Preordered. Risky, my main motivation was I was going to buy it anyway and thought I might take the day off on Friday but I've since been told by my SO that I'm actually not going to be home from Thursday morning until Sunday night, so there's that.
To sum up Death Stranding, it's an Amazon Prime, Monster Energy-drinking-MAGA-Facebook simulator and it's a game that I like to play and I think that's what it boils down to. I do like the change of pace this game is compare to other Kojima titles such as Zone of the Enders/Metal Gear.
In the span of 10 minutes during a Prime Same Day Delivery, I:
Almost drowned
Lost all of my cargo and equipment in the river and had to rush to get it all back before they floated away
Timefall damaging my cargo
BT's in an area
Become swept away to a mini boss which was an oily dolphin thing
Lose all of my cargo again
Avoid BT's for a second time
Somehow, I was able to salvage the delivery with an A rating.
I also do like that once I connect an area to the Chiral (?) network, I see other people's manmade bridges or watchtowers or trails.
@sebmugi cool pictures, does it have an actual photomode? Could be worth it for the landscape photography, not keen on that little baby thing though...
@sebmugi cool pictures, does it have an actual photomode? Could be worth it for the landscape photography, not keen on that little baby thing though...
I actually love Death Stranding, the feeling of cooperating with players who aren't actually there is just really nice. I kind of wish I knew how to sneak around BTs, they seem to just be everywhere whenever the odradek wakes up, but I encountered MULES for the first time yesterday and successfully KO'd them and took all their gear. I also built a totally unnecessary watchtower on their turf while they were still awake and they didn't even really care.
I can't stop thinking about this game. I've never been more excited for a game, and so far it's exceeded all of my expectations. It's like Kojima took Fallout, STALKER, Breath of the Wild, Euro Truck Simulator, Spintires, and a bit of Dark Souls, and combined elements from all of those into his own weird universe. It's the most 'Kojima' game ever, but it also feels worlds away from Metal Gear. It's hard to describe how this game feels in that respect. It's strange that we are now truly in a post-Metal Gear world.
It's been my favorite franchise for the better part of two decades, but I don't miss it at all. I loved The Phantom Pain, but it's story was literally unfinished, at least partially due to Konami's meddling, and maybe Kojima didn't know how to structure a story with open-world gameplay. But Death Stranding manages to combine the convoluted storytelling goodness of the first four games with the open-world freedom of The Phantom Pain. It's all a very jarring experience, but in the best possible way. I adore this game.
OK, I think I'm starting to understand how to sneak around BTs, I had a pretty tough time getting from Capital Knot City to the settlement past the bit where you find the first vehicle (trying hard to avoid spoiling anything at all here, I feel like the vehicle you find is early enough in the game (and it was seen in the trailers) that mentioning there is one isn't the worst thing ever), let's call it 'settlement P', and discovered that the game didn't quite work how I thought it did, but that gave me another opportunity to learn how to evade them and I actually did OK the second time around. On the first time around from Capital Knot City to P I barely made it there alive, the second time I stopped off at the settlement between the two and made it there without alerting the BTs once and ended my last session there. Not sure if it was a bit easier because I was doing a standard delivery but it was really tense sneaking past BTs with the odradek going nuts.
Still don't have a vehicle to replace the one I sank but I think I prefer it that way because it forces you to be smart about what you're doing, as settlements are suddenly much further apart (in terms of time, of course). You also take in much more of the scenery and container condition suddenly matters a lot more because you can't get through timefall as quickly as before. Yes it makes the game more challenging and yes it has slowed my progress through the ranking system but I'm trying really hard to not rush through the game anyway.
Speaking of, I'm also trying really hard to not spoil it for myself by looking up what unlockables are on the horizon, annoyingly some of the signs you can place are very minor equipment spoilers, as were two of the pre-order items (and one of those also hints to something else, although that might have also been in a trailer), but I'll probably get over it.
All in all, it continues to be an immensely gripping and unique game, even though it borrows a lot from all over the place. I think it borrows that stuff in a respectful way, though, and it puts it all together nicely in a package that both works and is quite easy to get to grips with but remains mysterious (especially where it suits the lore, i.e. it has taken me this long to start to 'get' how to sneak around BTs) 20 hours in. Much like Dark Souls, I suppose.
Speaking of, I'm also trying really hard to not spoil it for myself by looking up what unlockables are on the horizon, annoyingly some of the signs you can place are very minor equipment spoilers, as were two of the pre-order items (and one of those also hints to something else, although that might have also been in a trailer), but I'll probably get over it.
You can disable the signs in options which is what I did.
After 60 hours and a minute, I completed the game. Without going into further deatil, the last few episodes threw me into a tailspin and I loved every moment of it.
One image I'll share is this:
Now to go build roads and bridges to make it easier on others.
So couldn't resist and bought it yesterday. Have had a couple of hours on it so far and I like it. Early days so only a couple of deliveries made but I'm intrigued and a little bit like 'WTF!'.
I finished the game in about 91 hours. Just shy of 100 hours at the moment.
I really like the game, but it has serious problems with the world it’s created, script writing and the characters. I think the moment to moment gameplay loop is good, if unrefined. Kojima’s done better and he’s done worse, I just hope his ego is able to deal with the middling-to bad reviews and feedback so that he can come back and produce something really special.
Finished in approximately 45 hours. Good gameplay and graphics, but marred by an atrocious story that is poorly told, combined with a world that just doesn't feel real nor developed and that is inhabited by equally underdeveloped characters. Kojima really needs to come back to earth and ditch the open world, as it really isn't conducive to telling a compelling and complicated story. Nier Automata remains the only game that has successfully managed to tell a good story (excluding stories that are more or less exclusively character driven, such as God of War) in an open world game, and that was a fairly small world too.
Some points while trying to avoid spoilers.
- The "other" places you go to serve little actual purpose for neither gameplay nor story. Being visually distinct isn't enough to justify their existence in such a long game.
- BB is annoying, especially when crying. Why anyone would think the most annoying sound in the world would be a good addition to the game is beyond me...
- BT's, while a cool concept, aren't particularly menacing. Even on the highest difficulty, they are extremely easy to avoid, and if it comes down to it, easy to fight too.
- The Facebook cancer likes need to go.
- The world in general just doesn't feel real. It's nowhere near as dangerous as people make it out to be, and its story telling through world design is inconsistent, and worse still, contradictory. We see animals early in the game, so clearly they can survive in the wild to some extend, but then, after the prologue, they are completely gone. The super 3D printers, combined with a world rich on ressources and low on tangible threats, makes it difficult to believe in how "hopeless" the situation is.
- The motives of the MULE's and "terrorists" are so half assed as to make it obvious that they are there simply because the world needed some kind of human threats. Gameplay wise, they're mostly fine, barring the absurd accuracy of their firearms, but lore wise, they are poorly implemented.
- So many uninteresting mails and interviews. Stopped reading them fairly early on due to them being so dreadfully boring.
- If your jacket is resistent to Timefall, then why not cover the packages in similar materials?
God this story was awful...
Am I correct in interpreting Bridget's (Amelie's) motivation as being that because extinction is inevitable, we might as well get it over with? And Hitch's motivation is that he wants to be more powerful? The latter might as well have been pulled from a Ubisoft game with his overtly crazy personality. There really is nothing positive to say about the story and characters. The metaphors aren't clever, the writing continuously repeats itself and the main protagonist, much like what we saw in the Phantom Pain, is so devoid of anything to actually contribute to the conversations that he might as well not be there.
And the twist at the end about you being the son of Cliff Unger, meanwhile the game had tricked you into thinking that you were experiencing the memories of the BB you were carrying is utterly pointless. It changes nothing. It's a twist that exists just for the purpose of having a twist!
So couldn't resist and bought it yesterday. Have had a couple of hours on it so far and I like it. Early days so only a couple of deliveries made but I'm intrigued and a little bit like 'WTF!'.
I get the appeal of it and the satisfaction people get from the infrastructure build up but I'm not sure if I would enjoy it when I get my own hands on it. I'm not gonna waste $60 just to find out like I did with Sekiro. I bought that because I was hyped on "the next From Software" game and it was not for me at all.
Am I correct in interpreting Bridget's (Amelie's) motivation as being that because extinction is inevitable, we might as well get it over with? And Hitch's motivation is that he wants to be more powerful? The latter might as well have been pulled from a Ubisoft game with his overtly crazy personality. There really is nothing positive to say about the story and characters. The metaphors aren't clever, the writing continuously repeats itself and the main protagonist, much like what we saw in the Phantom Pain, is so devoid of anything to actually contribute to the conversations that he might as well not be there.
And the twist at the end about you being the son of Cliff Unger, meanwhile the game had tricked you into thinking that you were experiencing the memories of the BB you were carrying is utterly pointless. It changes nothing. It's a twist that exists just for the purpose of having a twist!
To be fair, I liked Tory Bakers performance, dude just went HAM on the campy bad-guy vibe... although his motivations made literally zero sense and the plot seemed so desperate to paint everyone as the bad guy it meant no one had much of an agenda....
...you being BB was really lame and honestly the fact that in this world, only naturally born (or human born) are able to go to the afterlife and have a soul, was so trite that it makes the world and mythos of DS so utterly dull.
Cliff Unger was the only actual character and he was so wasted... his boss battles so bad and all the time spent on his beach so wasted... it could have said something really profound about war and suffering... but instead said nothing.
There was one moment when the Doctor prepper talks down to you, in a friendly manner but still, and it clicked... I'm just an unqualified delivery driver and all these people are fully qualified scientists, doctors, mechanics etc at the top of their game... why the **** is my character the hero? Kojima has played with the idea of hero's with MGS and this could have been a continuation of that...
I like the game quite a bit but the whole story was so utterly stupid it felt like it was from something else.
Also.... WHO ARE THE 5 FLOATING THINGS?! They're everywhere and yet never explained and the characters never even seem to question or mention them?!
To be fair, I liked Tory Bakers performance, dude just went HAM on the campy bad-guy vibe... although his motivations made literally zero sense and the plot seemed so desperate to paint everyone as the bad guy it meant no one had much of an agenda....
...you being BB was really lame and honestly the fact that in this world, only naturally born (or human born) are able to go to the afterlife and have a soul, was so trite that it makes the world and mythos of DS so utterly dull.
Cliff Unger was the only actual character and he was so wasted... his boss battles so bad and all the time spent on his beach so wasted... it could have said something really profound about war and suffering... but instead said nothing.
There was one moment when the Doctor prepper talks down to you, in a friendly manner but still, and it clicked... I'm just an unqualified delivery driver and all these people are fully qualified scientists, doctors, mechanics etc at the top of their game... why the **** is my character the hero? Kojima has played with the idea of hero's with MGS and this could have been a continuation of that...
I like the game quite a bit but the whole story was so utterly stupid it felt like it was from something else.
Also.... WHO ARE THE 5 FLOATING THINGS?! They're everywhere and yet never explained and the characters never even seem to question or mention them?!
Solid points. And you're right about the shadow like beings never being addressed, unless featuring in a mail that I missed.
As for actor performances, I didn't think anyone was bad, it's just that they weren't given anything to work with. Nothing to really develop them. Only performance that stood out to me was Diehard Man's confession near the end. Some genuine emotion in his voice.
