Board 8 > Who else is watching Super Best Friends Play Detroit? *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

It is quite impressive how badly everything is going, not through malice but sheer incompetence.

Very entertaining though.
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Meeeeeeeee

To be fair the only really incompetent thing that's happened is when Woolie accidentally skipped a whole scene apparently by running. Pat's been bringing it back after getting Connor killed those times, and I wouldn't necessarily call those kills incompetence. Well I guess the passing the controller back and forth for the Kara/Connor standoff but that seems like a tough thing to do in general. I don't really blame them for that. And even Woolie has been getting Jericho and North back with the past episode.

Speaking of, this past episode was FANTASTIC with the "I have a dream" call out, very happy that they were on point with that prediction.
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Oh actually I guess the part with Woolie thinking pulling out the gun auto meant being hostile and not part of the ruse. I got a little frustrated with him in that but eh, again he's seem to have brought it back a bit.
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...did you not watch yesterday's episode yet Bane? <_<
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In regards to the game itself, wow it really still follows the David Cage formula of starting out alright and then it just shits itself. The fuckin allegories have never been more direct and un-subtle but no David says it isn't trying to go for that.

Also that Kara section with the creepy guy in the mansion.....because fucking of course.

Connor is legit the only story that has somewhat stayed decent, and that's purely because the buddy cop relationship with Connor and Hank really makes Connor likable and feel developed.
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LapisLazuli posted...

...did you not watch yesterday's episode yet Bane? <_<

Yea I put that in my write up, what are you referring to
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OH I am NOT caught up, I didnt realize there was a new one yesterday

Nevermind fuck me, I'll watch it later
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I don't want to give them any money by viewing the video, so no.

OK Preston.
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Yep, it's a much better experience than actually playing a David Cage game.

Although to be fair Detroit does seem like his best work. That may be because he had more people reigning him in on this one from what I've heard but still.
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It's his best in some aspects but BOY the civil rights allegories are just blatant and in your face
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That most recent episode is the whole reason this topic exists in the first place! It's really something. Bane, I would watch that before coming back into this topic. Full spoilers for that below.

So, Woolie both royally messed up and was unintentionally messed up by Pat. Woolie ran at the docks, which was bad and means he didn't recruit somebody important (or get any explanation for why Markus is magic). Pat missing the obvious instruction to go to the kitchen and instead finding and killing Simon means that Simon is not with Markus either. If either of those characters were with Markus, they would have taken the bullet for Markus if he chose to sacrifice himself, but they weren't. So Woolie could also have run away or charged, and Markus would have survived. But of course he didn't run when it was actually appropriate.

Tokoyami posted...

In regards to the game itself, wow it really still follows the David Cage formula of starting out alright and then it just shits itself. The fuckin allegories have never been more direct and un-subtle but no David says it isn't trying to go for that.

Also that Kara section with the creepy guy in the mansion.....because fucking of course.

Connor is legit the only story that has somewhat stayed decent, and that's purely because the buddy cop relationship with Connor and Hank really makes Connor likable and feel developed.

Yeah this is the best David Cage game, but still very much a David Cage game. Connor's storyline is good, but Kara's is pointless (it's basically an excuse for David Cage setpieces) and Markus's is straight trash. The best way of putting it was a comment on this very playthrough, last episode:

"I'm starting to realise why almost all the fan art of this game is of Connor and Hank".
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Alright well if i remember right this next part is gonna be a Kara part, and so far in the playthrough I'd rank degree of competence with the controller prompts as Pat > Woolie > Matt so I guess this would be the most likely scenario for incompetence to come up again.
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I have seen tons of Connor and Hank fanart as well. Honestly that part if the game is great. If that was literally the game, and Markus and Kara were just characters in the game, this could have been good, if still a mess allegorically.
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Also regarding the reactions to the different storylines, I looked at some polls of people's favourites, and unsurprisingly Connor always won in a huge landslide (nearly two thirds of the vote). What did strike me though was how far behind Kara Markus was - he was a distant third. It just speaks to how unpopular that storyline is, and how hamfisted the writing is to make people dislike the world-altering liberation plotline.
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Markus had a really good beginning imo, like between helping the old painter and the crawl out of the junkyard. Once he started searching and found Jericho is where it took a nose dive.
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I love how Woolie the Coward's chickens came home to roost in the funniest way

I keep meaning to check in on the videos where Connor's actor / this other one where Kara's actress and her brother play through the game
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Man I dunno where the fuck SBF playthrough is going to end up I think Pat is screwed out of friendship path with Hank just barely so I dunno if we may still get the Boss Connor ending. I was kind of hoping for a Woolie VS Pat rematch after A Way Out

Matt is probably going to get a good end I think assuming he doesn't massively fuck up a QTE or something (which is possible)
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I would say Connor >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Markus >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Kara. Because at least the first two seem relevant to the story. Kara just feels like a side story that takes up a third of the game.
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Well it's hard because Markus' is just blatantly terrible with the allegories while Kara's is just......weird. Even taking out the awful creep mansion, that scene in the amusement park with the workers that just BUST in and watch Alice on the carousel was just awkward and bad. They were super creepy, how on earth was Alice not terrified of them especially after they wrecked that building just to get in. And then Kara and Luther are just FINE with it. I legit thought that might turn out to be another horror getaway side section.
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Kara's plotline is generally inoffensive. Also her creep mansion scene is at least leagues better than the one in Heavy Rain! It does nothing for the plot but there's some fun stuff in there. At least there's nothing as bad as what's in Markus's scenes!
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I heard Pat missed a bunch of stuff in Hank's house, but I don't think it's entirely on him because the game is rather inconsistent on when segments are timed (sometimes you get a big ol' clock, sometimes you just have to guess that you're forced progress) and TIME PASSES WHEN YOU'RE READING A MAGAZINE WHY WAS THIS NOT PLAYTESTED OUT??? aaaah

Ok I just watched the latest part

WOW BOY OH MAN

North going from Neutral to Lover in one conversation is fucking absurd, what the fuck. And then Markus just gets god powers because WHY NOT I guess. I am glad Woolie chose the route he did. It feels the most consistent with how he's been playing Markus and helps the story slightly for his end.

The Connor section was FINE, that creator is a fucking caricature though. And they were 100% on point with the Jared Leto Blade Runner 2049 vibes from him, except it actually felt apt in Blade Runner. Hank's response was alright with wanting to just peace out, but I feel like in real life SBF had the right idea with a cop being like "ok wow yea you're a clear villain what the fuck, you're coming in with us"
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Lightning Strikes posted...

So, Woolie both royally messed up and was unintentionally messed up by Pat. Woolie ran at the docks, which was bad and means he didn't recruit somebody important (or get any explanation for why Markus is magic). Pat missing the obvious instruction to go to the kitchen and instead finding and killing Simon means that Simon is not with Markus either. If either of those characters were with Markus, they would have taken the bullet for Markus if he chose to sacrifice himself, but they weren't. So Woolie could also have run away or charged, and Markus would have survived. But of course he didn't run when it was actually appropriate.

Oh ok, the god powers do get explained then? I still feel like that's a fault of the game for letting the player go through a route that DOESN'T REMOTELY EXPLAIN THAT SHIT but alright fine at least it's there SOMEWHERE.

Like I said before I actually sort of like Markus dying there, but I guess it would be cool to see the reaction to that scenario with Markus still intact. Oh well.
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Also honestly the way that warehouse scene was set up with the choice to run away or do other stuff, I don't totally blame Woolie for doing what he did. I feel like it was set up kind of awkwardly and in the heat of the moment.....eh I'm not mad at him for that. Yea it sucks there was a whole scenario missed because of it but OOPS
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I am impressed with how all the characters can die but the story continues, unlike in Heavy Rain.
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I've actually been not just playing it, but going over some of the alternate routes.

Markus' powers don't get explained any better when you do that section properly. They just get introduced with more fanfare.
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You're right, explanation was the wrong term. I should have said introduced instead of just dumping it on you with no context.
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GANON1025 posted...

I am impressed with how all the characters can die but the story continues, unlike in Heavy Rain.

Yeah, but it's a long while before Markus or Connor can permanently die in the first place, and nothing is done as a substitute for Kara if she's lost.
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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Also honestly the way that warehouse scene was set up with the choice to run away or do other stuff, I don't totally blame Woolie for doing what he did. I feel like it was set up kind of awkwardly and in the heat of the moment.....eh I'm not mad at him for that. Yea it sucks there was a whole scenario missed because of it but OOPS

He had 20 seconds though...
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oh ok then lol

but no really the more I think about it, wouldn't they have had testing during development and someone go "hey so uh if a player goes through THIS specific route they completely miss the explanation of Markus' power but we have the powers on a path that they HAVE to go through later on should we do something about that????"

Like even if it's a path that very few people take, that is still a possible path. So for those players going that path, you as a game designer are failing to convey your story properly to them.
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kevwaffles posted...

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Also honestly the way that warehouse scene was set up with the choice to run away or do other stuff, I don't totally blame Woolie for doing what he did. I feel like it was set up kind of awkwardly and in the heat of the moment.....eh I'm not mad at him for that. Yea it sucks there was a whole scenario missed because of it but OOPS

He had 20 seconds though...

I still think it was set up awkwardly, and yea Woolie jumped the gun but some people are like that! I absolute HATE time limits in games so when I see one I also get very antsy. I'm not saying Woolie is 100% in the clear for that but I can't be mad at him for it either
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Also the powers will only get more confusing by the end, depending on routes.
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Hank go UP
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Oh question for those who have played through the game, how much more do they have to go? Like are they 75% through? Less?
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Tokoyami posted...

Markus had a really good beginning imo, like between helping the old painter and the crawl out of the junkyard. Once he started searching and found Jericho is where it took a nose dive.

I think this scenario is even worse than you'd think. I'll have to test this again, but I think if you observe the gun and ask Hank about it that it might automatically end the scene there.
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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Oh question for those who have played through the game, how much more do they have to go? Like are they 75% through? Less?

Maybe a little less? It's hard to judge because some of the last few chapters are way longer than the rest of the chapters in the game.
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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

kevwaffles posted...

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Also honestly the way that warehouse scene was set up with the choice to run away or do other stuff, I don't totally blame Woolie for doing what he did. I feel like it was set up kind of awkwardly and in the heat of the moment.....eh I'm not mad at him for that. Yea it sucks there was a whole scenario missed because of it but OOPS

He had 20 seconds though...

I still think it was set up awkwardly, and yea Woolie jumped the gun but some people are like that! I absolute HATE time limits in games so when I see one I also get very antsy. I'm not saying Woolie is 100% in the clear for that but I can't be mad at him for it either

I think the main issue is that if you choose run, you kind of have to assume you're going to run and have more story and prompts going on as you try to escape instead of instantly ending the scene.

But that's just a failure of the game designer I guess.
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I'm sorry, but why would you think running away instead of staying to complete what you're there for wouldn't be less content?

There are tons of problems and/or Cagisms n this game, but I can't get on board with this being one of them.
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The reason he picked run away was because the other prominent option was to kill the guard, and Woolie is playing pacifist. He didn't choose run away, he kneejerk didn't choose kill the guard.
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North going from Neutral to Lover in one conversation is fucking absurd, what the fuck.

That's the whole point of the memory-share-handholding bit. Cage can just do that and go 'oh they had a lifetime's worth of experiences together within 2 seconds so they're in love now and we don't have to show anything whew'.
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And yet it's still the best justification for a romance in a David Cage game to date.
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I found out that if she is actually hostile at that point she'll leave instead of the game letting you become lovers. So hey, that's something.
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New episode go up.
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Gotta love how Pat ended up going with tricking the lesbian bot even though the clues for getting Simon to talk was right in front of his face
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Oh man, it's going to be so good when it turns out Alice has been an android this whole time
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I just started watching episode the next to most recent episode. I shouldn't be surprised Pat managed to miss the completely obvious picture of Amanda that tells him she died 11 years prior, but good lord.
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The problem with Woolie running away and also sacrificing himself is that those options all seemed pretty good and natural in the moment. The game tries so hard to make all the options feel viable that it fails to realize that lots of options are explicitly not viable, ruin/limit the game's content, make no sense, etc.

The game SHOULD have some opinion about the choices so the first time player doesn't totally screw themselves up like this. It should be an option to screw yourself up like that, but it shouldn't be easier to do that than do have a good playthrough. Or, the "screwed up" path provides some good stuff that makes it worth seeing, instead of just cutting out a bunch of content. 100% failure of the game designer.

I did love the neutral -> lover scene though because of how absurd and anti-traditional adventure game romance it was. But I can't believe they let Markus just become a god and a slave-driver to these other androids... I mean I know it's Cage but still damn.
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You're Free
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GANON1025 posted...

Oh man, it's going to be so good when it turns out Alice has been an android this whole time

I guess this is an inevitability at this point right? Is there any way this isn't an enormous plot hole though?
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