LogFAQs > #902145165

SPOILERS FOR ALL DAVID CAGE GAMES

"Review" used loosely, this is my stream of consciousness with a half-assed rating attached

If you want a tl;dr: It's good with some major caveats. 7/10, David Cage is a hack but makes games I enjoy to some extent. Story is fun but not great. Adding the flow chart greatly improved the replay-ability and general enjoyment. Will play again.

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Backstory: I do not like David Cage games but I have played them all, specifically in this order: Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, Omikron, Beyond Two Souls

They are all bad. Heavy Rain is the least bad objectively, but I have the most fun with Indigo Prophecy. "Fun" also used loosely. Omikron is the worst by far. Beyond is bad but because I played it much later than the others I was pretty prepared for what I experienced. It's bad but I didn't get offended.

I think that David Cage and his games are fascinatingly ugly. I will never stop playing them.

Here's some of my thoughts after completing Beyond Detroit for the second time:

1. Its much better than Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy, theres no argument there. David Cage removed all the dumb mysticism" (for the most part), which helped me actually take it seriously.

2. The flow charts at the end of each scene add a lot to the experience, encouraging you to play several times and making it explicitly clear how many endings and events you can see. This is the opposite of Cage saying that you should only play Heavy Rain once, and it's a welcome addition.

2b. "Game overs are the failure of the game designer" is a famously absurd David Cage quote, and while he's still sticking to his guns on this one, he's managed to do it in a way that feels way better. You can still get through a scene whilst failing every quicktime event, but there are way more explicit consequences, and the flowchart will even show that you messed up and how that leads you off other paths.

3. The story itself is really weak, David Cage once again simplifies a lot of the narrative into black and white with no real room for grey. There's a plethora of endings but nothing too surprising for any of the characters.

4. The Androids have seemingly limitless capabilities in some scenes, and in others they are helpless. New abilities are randomly revealed and forgotten about multiple times throughout the game. David Cage does a very poor job establishing the world and the rules.

5. There is a lot of hand waving of obvious plot holes and inconsistencies, such as why cant the humans just track or shut down the Deviant Androids?

6. Still kind of racist, but not as bad as Heavy Rain. There is a magical black Android that speaks in riddles and sees prophecies. What? I believe Cage tries to write it off as her programming being damaged. This character adds nothing to the game. There are a few other bland black stereotypes (like literally putting Harriet Tubman into the game) but there are some black characters that are just people and thats all I really ask for. The only Hispanic character in the game is short, fat and physically and verbally abusive. David Cage took the criticisms of his previous games to heart but could not stop being David Cage completely.

7. There were obvious plot twists that my girlfriend and I predicted hours before they happened and were laughing about because we thought they would be too outlandish to be true. The twists sometimes do not fit the established narrative but David Cage loves to surprise players. They really detracted from the game overall. Having a twist doesnt make things better.
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Is this Elite Beat Agents 2?