Why David Cage's "answer" to Game Overs don't Work and Comparison to Telltale

 

Why David Cage's "answer" to Game Overs don't Work and Comparison to Telltale

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Playing Detroit made me realize to some degree why Telltale's games are so scripted. Yes the latter should cut out the "this game is tailor made to how you play" crap. But with Detroit, the game just wastes your time for the first few chapters and then kills your character off in an anti climatic way just because you didn't have walkthrough in front of you during the "danger" sections. At least with Telltale games, a first time player can get the whole story on their first run while with Detroit, a section can catch you off guard and then you lose good chunk of story and then you got to do that section again and have a walkthrough this time. This isn't so much a "solution" to game overs as it is just wasting time and making you wish checkpoint restarts were in the game because removing the "gamey" elements makes the story a lot worse when compared to Telltale games and especially other mediums that David Cage is trying to emulate.

I have a lot of issues with the way Telltale does the "game" part of their "game" but at least they play to their strengths and have their stories be a universal experience and don't waste the player's time re doing sections with a walkthrough on hand.

Telltale games don't give you any reason to re visit and the first playthrough might as well be your last but David Cage's solution is to just have you replay sections and watch the same scenes until you stumble upon the best solution or just keep a guide with you at all times.

Then there is the fact that Detroit has an "easy mode" where characters can't die and you get the full experience no matter how much you fuck up. It's strange how what makes David Cage's game different from Telltale's games is that "choices do matter" but here, he is giving you the idea option to view the story. Now, if you fuck up, you won't get locked out of story sequences, and the story will play out as intended. So in a sense, David Cage is giving you the option to play it as a normal story without any of the pseudo game overs. So basically, all of this "flow chart" nonsense is basically just one big gimmick.