EDIT: MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS!
Really good analysis on the heavy-handed, contradictory writing of David Cage's game.
Really good analysis on the heavy-handed, contradictory writing of David Cage's game.
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Detroit: Become Human - The Worst Race Allegory [Mother's Basement]
- Thread starter Don Fluffles
- Start date
I presume this has end game spoilers?
I think I really gotta play through this game before reading into the heavy criticism.
I think I really gotta play through this game before reading into the heavy criticism.
The game is flat out confused as to what androids actually are pre-Touched by Android Jesus.
Are they sapient but in a sunken place? Then the game allows you to basically acquire a new slave after the secret ending. Are the androids not sapient pre-touch and their intelligence comes from some virus? Then it makes no sense for Android Jesus to call the condition of those androids as "slavery."
It's just fucking weird how the main concept of the story is something that the game has no idea about. It has no internal canon or logic about what androids pre-touch/murder attempt are.
Are they sapient but in a sunken place? Then the game allows you to basically acquire a new slave after the secret ending. Are the androids not sapient pre-touch and their intelligence comes from some virus? Then it makes no sense for Android Jesus to call the condition of those androids as "slavery."
It's just fucking weird how the main concept of the story is something that the game has no idea about. It has no internal canon or logic about what androids pre-touch/murder attempt are.
"David Cage said his game about starting a race riot in a city that has famously had two race riots is really just about robots"
MAH GAWD
MAH GAWD
You know you could actually attempt to make an argument about how "No, Detroit Become Human IS a good allegory for race relations, slavery, etc. and treats the subject material with tact" instead of complaining about the fact that people take issue with how the game handles heavy subject matter.
I don't think we ever had a thread about Detroit getting a patch to allow you to acquire a maybe slave post-game so it probably needed a few more threads :shrug:
If you talking about Chloe return. It's in the OT patch notes.
What time period was this mystical era where artists, people who inherently respond to the things happening around them and elsewhere, were just "using a template for structural reasons." Because it sure as hell isn't the modern day or anything from the past 50 years. So you must be some sort of time traveler. Also yea, if you're gonna use loaded imagery, you have to deal with the consequences of the statements you make and/or inadvertently make.
Stop thread whining and grow some skin.
You are free to report instead of complaining about my comment.
What's the point of Detroit's story anyway? The game doesn't say anything new about its narrative themes nor does it handle them particularly well. To me it felt like some kind of overproduced empathy exercise. With the androids being so excessively tortured and the moral of the story so overt I had to wonder if the game wasn't actually aimed at teenagers rather than adults almost.
The point is to have an interactive adventure game that some will find engaging. It isnt a manifesto.
It's a poorly told story with a bad allegory for race, this is breaking down why. You're way too hard here.
Only if public opinion is high enough, otherwise it stays "fuck the robots".
I was only talking about the story, the interactive story elements are good and pretty much the sole reason the game has any reason to exist imo.
Then maybe you shouldn't make an adventure game around for patronizing to people of color and people in general who experience various types of prejudice along with profiting off of it that doesn't actually serve to help them in any regard and actively does the opposite
And that's ok... it's a video game, and a good one, it's not some kind of documentary that tackle more than what the genre already talked about, it's funny that everyone wants to prove something with Cage game when 99% of games have worst or equal story in the industry.
Having beaten Detroit, I would say that serious stories are not Mr. Cage's particular forte. He should either go full insane like in Fahrenheit or go all out with the gore/sex like in Heavy Rain. Anytime he tries to tell a message, it's going to get muddled.
Its not a good video game, and if its tackling subjects that I experience in my day to day because the color of my skin poorly, I and others will shit on it.
I'm not a fucking robot
As a person of color it didn't bother me. I found the Markus marching stuff lame but other than that his part of the story was whatever. He was my least favorite and I didn't even like him til the end which made me retroactively like the stuff proceeding it. I loved Connor and Kara's stories from the jump though.
You're admitting the game's story is bad, yet there's nothing else to the game but it's story. How is the game still good to you then?
I made this reference in the David Cage interview thread and people jumped all over me for it. Dude couldn't write more on the nose even if he tried. The only part of the story I liked was Connor and Hank and that's because Connor's actor improvised a lot of his scenes, which Cage apparently hated and wanted to take out. Should say something about the man's writing.
To quote Edge's review
'David Cage has never been a model of subtlety, but here he wields allegory with a similar grace and lightness of touch to which leatherface uses power tools'
'David Cage has never been a model of subtlety, but here he wields allegory with a similar grace and lightness of touch to which leatherface uses power tools'
99% of other stories don't opt to heavily use civil rights and slavery imagery (alongside imagery from other historical atrocities), and most games don't put their story front-and-centre like Detroit does with its one. People looking at it as more than just a meaningless video-game doesn't mean there's some anti-Cage conspiracy afoot, it just means they're holding it to a level that the game clearly wants to be held to.
David Cage games are just about story so the story being bad is kind of noteworthy
It is aimed at mass market lowest common denominator, which is always like you describe. Think of it like the umpteenth serial TV crime drama, they're completely on the nose and predictable within the first 5 minutes, but a lot of people watch and enjoy that stuff. All of Cage's stories fit that bill, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
I will say, as a black person, I wish people would stop telling me I should be offended by things. Nothing in the story offended me, the march made me roll my eyes in the beginning but I enjoyed the end of that. There are parallels to racism of blacks in America but those parallels didn't detract nor enhance the story for me.