He is called a master of interactive dramas, a creative genius and just a good person. No doubt: David Cage was one of the first to erase the notorious line that previously separated video games from cinema. But if earlier the Frenchman could make a discount because of the innovative concept, level of production and, of course, the quality of the graphics, now you will not surprise anyone with these elements. That’s why I finally want to take off my pink glasses and figure out whether the projects sold in millions of copies were really worthy of high marks and universal love.
Attention – the text is full of spoilers!
Becoming Cage as a creator is an excellent illustration of the fact that powerful financial support and universal recognition can only do harm sometimes. Remember how the budget started Fahrenheit. She hit right in the face, not considering it proper to introduce the character, but putting the player in the same position as Lucas Kane, who had just committed a murder in the diner’s toilet. I had to act strictly on a hunch, trying to cover up as many traces as possible and leave the institution without causing suspicion. The hero is stressed and you are stressed. If only because they really didn’t have time to understand the management, and the bill is already running for minutes. Is this a great example of identifying yourself with a character? Undoubtedly.
Of course, Fahrenheit was far from ideal. Outdated graphics engine, inadequate QTE system, rather imaginary nonlinearity. But in terms of the plot – what makes up the “interactive dramas” – she had nothing to show up to the final outcome, when supermen crawled onto the stage, vulgar slou-mo and a whole series of elements that undermine the integrity and adequacy of the whole story.
And now we are smoothly moving forward five years and see what conclusions the Frenchman, who successfully located under the wing, managed to draw. Sony. Unfortunately, there is only one, and that one is wrong: the more money, the more freedom for creativity. However, quality and quantity are concepts that often do not border on each other. For examples, you can turn to the majority of modern “sandboxes”, artificially stretching timekeeping due to disgusting activities such as clearing roadblocks and capturing towers.
Here are just such elements, as a rule, are optional. In the case of creations Quantic dreamclaiming the title of interactive cinema, you won’t be able to turn on the rewind mode and save yourself from watching prolonged episodes. Yes, I’m talking about an abundance of routine in the story, in whose love Cage recognized more and more with each new project.
What is drama in understanding David Cage? This is a hypertrophied sugary and idealized life of the main characters, which flies downhill due to various circumstances. So it was in Heavy rain, and in Detroit: Become Human. Let’s start with the first one. Spacious country house, two children (clearly demonstrating some developmental disabilities), beloved wife and successful career as an architect. Ethan Mars is such an archetypal character hailing from Russian melodramas, who, by the age of thirty and a tail, was able to achieve everything that any man could possibly dream of.
But the writer’s awkward freak, because of which the son died in the arms of his father, who blocked his child from a car moving at a speed of 20 km / h, ruined this whole family idyll once and for all. Now Ethan, lying in a coma for about six months, is just a pale shadow of himself. Next I want to ask a question Cage: I really needed to spend 20 minutes of my life brushing my teeth and fighting on wooden swords with the kids in order to get compassion for a hero who lost not only one of his sons, but also his marriage? You managed to lower the protagonist to the bottom at the very beginning of your previous project. Without any sugary intro. But why not here?
Of course, someone can appeal that Lucas in Fahrenheit also played the guitar, drank and had sex with his ex. But remember yourself in moments of depression – do you also want to occupy yourself with anything, just to divert thoughts towards something good? Therefore – what is not the next way to “grow together” with the character? Moreover, Fahrenheit on the rights of the same drama and detective story, of which he imagines himself Heavy rain, she preferred to carefully issue pieces of the puzzle so that the protagonist’s background line up gradually and there are no sharp distortions from black to white.
But if the abundance of “empty” segments was the only problem in projects from Quantic dream. For the sake of another portion of emotions Cage often undermines logical foundations, and in general in every way forgets about what the characters did, say, an hour ago. It is quite obvious to any sane person that a dude with broken ribs is unlikely to be able to escape from the clutches of his commandos, and periodic asthma attacks cannot disappear by a wave of his hand. Yes, to anyone, but not To David Cage, with a powerful aplomb trying to squeeze out a maximum of pathos from every second scene. And if a game that claims to be a serious script work is a good 80 percent tailored from such conventions and inconsistencies, then it’s time to think about whether you chose the object of adoration for yourself?
The journalist Daniel Weissenberger gives the most comprehensive description of screenplay insanity on screen: “Heavy Rain is the story of a depressed person because his child is too stupid to live.”
The final twist, in which, finally, the villain’s personality and motives are revealed, is also worthless. Scott Shelby, who lost his brother as a child through the fault of his alcoholic father, led an absolutely normal life for many years. But suddenly an accidentally seen act of self-sacrifice, arranged by Ethan near a shopping center, turned him into a maniac who was beaten off his head deciding the fate of fathers and their children. Seriously, already 34 years after that ill-fated incident? Maybe, of course, the psychiatrists with experience will refute me, proudly declaring that they have not seen this in their practice. However, from the position of the layman, I only want to turn on Stanislavsky and shout loudly: “I do not believe!” Not to mention the fact that children abducted by the antagonist could not have trite to wait for the salvation of their fathers and perish, being locked in a gutter.
Talk about Beyond: two souls I’ll leave it at the very end of the material, and now I’ll try to figure out what came out of the attempt Cage to swing a bigger beast and give out a whole social manifesto disguised as a cyberpunk. The topic of boundaries beyond which artificial intelligence can go beyond was once one of the most exploited in both cinema and literature. To this day, I personally see one of the most successful examples “I am a robot” 2004 year. The authors deliberately did not delve into philosophy and the search for deep meaning, but did what is called a light detective work on the topic. With intrigue, good action and even a slight touch of drama. But, rather, fleeting, but not strained. At the same time, the main message “What can the refusal to follow the laws of Asimov lead to?” Is revealed quite adequately and plausibly.
What does Cage do in turn? It puts a plain “equal” between people and androids in every sense.
When purchasing a housewife model and spanking a child for unlearned lessons, be prepared for the fact that your purchase will one day rush at you with a knife, turning on the mode of compassionate mom, and the robot prostitute will turn her neck for an unwanted BDSM. Just one stressful situation, according to the vision David Cage, should arouse in a plastic doll not just some feelings and emotions, but also a whole inner world to boot. Particularly funny in this context is the opening segment, in which the android rebelled against a family that found him a better model to replace. Imagine that you decided to upgrade your PC, and the parts that became unnecessary gathered in the likeness of a Transformer and incinerated you with a laser.
I don’t want, of course, to get personal, but it turns out that Mr. Cage – the writer is not particularly skilled. Many storylines were composed as if based on the children’s experiences of the author. Or they were cleanly copied from the first drama that caught my eye, taken at the nearest movie distribution. Through tons of paper napkins soaked with crocodile tears, a branch of Kara, a housewife according to the data sheet, later became a mother for little Alice. Closer to the finale, gamers are witnessing a rather predictable (if you carefully listen to the dialogues and follow the behavior of the child) twist – it turns out that the girl is also an android.
And it’s kind of like a position Cage in this matter is very clear. Considering the central message about the equality of people and cars, the heroine closer to Alice should not care if the girl’s blood or blue liquid flows. However, the subsequent revelation of the screenwriter turns this whole idea into a real farce – you see, Kara knew everything from the very beginning, but … she preferred not to notice it. Therefore, she entered the role of a caring guardian so strongly that she suggested that the child eat or sleep at the earliest opportunity. What the android does not need to do at all. Closer to the finale, the heroine, who collided with the “other” Alina, seemed to be in a shibanuli current, after which her memory “returned. And now she has a choice – to accept this fact as given or to step aside from the girl. The latter, however, is the actress who carefully pretends to be a person over the lion’s share of timekeeping, dooming Kara to meaningless things like finding food. And then she herself exposes herself with the phrase “Why do people hate us?” David cage, you are rubbing us some game!
“Marcus, you are like a son to me” – says an eccentric artist in the past. And then he successfully forgets about the existence of the android after it is mistaken for the criminal who arrived at the call of the cops, after which they are dismantled into pieces and dumped in a landfill. Return to his master, who is well aware of his innocence and re-live as if nothing had happened? No, such a blatant injustice turns Marcus into a world-offended pusher of pompous speeches and a messiah who organized the struggle of machines for equal rights. And this despite the fact that up to this incident the hero lived, as they say, not in cramped conditions and not in insult. Except for sidelong glances and rare brawls with people on the street. But you will not organize a rally after you get a face in the dark gateway? Or does Marcus have such a delicate spiritual organization that the hostility and utilization of factism turned his worldview upside down?
There is, however, one nuance – the android was presented to the owner personally by the head of the Cyberlife company Elijah Kamsky, and indeed is a unique model. In response to this, the players have already built a theory that Marcus, being subordinate to a creative person, quickly realizes himself as a person and begins to demand a “human” attitude in every sense of the world. And then for thousands of his brothers. Following the uprising, against the backdrop of which Kamsky will kill two birds with one stone – he will be able to clearly see the limitless possibilities of his creations and regain his post in Cyberlife, which he lost for unknown reasons. Someone went even further in their fantasies and came to the conclusion that Kamsky generally planned to replace humanity with machines – all that was needed was a testing ground. How it actually was, we are unlikely to find out, since Cage it just doesn’t matter. It is much more important for him to show the routine everyday life of an android-housewife cleaning the room and, thereby, putting pressure on emotions, rather than giving an interpretation to things that form the basis of the universe he invented.
From all this it follows that the futuristic world Detroit It serves only as a spectacular decoration, designed to at least somehow mask the hackneyed ideological component. In fact, you can replace Marcus with the leader of the LGBT movement, and Kara with the sufferer who escaped with her daughter from her drunken husband. Nothing will change. No fresh views on the development of AI that go beyond what is permitted. And, even more so, there are no adequate answers to the question of why androids in the game behave like people, whimpering about every occasion. The maximum that you receive is Kamsky’s revelation that he always left loopholes in his creations. To what it is applicable and what should be expressed – guess for yourself. David cageApparently, he completely forgot about what creates science fiction, not psychological horror, where plot inconsistencies could often be attributed to the protagonist who traveled the cuckoo and his sick imagination. So it turns out that Detroit: Become Humanas before none of the creations Cagebegins to crack at the seams already at the basic level, creating a complete dissonance between logic and the many assumptions that the author made.
It is interesting that a bright spot is still present in the whole theater of absurdity – this is the story arc of the android Connor, designed to catch those who deviated from the established directives. Simply put, deviants. Our hero, too, can embark on a similar path, but paving the way for the notorious transformation into a “reasonable person” gamers have to play throughout the game. Therefore, such an outcome can still be mistaken for the truth. Moreover, even “Connor who has realized everything” will not be completely overly emotional.
One journalist very rightly observed that Cage would be a great fit for the role of director of adult films. Indeed, when viewing such paintings, no one cares either the integrity of the narrative, or the motivation of the heroes. It is only important to make each scene as spectacular as possible. And to submit this or that situation so that the player is breathtaking, Cage knows how. Moreover, even outside of the furious QTE segments.
Sometimes this can manifest itself in small things – for example, in the answer options that are hanging over your head, which you have to choose during the interrogation of Ethan. Words are circling at such a speed that it is very difficult to parse something – and you have to rely on attentiveness and good luck. But just the same emotions should be experienced by a person who finds himself in a similar place. Another way to break the fourth wall, invented Cage – This is to make the unfortunate gamer hold down three buttons at once and simultaneously hammer on the fourth. Apparently, this way you can make the player feel all the hardships that fell on the shoulders of the character in a particular situation. To some, this seemed like a good decision to whom not. Personally, I think it would be better David cage went on conventions when creating gameplay, rather than writing a plot.
In general, lack of measure is one of the main problems Cage and as a screenwriter, and as a director. Where everything is already clear from a couple of phrases, the Frenchman prefers to play the role of a caring dad, feeding the gamer from a spoon with mashed food. In fact, the chapter Quantic dream it was only required that he stop pulling the blanket over himself, with a pathos look, discussing about those things in which he understands very superficially. A striking example of a good antipode is Until dawnwho saw the light in 2015. IN Supermassive games, who had not created a single hit before, soberly assessed their strength and did not begin to swing at the epic, focusing on non-linearity and emotions.
And the emotions here are not a factory for the production of tears, occasionally diluted with adrenaline QTE scenes, but a permanent feeling of fear. All around, you know, monsters roam, and you can die not only as a result of a failure in the action segment, but also an incorrect decision. The boyfriend chose not to share the signal pistol with his passion, and after 10 minutes the lady was pinned to the wall and deprived of her head because of her inability to fight back. Of course, a system of decision-consequences was also present in Heavy rain, but was implemented at some completely primitive level. No wonder similar Until dawn mechanics a la “Butterfly Effect” with many forks Cage then implemented in Detroit.
And another important point is the script. Insecure employees Supermassive games appealed for help to people from the world of cinema, and they, in turn, headed for youth horror. Therefore, there are no deep meanings and moralizing, and the characters are entirely walking cliches. At the same time, the storyline itself, despite the abundance of cliches, very coolly spread the gamer after half the time, setting the true state of affairs in a completely different light.
I specifically decided to bring the story about Beyond: Two Souls to the very end of the text, since this game is separate from all other Quantic Dream creations.
In it, Cage preferred to concentrate on the story of one character – the girl Jody, who from an early age is doomed to inextricable communication with a ghost named Aiden. Most of the time, he unquestioningly carries out her commands, but sometimes he can go to the “AWOL”, causing Jody’s discontent. In general, we can say that this is such a veiled “hello” Fahrenheit, where gamers had to play two opposite roles – the killer and the detective following in his wake. Adjusted for the fact that the control of Aiden can pass into the hands of the second player.
It seems to be a cool idea, but no – variability propagated to each corner exists only for show. In fact, the decisions made by the characters have practically no weight, and it will be possible to die only at the very end of the game. Thus, Cage completely discounted the emotional component of the QTE segments – almost the only element that can be admired when passing through any of the Frenchman’s creations. What is the point of worrying about a missed blow if Jody is immortal right up to the final outcome?
With the plot, as you might guess, everything is also very bad. And not at all because of problems with logic, as is usually the case with David Cage. Still, the metaphysical message that touches on the subject of the afterlife can well afford a number of liberties. But when a scriptwriter is at the helm with a wealth of knowledge and a high school level fantasy – wait for trivialities about tentacles, ready to capture the living world. With all this, Cage for some reason decided to integrate here a drama about the problems of “not like everyone else” teenagers, releasing about a third of the already excessively lengthy timing for it. If you remove from the plot of Aiden and the whole steam-normalism, there will be a set of the most dull and superficial cliches borrowed from teenage melodramas.
Is it not enough that the adoptive parents, frightened to death, gave the girl to guardianship at a science center? And a hedgehog, after all, it will become clear that due to Aiden’s tricks, the path to the outside world will be cut off for her, and all attempts to establish contact will end in failure. No, let’s put in here a sketch about school bullying and the painted emo Jodi who went to the pub in the middle of the night. And because of the chaotic narrative, the game is perceived as a set of short films, the quality of which greatly jumps from something more or less acceptable to complete shame. However, in reprints for PS4 and PC, you can choose a chronological order of narration. But Beyond will only lose from this, as a routine collected in a heap, telling about Jody’s childhood, can put her to sleep in the first hours of gameplay. Let the game of contrasts be better.
Summing up such a long story, I want to state that all this is actually very sad. Any Quantic Dream project has tremendous potential for becoming an iconic hit. Great acting, powerful sound and outstanding (except perhaps Fahrenheit) level of graphic performance. Only an intelligent screenwriter without a craving for graphomania is needed, as well as an experienced director who can build scenes in a competent way. But while David “Jack of all trades and master of none” Cage sits on the throne, the situation will not change.
