Detroit: Become Human - Human Review

With the announcement of the PlayStation 5's price tag, Sony introduced the PlayStation Plus collection. It's an added perk when you're subscribed to the service and had just purchased the next gen consoles. You get to enjoy a selection of beloved PS4 games through backwards compatibility. This is especially enticing if you're new to the Sony platform or just haven't played these games. Among these twelve games, Detroit: Become Human. 

Detroit centers around three android protagonists, the relationships they build, and the choices you make during your playthrough. Throughout the course of your story, you decide where your characters go. At some point, all three character arcs will meet at a crossroads, if you're lucky enough. 

The game's opening immediately reels you in, from the high paced music to the urgency of the situation. You take control of Connor, a prototype android sent by Cyberlife (the androids' manufacturer) to investigate one of their robots that has gone deviant. With Connor's investigative skills built in his software, you try and determine the cause of the robot's deviancy, or risk having the little girl he has hostage being shot.

After the first mission, the game offers a warning to make sure you take care of your androids. The choices you take will have repercussions along the way. However you go about your playthrough, there is a possibility that one or all of them will die. If not your androids, then the others you carefully built your relationships with. 

Kara, the only female of the three, is a recently repaired android that returns home after being reset. She is owned by an abusive father to a daughter, Alice, who shows her what happened to her before. Kara defends Alice from her father and they run away together. This is the least that happens to this duo. The torment they endure depends on your decisions early on. 

Markus, an aide to an well known aging artist, turns from obedient son to activist. His activism is shaped by how you decide to portray your species, from peaceful protests to violent revolution. Those decisions in turn will determine the public's opinion about androids and reach overarching consequences to the other characters.  

The game utilizes a flowchart system where one choice leads to another. Some things will not be available in your playthrough which makes for an interesting second (or third) run at the game. Hopefully, you won't get to make the harder decisions this game offers.

The camera can get a little weird since it's set on a certain angle with a some leeway. The quick time events using the right analog stick most time works, but can get finicky at times. The biggest gripe for me though was the lack of a skip button during some cutscenes, or at least the ability to either fast forward some. This made replays to get the platinum trophy somewhat tedious. 

Still did it though

I didn't get sold on this game when it was released in 2018. I didn't play the previous games from Quantic Dream. I've heard of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, and of David Cage, but I did not play those games. Having spent hours and hours on this game, I know now I should have picked this game up when I saw this on sale.