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Death Stranding, new Hideo Kojima joint

Started by Mister Six, May 29, 2019, 09:56:17 PM

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Paul Calf

Seriously, can't I just shoot this fucking baby?

Noonling

I finished the game. Its fine. Terrible plot, alright gameplay, I'd say an overall...7/10.

I came by to drop by this hilarious game review though:

QuoteDeath Stranding is like nothing I have ever played; beautiful, heart racing, heart breaking, frustrating, epic, stunning, and utterly nuts. I laughed, I cried, I cursed, and I went to the toilet an awful lot. Death Stranding isn't just my Game of the Year, it's a contender for Game of the Generation too.


Not played this since launch weekend because I've been busy and away butterflies I haven't been missed it for one second. This is a long long way off MGSV, there's nothing exciting about it at all. It's interesting and unusual but fundamentally boring most of the time.

Kelvin

Quote from: The Boston Crab on November 16, 2019, 03:31:40 PM
Not played this since launch weekend because I've been busy and away butterflies I haven't been missed it for one second. This is a long long way off MGSV, there's nothing exciting about it at all. It's interesting and unusual but fundamentally boring most of the time.

That's interesting, Bosto. And don't call me butterflies.

My autocorrect is insane. Must be all the dumb shit I write.

I just had half an hour on it, did a couple of jobs. It's just so stop start and the dialogue every time you drop off a package is now interminable. It reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in a way. Why say something once when you can spell it out and hammer it home another five times? There's also a constant info dump of new systems and acronyms and tutorial pop-ups but none of it is at all intuitive.

The BT stealth stuff is also just irritating and frustrating after the first couple of times. There's no skill to it because the creatures basically teleport or getting in your way when the game decides that's what's going to happen so I just started sprinting through and taking whatever damage or consequences come my way.


Timothy

Chapter 4 now. Taking my time. Still really enjoying this. Its a very relaxing game to play.

RHX

I love it. It took a couple of hours for it to click, but I'm enjoying the gameplay - which actually feels more like a rally game in the sense of having to adapt to the terrain while getting from A-B. Also, the whole worldwide connectivity feels great, one of the few games where people are actually out to help each other rather than being a dick.


Thursday

Give it to me, I want to play the first couple of hours and then ignore it.

I would happily send it for free but I bought digital like everything because I'm a lazy tit. Hope PS5 is backy wacky. Might get round to it in the care home.

Thursday


Paul Calf

Or just play it for more than a couple of fucking hours.

Urinal Cake


Paul Calf

You'd think, but all you could get at his gaming pub was Candy Crush, Merge Dragons and Wii Sports.

Total casual.

brat-sampson

This was so fucking good. There's nobody out there like Kojima. More thoughts later.

I haven't played it since the first weekend, and whenever I think of going back to it, I feel like going to sleep. I respect the level of self-indulgence but as mechanical entertainment, it's unreal to think this came after MGSV, one of the greatest pure gameplay experiences ever made. This is boring and janky, on purpose. The social stuff with the road building has no appeal to me. I don't want someone else to play the game for me and I have no interest in some kind of commy hobbyism for satirical likes. I did find the early cinematics interesting but quickly became smothered and drowned by the predictable inane chatter whenever I wasn't outside. I expect there are some more interesting cinematics and a few more ways to traverse which I haven't seen but if I have time to play games, I would much much rather keep learning Dodonpachi Daioujou and enjoy every second more than I ever enjoyed Death Stranding.

Benjaminos

Finished this last night. Loved it (a couple of shitty mountain-dwelling preppers aside).



250k likes, most of those from rebuilding the roads between Port Knot/Mountain Knot/Southern Knot. I found that very zen, just building infrastructure - didn't have to do it, it took ages and involved lots of sneaking around in enemy territory, but I got a warm glow of satisfaction from driving on my road and bypassing all the BTs and MULEs, every single time. Gonna go for the platinum trophy next.

Was very confused when I saw Connie Booth's name in the credits. Turns out it's not that Connie Booth.

Tried again this morning and I just do not get this at all, nor the praise. It's different but not in any way which interests me, really. I can't really understand what people are enjoying about it. I can appreciate that the story might be appealing but the building stuff for Likes just seems completely inane to me. I got a few hundred likes for some ladder I built or some bridge. Great. To what end? I managed to make a section completely covered in bridges so I didn't have to engage with the terrain or the enemies! Great. Now there's no game. I really don't get what is good about it or enjoyable and I've not read anything I can remember which even begins to explain the appeal.

Anyone?

Timothy

The story is absolutely amazing. The way you can interact with the things other people build and the way you can affect other gamers their world by building stuff is really fun imo.
Feels like you're rebuilding the world together and I love that.

Also find the deliveries really fun. Walking and climbing in the beautiful environment, sneaking past enemies, listening to the beautiful soundtrack, reading the mails and investigations.

The world, the shared experience and the story(telling) make this game incredibly fun and interesting to me.
Every time I start to play it I know I'm gonna waste the entire day playing it.

Noonling

Quote from: Timothy on December 14, 2019, 10:57:32 AM
The story is absolutely amazing.

Wrong thread?

I like the worldbuilding and soundtrack, many of the cinematics are great, and I can see how other people love the communal aspects and so on...but story?! STORY?! I don't play AAA games much, but I don't remember the last time I played such an awful story. Many of the characters feel half-done, the whole motivation is whack, and the ending is stupid.

And my word is law.

Timothy

Nah. I disagree. Just finished chapter 4 (bloody amazing) and the story so far has been great. Intriguing, exciting and sometimes absolutely hilarious. Really enjoying it so far.

Mister Six

Is the stuff people build persistent and permanent? If I pick this up in a year will everything be covered in roads and ladders, making it all super easy? Are the pick up/drop-off points random, and if not is every major trading route full of other players' constructions?

I think I like the idea of this, thematically - creating a social media-style system that encourages collaboration and positive feedback in a (real-life) world fragmented by social media that does the opposite - I just don't get the impression it would be fun to play.

That stuff only appears after you clear an area yourself solo. It makes backtracking less painful because the core traversal is diabolical, and deliberately so, I imagine.

Quote from: Mister Six on December 14, 2019, 02:57:37 PM
I think I like the idea of this, thematically - creating a social media-style system that encourages collaboration and positive feedback in a (real-life) world fragmented by social media that does the opposite - I just don't get the impression it would be fun to play.

I remember a kind of co-op Farmville rip-off from when I lived in China. My then girlfriend and her mum used to hammer it constantly and when the mum went to work she'd ask me to log in as her and help out. I did it once. Probably amazing if you're trying to stave off intrusive thoughts or existential despair or you got ADHD or something but it was nothing more than watching a candle burn for me. Terrifyingly addictive to a sort of person (all Chinese people, seemingly) but utterly hollow and fundamentally shit.

That's what Death Stranding reminds me of.

Timothy

How far into the game are you?
It really opens up after chapter 3.

Noonling

Quote from: Mister Six on December 14, 2019, 02:57:37 PM
Is the stuff people build persistent and permanent? If I pick this up in a year will everything be covered in roads and ladders, making it all super easy? Are the pick up/drop-off points random, and if not is every major trading route full of other players' constructions?

I think I like the idea of this, thematically - creating a social media-style system that encourages collaboration and positive feedback in a (real-life) world fragmented by social media that does the opposite - I just don't get the impression it would be fun to play.

I'm not quite sure how it decides to select one person's building over another, but I believe there is some upper limit on how much you will see in a given area. Added to that, buildings deteriorate - from what I played it looked like it take 2-3 weeks for a building to deteriorate so much that it would presumably disappear. Players can prevent that, but weirdly it takes dramatically more resources than it does to build in the first place.

EDIT: Oh, it looks like they only deteriorate based on local play time. So ignore that.

Thursday

I'm on chapter 3 and starting to see how much the shared world makes this game, although I'm still not exactly sure on how some of it works - the permanence of the world state I'm in, how many other people it's shared with.

Like unless I missed it, it seems when I came on this morning, it seemed a huge amount of roads had been built, and I'm not sure how much of it was there before. But it made a main story mission trivially easy, when it could have been a right pain without it.

As I've been on over the course of the day, I've built some more road myself and a bridge that I was constantly getting notifications were being used by other players, but it didn't seem like much else in the world was changing on my end due to other players, maybe it will tomorrow, I'm not quite sure.


Interesting then, because this would presumably be a very different experience for reviewers or people playing offline.

Thursday

Why are there so many useless bridges dotted about?

I still don't understand this online thing properly, earlier on it seemed like roads had been built thanks to other people, since then I've built a lot of roads, and I get notifications that people are using my roads, sometimes people even contribute a measly amount of materials to auto-pavers, but nobody ever builds a whole road?

Am I just not understanding how it works, or am I an in an instance with a load of useless cunts?

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Thursday on January 04, 2020, 04:23:13 PM
Why are there so many useless bridges dotted about?

I still don't understand this online thing properly, earlier on it seemed like roads had been built thanks to other people, since then I've built a lot of roads, and I get notifications that people are using my roads, sometimes people even contribute a measly amount of materials to auto-pavers, but nobody ever builds a whole road?

Am I just not understanding how it works, or am I an in an instance with a load of useless cunts?
In my playthrough, I did find other people "completed" random bits of road, but it did seem I put most of the resources in. I'm not sure how they make it work.

Anyways, I finished this last week, with 70-odd hours put in, and I'm not quite sure if it was worth it or not. Norman in the lead was pretty piss poor, I thought. Danish bod as Cliff was much better. Storyline was either nonsensical or predictable... but it does look gorgeous and I'll admit to a certain sense of achievement after traversing some of the snow-capped mountain areas.

Best thing is probably the music - I'd never heard of Low Roar, but really enjoyed their contributions. Hope they (he?) makes a nice packet out of it.

Cuellar

Just finished this. Started it ages ago, played a few hours worth, got frustrated by the interface, the volume of data it chucks at you at terminals, on jobs etc., gave up. Saw someone streaming it and found myself not wanting to watch because I didn't want spoilers, so I obviously was interested. Went back to it, got into the swing of building roads, doing deliveries and ended up hooked. Linking up Lake Knot city and its distribution centres was a revelation - zooming up and down on my bike making deliveries a piece of piss. I found the combat, such as it was, the least interesting bit - the levels were you just chased Mads Mikkelsen through various battlefields and shot his goons were dull. I got much more satisfaction out of linking up all the folks in the mountains with zip lines and just pounding out the premium deliveries in mere minutes.

I liked the madness of the story (maybe because I've been reading about bardos, or maybe just because I like this sort of silliness - sci-fi/religion), but the 'epilogue' if you want to call it that went on FAR too long. The credits, in one form or another, roll THREE times and you can't skip it. I just wanted to get back to my truck, I was delivering a shit load of wood to Lake Knot City right before the final cutscene takes you into the endgame. Really frustrating.

And is there a more pandemic appropriate game? Everyone holed up in their houses after a cataclysmic event, delivery people the heroes, keeping everything ticking over (children being sacrificed).