Completionist Challenge, update, Detroit: Become Human #BLM

I've still not written about some of the other games I've completed, but this one is particularly 'of the moment' in some of the themes it covers.  I will start by saying I'm a white, middle class, Christian heterosexual girl who thinks the world would be a better place if we were all nicer to each other.  I'm coming to things from a point of ignorance, but nothing I say here is meant to offend.  (Unless you're a racist, then I don't mind if you're offended!)

Detroit: Become Human (PEGI-18), then.  It was free on PS Plus a while back and I kept meaning to play it.  I have played David Cage's other games and I like the format - interactive stories.  His games involve a certain amount of dialogue choice, and also require you to be good at pressing buttons when it tells you to (if you can't remember where triangle/square/circle/X are then you might not enjoy this!).  The games are also pretty harrowing.  I remember being harrowed by Heavy Rain.  I will never forget that bit where you have to crawl through broken glass.  I think the format works because unlike a straight story it gets you involved; you wouldn't think having to press buttons at the right time would do that, but it does.

Markus in "Detroit"

The game has a lot of flowcharts too, so you can see where the story branches, and go back to checkpoints to try and redo and get a different outcome.  I did do this a bit, but some outcomes you have to replay bits that aren't that interesting, so it's more tedious.  I mean, some bits you get to make choices that really affect the game, other times not so much.  

I started this game before the recent upswell in "Black Lives Matter" activity.  By the time I'd finished it, things had happened, and it was really making me think.  I know the comparison between androids/humans and black people/white people isn't really a comparison (androids start off as machines, after all, and black people were never anything other than people).  But the game is written with lots of bits that echo the civil rights movement in America.  

It's not a perfect allegory - I don't know what would be.  I feel justified in accepting that its intentions are right, even if it isn't perfect, due to the presence of Jesse Williams as one of the main characters, Markus.  Jesse Williams is on the board of The Advancement Project.  He's a civil rights activist.  He was executive producer on the 2016 documentary Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement.  I like to think he saw this game and thought it might be a worthwhile project.  And if he thought that, I'm not going to start saying it has no meaning because it's a "poor allegory".

I didn't really know about the Jim Crow laws in America.  I can hardly believe that all those laws were in place into the 1960s.  I knew a little about Martin Luther King, but in my ignorance I didn't understand the depth and breadth of those horrible rules and regulations.  The game has little echoes of those laws and the abuse that people faced at the time.  The androids all have to stand in an "android section" on the bus.  At one point an android relates how he was dragged behind a car "for fun".  The androids are generally denigrated and made to do menial jobs.  It doesn't matter if they are injured, because there's always someone else to replace them.  

The game has little bits all over, like discussions about whether androids should be allowed to play professional sport.  This doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of androids, but if it's harking back to guys like Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player to play Major League baseball.  There are more obvious whacks on the head to make sure you don't miss the message.  At one point you get the choice about whether to write "I have a dream" all over the place.  And there's the Underground Railroad - all the androids want to go to Canada.  (Apparently in the early 19th century more than 30,000 black slaves escaped to Canada via the real Underground Railroad.)

The game keeps asking whether you want to try a peaceful approach, with dialogue, or whether you want to riot and start a war.  Particularly interesting in the current atmosphere of civil disobedience.

The use of the gospel song "Hold On Just A Little While Longer" was particularly poignant.  The song is by Cleophus Robinson Jr and is a beautiful, melancholic gospel song.

I find it odd that when the game came out, back in 2018, the controversy was all about child abuse.  (The trailer appeared to show a father hitting his daughter.)  I find it sad that this was the focus, when the game contained so much more that ought to make us think.  It's not like the game was making you be an abusive man and hit your child.  If a game wants to tackle issues like child abuse, or the Black Lives Matter movement, then why not?  Why shouldn't it?  It ought to be possible to talk about anything that's important in real life in a game.  Games can make you think about things more because you're not just watching, you're involved in the story.  This War Of Mine is an excellent example of this.

It seems wrong to go from here to talk about the Completionist Challenge, but I suppose I'll just summarise what I managed to do.  In the end I obtained 83% of the trophies.  I played through completely twice, to see what would happen if I did things differently, and also I did a few replays from checkpoints.  The rarest trophy I had was for spending 20,000 bonus points.  In many ways the trophies that encourage you to play in a way you wouldn't have played otherwise make me uncomfortable and seem a bit jarring, but it did mean I replayed bits more than I might have done otherwise.

Proof that I finished the game!

My rarest trophy...

I'd definitely recommend you play this.  It's well written and well acted.  And it certainly gives you a lot to think about...

That's game 4 out of 10 then!  Only 6 more to write about before I can start browsing those digital game stores again...

Go out there.  Educate yourself.  And be excellent to each other.