singlebanana]

One thing is for sure, it would suck continually being type-casted as a sleazebag.

[Mr_Stubbes]

One thing is for sure, it would suck continually being type-casted as a sleazebag.

I mean if it pays the bills... 

I'm very interested to see where everyone's playthrough ends up. I've completed the game and without spoiling anything I will say that my play style for each character changed a lot the more I progressed. I started becoming more aware/concerned about the world around them to the point where I wanted to achieve the "good ending" (or what I considered a good ending for my playthrough).

[douglie007]

One thing is for sure, it would suck continually being type-casted as a sleazebag.

I mean if it pays the bills... 

I'm very interested to see where everyone's playthrough ends up. I've completed the game and without spoiling anything I will say that my play style for each character changed a lot the more I progressed. I started becoming more aware/concerned about the world around them to the point where I wanted to achieve the "good ending" (or what I considered a good ending for my playthrough).

I just finished, and I know among my friends one of my ending had 0% shared. 

[GrayGhost81]

Just finished it as well. Overall not happy with any of the conclusions I got. Mulling over whether to replay the final third or so of the game.

[Crabmaster2000]

Had another great session yesterday, but I'm a bit worried that my wife's enthusiasm may drop since we lost her favorite character Kara to the monster that is Zlatko. She struggled so bad during the fight it was painful to watch and I don't think she enjoyed playing that part. When she had to defend Alice against Todd she probably got around half the button prompts and made it out banged up, but alive. When Connor was chasing the Deviant out of the gross pigeon house she was hitting most of the prompts, but didn't quite understand how the rest of the chase was supposed to work and he got away. The Zlatko fight was a massacre though. She only got one single prompt the entire time and ended up getting knocked to the ground and then shot dead with a shotgun. It was upsetting for both of us. I don't think the flowchart after that chapter helped either because she say the route I got on my playthrough in which we escaped and Luther joined us.

I'm really hoping Markus and Connor's stories keep her interested enough to keep being excited to play.

Just finished it as well. Overall not happy with any of the conclusions I got. Mulling over whether to replay the final third or so of the game.

That really sucks. I couldn't have been happier with my outcomes during my first time with the game. Not all of my characters made it to the very end, but when their stories stopped they were very appropriate for the decisions I made and how I had role played with the characters.

But I also watched a playthrough that played him as a straight up deviant hunting terminator and it changed the game so much. It also meant there were no characters that I enjoyed.

This sounds amazing. If I have to time to do a solo run myself after my joint playthrough I'm going to give that a go. I also played Markus as a pacifist during my first play so I'd be curious to go dark with him as well.

[Mr_Stubbes]

Had another great session yesterday, but I'm a bit worried that my wife's enthusiasm may drop since we lost her favorite character Kara to the monster that is Zlatko. She struggled so bad during the fight it was painful to watch and I don't think she enjoyed playing that part. When she had to defend Alice against Todd she probably got around half the button prompts and made it out banged up, but alive. When Connor was chasing the Deviant out of the gross pigeon house she was hitting most of the prompts, but didn't quite understand how the rest of the chase was supposed to work and he got away. The Zlatko fight was a massacre though. She only got one single prompt the entire time and ended up getting knocked to the ground and then shot dead with a shotgun. It was upsetting for both of us. I don't think the flowchart after that chapter helped either because she say the route I got on my playthrough in which we escaped and Luther joined us.

I'm really hoping Markus and Connor's stories keep her interested enough to keep being excited to play.

The mission where you meet Zlatko was super stressful for me because at that time the one character I can say I was really routing for was Kara. With how her and Alice's situation I really wanted to have a happy ending for the two of them. I ended up getting spotted in the storage room, which I believe is the final room before you reach the staircase and decide which exit to take, and was frantically following all of the button prompts so they could escape. Luckily I did and got to watch Zlatko meet his demise at the hands of the androids he was experimenting on/torturing.

I would think Markus and Connor's story will keep her interested especially when their path's intertwine later. That being said I would almost have you see if she would want to try the Zlatko mission again as there is so much more to learn about Kara and Alice later in the game.

[Pam]

That's a shame about Kara dying.

I found it difficult to relate to or root for the relationship between Kara and Alice as neither had much personality. Their story is also quite separate from what I consider the main story. While you can see where the paths of a deviant android leader and a deviant hunter will eventually intertwine, Kara's path seems like a side story. It's also upsetting that her story can end so early. I think Zlatko's only about 50% through the game? And she can even die during the first altercation with Todd, whereas Markus and Connor's stories will not end until very late in the game, no matter what decisions you make or QTEs are failed. It just makes Kara seem like an afterthought.

[Crabmaster2000]

Had another great session yesterday, but I'm a bit worried that my wife's enthusiasm may drop since we lost her favorite character Kara to the monster that is Zlatko. She struggled so bad during the fight it was painful to watch and I don't think she enjoyed playing that part. When she had to defend Alice against Todd she probably got around half the button prompts and made it out banged up, but alive. When Connor was chasing the Deviant out of the gross pigeon house she was hitting most of the prompts, but didn't quite understand how the rest of the chase was supposed to work and he got away. The Zlatko fight was a massacre though. She only got one single prompt the entire time and ended up getting knocked to the ground and then shot dead with a shotgun. It was upsetting for both of us. I don't think the flowchart after that chapter helped either because she say the route I got on my playthrough in which we escaped and Luther joined us.

I'm really hoping Markus and Connor's stories keep her interested enough to keep being excited to play.

The mission where you meet Zlatko was super stressful for me because at that time the one character I can say I was really routing for was Kara. With how her and Alice's situation I really wanted to have a happy ending for the two of them. I ended up getting spotted in the storage room, which I believe is the final room before you reach the staircase and decide which exit to take, and was frantically following all of the button prompts so they could escape. Luckily I did and got to watch Zlatko meet his demise at the hands of the androids he was experimenting on/torturing.

I would think Markus and Connor's story will keep her interested especially when their path's intertwine later. That being said I would almost have you see if she would want to try the Zlatko mission again as there is so much more to learn about Kara and Alice later in the game.

I'm enjoying just seeing the decisions she has been making and I'm doing my best not to influence her to see how she comes to certain things on her own. I could have helped her a lot during the Zlatko area if I had intervened though prior to the confrontation. She decided against opening the bear cage for example or I could have told her to avoid the bathroom with the tattletale bot in the bathtub. For most games I would be right there with you regarding replaying an area. I've found particularly with Quantic Dreams games that I don't like doing that. I feel that playing in that way on Heavy Rain and Beyond tarnished my experience a bit. I like just leaving everything as is and treating that as my personal story with these characters. It doesn't always end in a satisfying way, but it makes a much bigger impact on me than seeing where everyones story trees end up or getting the ending I feel is the "best". It's been almost a year exactly since I last played and I have a very clear memory of my first time with the game and great feelings about my time with it. Seeing all the endings in Heavy Rain really diluted my memories with it by having the multiple plays kind of blur together. I kind of like that this is my wife's "story" and it's quite a bit different than mine was.

That's a shame about Kara dying.

I found it difficult to relate to or root for the relationship between Kara and Alice as neither had much personality. Their story is also quite separate from what I consider the main story. While you can see where the paths of a deviant android leader and a deviant hunter will eventually intertwine, Kara's path seems like a side story. It's also upsetting that her story can end so early. I think Zlatko's only about 50% through the game? And she can even die during the first altercation with Todd, whereas Markus and Connor's stories will not end until very late in the game, no matter what decisions you make or QTEs are failed. It just makes Kara seem like an afterthought.

I don't know if it's just the parental instinct kicking in or what, but I get really into Kara as well. I don't disagree with any point you made and I think both other characters are far more important and interesting, but even so Kara seems special to me in some way. It's funny that like you say, "Kara seem[s ] like an afterthought" since she was the one front and center of the initial marketing and tech demos. I wonder if they had planned for her to be the initial star of the game and as development progressed they were drawn more towards Connor who I'd say is the "main character" if I had to pick one.

[Crabmaster2000]

Had a very interesting day with Detroit yesterday. It sounds like we are all finished here, but I'll be using the spoiler tag just in case.

Spoiler (hover to show)

So basically as the game was getting more focused on action sequences near the end of the game my wife was getting more and more frustrated with it. She was into the story and the characters, but found that actual playing of the game was getting more frustrating than fun for her. I asked her to just tough it out and do her best because I was really enjoying experiencing the game through her even when she wasn't getting the outcome she may have meant to. She even made it through a couple late game prompt sessions that I think surprised even her that she survived. I think her frustration fit perfectly into Markus's story specifically. He kept trying to do the right thing, but would constantly slam right into some violent opposition. Was having a nice peaceful protest that ended in the androids charging the police force and then retreating. Was trying to escape to Canada and then his people were getting rounded up into extermination camps. When North game Markus the detonator for the dirty bomb a few chapters before it even becomes an option my wife flat out said, "I'm gonna give this one more chance, but if things go south I'm definitely using this bomb". True to her word after a failed run to free her people from one of the camps she blew up Detroit making it uninhabitable for humans. She was getting very emotional and knew she was making poor decisions and was going to keep making poor decision, but it didn't seem to matter at this point. Connor freed the Androids from the cyberlife headquarters to add to her already sizable revolution and as mentioned previously Kara and Alice didn't make it out of Zlatko's place unfortunately.

She said she was very interested in the story, but was often unhappy that she wasn't getting the outcome she always wanted because she didn't have the skills to always make it happen. I think the flowchart being shown after each chapter didn't help her feel better about her choices after when she was that sometimes I had made the decisions she wanted to in my previous play. In my initial play Markus died peacefully protesting when you initially start recruiting Androids in the streets, Kara and Alice died in Jericho during the FBI raid with Kara shielding Alice to try and protect her, and I had the same ending with Connor where he liberated his fellow Androids with the help of his best bud Hank Anderson.

Checking out some of the late game Flow Charts is really mind boggling. There are so many freaking branches in some of the chapters it's pretty overwhelming. I was happy to leave the game here again, but my wife asked if we can play again with me on the controls this time so we can try a few different things. We discussed how we wanted to play each character so that when quick decisions came up I'd be able to make the appropriate decision without having time to discuss our every step. We are going to play Connor like a Terminator who will never deviate from his mission, Markus is going to be aggressive to get his point across, but wont cross the line of killing anyone (Android or Human), and Kara we both played extremely safe and timid so we decided to try and have her be a bit more of a powerful and assertive this time making occasional unethical decisions as long as her intention was a better situation for Alice. The first scene with Connor was awesome this way. We examined the home super quick, took the gun from under the kitchen table walked outside to the roof and shot Daniel in the head after a very short amount of banter just to allow us to get close enough to him.... Mission Accomplished! With Markus's paint pick up we used the flowchart to see what else was around and got the hot dog vendor to yell at us and then walk out from behind his cart and shove Markus away. Little stuff like that I missed during my first play so it'll be neat to see what other small moments like that pop up as we play again. I'm pretty pumped to see the darker side of Connor and Kara in this playthrough. Not quite sure what to expect from Markus though.

[Crabmaster2000]

Also forgot to mention that I was just looking through the menus before we started playing last time and saw that there was a "casual" and "experienced" mode. Definitely should have put the casual mode on for my wife. I'm so used to always sticking to the the default for the last 3 decades of gaming that I didn't even think to check and just assumed that if it was available it would have asked me when we started the game. Oops.

[singlebanana]

Also forgot to mention that I was just looking through the menus before we started playing last time and saw that there was a "casual" and "experienced" mode. Definitely should have put the casual mode on for my wife. I'm so used to always sticking to the the default for the last 3 decades of gaming that I didn't even think to check and just assumed that if it was available it would have asked me when we started the game. Oops.

I was just going to ask this very question.  I think she would have a much more positive experience in casual mode, though I am happy that she probably enjoyed the game overall.