this game is like if jodorowsky listened to every bjork album at the same time and then said, declaratively: "i deeply respect the US Postal Service"
Some thoughts that I had stuck in my head:
Explore the world looking for a solution, a connection. Together. Maybe not physically, not by the same routes, maybe not delivering the same
It is difficult for Death Stranding to reach you playing it alone. Its nature emerges more easily online, and it's a great gesture and a statement of intent that you don't need a subscription to ps plus.
Kojima presents a digital world that is difficult to interpret and unite in words, a fiction that shoots directly into our reality.
Cursed, heartfelt, but also emotional. embrace the connections between things, but question them. a celebration of human duality
More prophetic than MGS2 and with better observation, generalizing and at the same time specifying the difficulties of our day to day, articulating them in the total art of videogames.
From the most abstract to the most literal, collective fears, traumas and very recognizable memories materialized. Visible, audible, and even palpable in an alien America full of dualities, of people who only intuit and show themselves through holograms and numbers.
But we are here. Maybe not next door, but in the same world. And the proof is the ladder that I have used to create an improvised bridge, I have left it here, for you, for me, for everyone. And that rope on the cliff, that capsule, that package on the ground. We are here.
Where the rejection of what forces us to leave this world is manifested in a kind of allergy for those who are more akin to these fears or have experienced them to the limit.
Where people are baptized for their present, for their office and condemned for their past. Where the heroes deliver packages and letters. They come to our futuristic shacks and install an esoteric Internet.
Everything is Sam Porter Bridges, whose name makes it STRONGLY EVIDENT what Death Stranding is about, and at the same time no, you cannot perfectly encompass anything as complex as earthly and afterlife connections, the natural and the mechanical, the Software and the Hardware, the "Ka" and "ha". reality and dreams. Much of Death Stranding's recontextualized iconography seems to suggest that.
It is a work that calls for thinking in an unprecedented way about it, because it offers an unprecedented reinterpretation of the transition and relationship with our environment, especially for gaming standards, obsessed with the mechanical-narrative relationship or the challenge, the suggestion and the satisfaction as a criterion to generate interpretations that are autopsies or descriptions. That in the best case.
At worst you have Far Cry 3.
Every species has the game in different facets and areas as a form of intellectual and emotional connection.
Children play and learn/relate, animals play to understand each other. We play to replace war.
Even before having sex we played.
Homo ludens. And Kojima welcomes a lot of this.
We need to be playful without losing focus.
There is no need for subtlety, just answer honestly to human questions. Use the forms of play as a response to the bitter obstacles of reality.
The example is the "Social Strand System", a mechanical reinterpretation of social networks where the game of deliveries and recovery of packages, manufactures and constructions has an impact on likes and statistics, but also on turning the environment into something more livable and peaceful, at the same time, shows that a more altruistic and ethical form of social interaction is possible.
It sounds naive to say that the reconstruction of the collective environment in an online video game is a lesson in altruism and community, even more so when there are likes involved, but the exercise of life begins somewhere, and now that we are waking up from this techno delirium -competitive utopian in which social networks had us flooded, now that we know how important they are to connect with each other more than to raise our ego, this "Social Strand System" shines more than in 2019.
Through the textures of slow gaming, an experiment of self-knowledge and updating is proposed, there is the unprecedented, in how the game confronts us with situations without necessarily connecting their thoughts or ideas and still achieving a certain cohesion. As in life, no one knows "what it is about" and yet we walk through it with what we own and what others leave for us.
And for a game that wants to embrace these themes without giving up the nature of its medium, its foundation, it's something really admirable.
-------------------
Not a single day goes by that I don't think about Death Stranding. Perhaps because of what has been happening in the world since 2020.
On arrival at Port Knot City.
How the corpses of people who have left explode, leaving an emotional and physical void in the form of a crater. Cities with people locked up, invisible. In the networks. In their inverted rainbows. How work becomes playing with its dozens of tools to transport, how enemies are my reflection, silence, likes, photos, stories... In life, how life can be everywhere.
And I can't even put into words practically anything that this game is for me. I plan to return to it in 2023 now that a sequel has been announced that begs the question: Should we have Connected?
Explore the world looking for a solution, a connection. Together. Maybe not physically, not by the same routes, maybe not delivering the same
It is difficult for Death Stranding to reach you playing it alone. Its nature emerges more easily online, and it's a great gesture and a statement of intent that you don't need a subscription to ps plus.
Kojima presents a digital world that is difficult to interpret and unite in words, a fiction that shoots directly into our reality.
Cursed, heartfelt, but also emotional. embrace the connections between things, but question them. a celebration of human duality
More prophetic than MGS2 and with better observation, generalizing and at the same time specifying the difficulties of our day to day, articulating them in the total art of videogames.
From the most abstract to the most literal, collective fears, traumas and very recognizable memories materialized. Visible, audible, and even palpable in an alien America full of dualities, of people who only intuit and show themselves through holograms and numbers.
But we are here. Maybe not next door, but in the same world. And the proof is the ladder that I have used to create an improvised bridge, I have left it here, for you, for me, for everyone. And that rope on the cliff, that capsule, that package on the ground. We are here.
Where the rejection of what forces us to leave this world is manifested in a kind of allergy for those who are more akin to these fears or have experienced them to the limit.
Where people are baptized for their present, for their office and condemned for their past. Where the heroes deliver packages and letters. They come to our futuristic shacks and install an esoteric Internet.
Everything is Sam Porter Bridges, whose name makes it STRONGLY EVIDENT what Death Stranding is about, and at the same time no, you cannot perfectly encompass anything as complex as earthly and afterlife connections, the natural and the mechanical, the Software and the Hardware, the "Ka" and "ha". reality and dreams. Much of Death Stranding's recontextualized iconography seems to suggest that.
It is a work that calls for thinking in an unprecedented way about it, because it offers an unprecedented reinterpretation of the transition and relationship with our environment, especially for gaming standards, obsessed with the mechanical-narrative relationship or the challenge, the suggestion and the satisfaction as a criterion to generate interpretations that are autopsies or descriptions. That in the best case.
At worst you have Far Cry 3.
Every species has the game in different facets and areas as a form of intellectual and emotional connection.
Children play and learn/relate, animals play to understand each other. We play to replace war.
Even before having sex we played.
Homo ludens. And Kojima welcomes a lot of this.
We need to be playful without losing focus.
There is no need for subtlety, just answer honestly to human questions. Use the forms of play as a response to the bitter obstacles of reality.
The example is the "Social Strand System", a mechanical reinterpretation of social networks where the game of deliveries and recovery of packages, manufactures and constructions has an impact on likes and statistics, but also on turning the environment into something more livable and peaceful, at the same time, shows that a more altruistic and ethical form of social interaction is possible.
It sounds naive to say that the reconstruction of the collective environment in an online video game is a lesson in altruism and community, even more so when there are likes involved, but the exercise of life begins somewhere, and now that we are waking up from this techno delirium -competitive utopian in which social networks had us flooded, now that we know how important they are to connect with each other more than to raise our ego, this "Social Strand System" shines more than in 2019.
Through the textures of slow gaming, an experiment of self-knowledge and updating is proposed, there is the unprecedented, in how the game confronts us with situations without necessarily connecting their thoughts or ideas and still achieving a certain cohesion. As in life, no one knows "what it is about" and yet we walk through it with what we own and what others leave for us.
And for a game that wants to embrace these themes without giving up the nature of its medium, its foundation, it's something really admirable.
-------------------
Not a single day goes by that I don't think about Death Stranding. Perhaps because of what has been happening in the world since 2020.
On arrival at Port Knot City.
How the corpses of people who have left explode, leaving an emotional and physical void in the form of a crater. Cities with people locked up, invisible. In the networks. In their inverted rainbows. How work becomes playing with its dozens of tools to transport, how enemies are my reflection, silence, likes, photos, stories... In life, how life can be everywhere.
And I can't even put into words practically anything that this game is for me. I plan to return to it in 2023 now that a sequel has been announced that begs the question: Should we have Connected?
I was thinking, trudging joylessly over wet rocks through glacial streams, my controller making the sounds of a crying baby, that no game has ever made me feel this way before — this sad, of course, but this peculiar mix of weary and curious, of wanting to do something despite the crushing futility of it all. Kojima's bizarrely over-engineered menus and mundane mechanics are so expertly deployed to elicit exactly this paradox, it is no wonder the game is so divisive. The game-ness of the game is turned against you so as to add experiential weight to its surface thematics. And so continuing on this line of thinking no game has done this before (besides Shenmue), made its sadness manifest so physically in the body of the player. I came to realise no film or book or piece of music has either, and so maybe, just maybe this is a big deal. If we are looking to art to make sense of the moment of our own extinction event, then I can think of no better work than Death Stranding to thicken time, to underscore the heavy intensity of the world beyond the human, to remind us that a single rock could be the difference between the end of the world and another tomorrow.
𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝐴 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑖𝑟𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒.
𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝐴 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒.
𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝐴 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑡.
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛...
É humanamente impossível relatar detalhadamente uma experiência tão complexa e cheia de nuances como a do universo de Death Stranding.
No entanto, é possível e necessário compreender um fator determinante, que muitas vezes acaba se perdendo na ideia de "não foi feito pra todas as pessoas", a única forma de certificar sua compatibilidade com o jogo é se dedicando a se conectar com o mesmo.
É natural se encontrar perdido mesmo após apenas a primeira hora, buscando qualquer fiapo de sentido nas toneladas de informações e loucuras que são despejadas uma a uma na sua cara. Mas digo com tranquilidade, quanto mais imerso na narrativa estiver, mais recompensador será.
Constantemente nos vemos em um ciclo de diálogos e acontecimentos que fazem questão de nos lembrar que estamos todos conectados, o que me faz pensar na dualidade desse conceito com o grande objetivo central que nos é apresentado desde o início do jogo, estabelecer uma rede interligada a todo o país, a fim de reunir as esperanças de uma nação unificada uma vez mais.
Death Stranding concentra grande parte de suas nuances nas inúmeras conexões que o acercam. Sejam nas literais conexões quirais que realizamos em nossas expedições, sejam nas conexões que fortalecemos com cada uma das pessoas que ajudamos de alguma forma pelo caminho, sejam nas conexões firmadas entre o jogador e o extenso universo dotado de debates e questões filosóficas sobre a vida e a morte, todas são conexões que nós fazemos, com nossa dedicação.
Cada critica em relação ao ritmo e mecânicas de jogabilidade é compreensível, realmente existem problemas, mas em meio a todo o conjunto da obra, em meio a uma narrativa tão incrível, sendo uma das melhores que eu já presenciei, será que realmente são problemas tão relevantes?
Talvez realmente não seja para você, poderia não ter sido para mim, mas em meio ao muitas vezes insosso universo dos Triple A, ver um universo que se propõe a fazer algo completamente diferente do usual, e de uma forma tão genial, talvez seja no mínimo digno de uma tentativa.
...𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡.
𝐴 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑖𝑟𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒.
𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝐴 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒.
𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝐴 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑡.
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛...
É humanamente impossível relatar detalhadamente uma experiência tão complexa e cheia de nuances como a do universo de Death Stranding.
No entanto, é possível e necessário compreender um fator determinante, que muitas vezes acaba se perdendo na ideia de "não foi feito pra todas as pessoas", a única forma de certificar sua compatibilidade com o jogo é se dedicando a se conectar com o mesmo.
É natural se encontrar perdido mesmo após apenas a primeira hora, buscando qualquer fiapo de sentido nas toneladas de informações e loucuras que são despejadas uma a uma na sua cara. Mas digo com tranquilidade, quanto mais imerso na narrativa estiver, mais recompensador será.
Constantemente nos vemos em um ciclo de diálogos e acontecimentos que fazem questão de nos lembrar que estamos todos conectados, o que me faz pensar na dualidade desse conceito com o grande objetivo central que nos é apresentado desde o início do jogo, estabelecer uma rede interligada a todo o país, a fim de reunir as esperanças de uma nação unificada uma vez mais.
Death Stranding concentra grande parte de suas nuances nas inúmeras conexões que o acercam. Sejam nas literais conexões quirais que realizamos em nossas expedições, sejam nas conexões que fortalecemos com cada uma das pessoas que ajudamos de alguma forma pelo caminho, sejam nas conexões firmadas entre o jogador e o extenso universo dotado de debates e questões filosóficas sobre a vida e a morte, todas são conexões que nós fazemos, com nossa dedicação.
Cada critica em relação ao ritmo e mecânicas de jogabilidade é compreensível, realmente existem problemas, mas em meio a todo o conjunto da obra, em meio a uma narrativa tão incrível, sendo uma das melhores que eu já presenciei, será que realmente são problemas tão relevantes?
Talvez realmente não seja para você, poderia não ter sido para mim, mas em meio ao muitas vezes insosso universo dos Triple A, ver um universo que se propõe a fazer algo completamente diferente do usual, e de uma forma tão genial, talvez seja no mínimo digno de uma tentativa.
...𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡.
É até difícil falar sobre Death Stranding, fazia tempo que eu não ficava fissurado assim em um jogo, e pra ser sincero, eu torci o nariz pra ele na época que saiu, fui pela cabeça do pessoal dizendo que era ruim, maçante e desinteressante, mas acabei achando o total oposto, e sem dúvidas o jogo se consagra como um dos melhores jogos já feitos, melhor que vários Metal Gear ainda, infelizmente acabou sendo um jogo meio apagado por uma gameplay que não é pra todo mundo e um começo bem lento, recheado de cutscenes longas.
Começando pela gameplay que foi um dos pontos mais criticados pelo público em geral, acabou sendo uma das coisas que eu mais curti, sinto que encontrei um jogo feito pra mim, nunca pensei que fazer entregas fosse ser algo tão divertido, mesmo nos trechos torturantes da montanha de neve ainda era extremamente divertido, cada adversidade no caminho, cada equipamento que vai variando a gameplay de diferentes formas, perdi horas só fazendo tirolesas pelo caminho, no geral, fazer entregas é simplesmente sensacional, apesar de ter pontos em que de fato acaba sendo meio estressante, principalmente no finalzinho que o jogo te força a atravessar o mapa inteiro com uma desculpa bem bestinha. Sobre o combate, é bem simples e funcional, a porradaria tem impacto, as armas tem bastante variação até e são divertidas de se usar, um ponto bem legal é que se você matar um inimigo humano sem querer, você precisa cremar o corpo dele pra não causar uma obliteração. O tal novo genêro do Kojima chamado Strand acabou me surpreendendo também, as estruturas dos outros jogadores são uma mão na roda depois de conectar na rede quiral e elas ainda conseguem se conectar com as estruturas que você cria durante o gameplay.
O gráfico do jogo é simplesmente fantástico, as expressões faciais, modelos e até o mapa apesar de se resumir a terra e pedra são muito bem feitos, cada detalhezinho do jogo é extremamente bem pensado e mesmo 4 anos depois não parece ter envelhecido nem um pouco, o jogo consegue transparecer totalmente cada expressão e reação dos atores, que por sua vez deram um puta show no jogo, principalmente o mito do Mads Mikkelsen. E o gráfico do jogo que já é do caralho, acaba sendo somado com uma trilha sonora impressionante, fiquei viciado na grande maioria das músicas, ouvi Don't Be So Serious e Ludens diversas vezes, e apesar do jogo não ter um Walkman igual em Metal Gear, cada vez que uma música tocava durante as entregas era muito bem encaixado, a sensação de desolação e solidão que esse jogo transmite é uma parada bem única.
Por fim, tem o melhor ponto do jogo que é a história, pensei que ela seria bem confusa e difícil de entender, mas é justamente o oposto, o jogo te insere no universo dele muito bem já nas primeiras horas e cada ponto-chave da história é explicado de forma muito natural e te mantém preso durante a gameplay toda, é evidente que o jogo força diversas bizarrices sem motivo algum, mas todas elas são bem explicadas, o universo apresentado no jogo é interessantíssimo e é uma das melhores obras de ficção científicas já feitas, a forma com que o Kojima "previu" a época de pandemia foi brilhante, deixando ainda mais em evidência como as pessoas precisam se conectar mesmo em tempos difíceis, ninguém consegue sobreviver sozinho ainda mais em um mundo onde as pessoas se afastam cada vez mais, estudar em EAD, trabalhar de home office, o avanço das inteligências artificiais e da internet, tudo isso acaba fazendo com que as pessoas nem se vejam mais e o jogo acaba reforçando ainda mais como as pessoas devem se conectar. Cada personagem principal é bem desenvolvido e traz uma backstory maneira, destaque pro Heartman que é um dos melhores personagens do jogo, os twists da história também são muito bem inseridos, e tudo vai se amarrando com maestria até o último segundo do jogo, cada coisa introduzida lá no começo é usada durante o jogo todo sem você nem perceber.
No geral é um dos melhores jogos que eu já joguei e eu considero nota 10 apesar de ter alguns probleminhas, com certeza não é pra todo mundo, mas é uma obra que traz muita personalidade e inovação em uma época onde todos os jogos são muito parecidos e não trazem nada de novo, só apostam no seguro. Espero que Death Stranding 2 seja ainda melhor.
Começando pela gameplay que foi um dos pontos mais criticados pelo público em geral, acabou sendo uma das coisas que eu mais curti, sinto que encontrei um jogo feito pra mim, nunca pensei que fazer entregas fosse ser algo tão divertido, mesmo nos trechos torturantes da montanha de neve ainda era extremamente divertido, cada adversidade no caminho, cada equipamento que vai variando a gameplay de diferentes formas, perdi horas só fazendo tirolesas pelo caminho, no geral, fazer entregas é simplesmente sensacional, apesar de ter pontos em que de fato acaba sendo meio estressante, principalmente no finalzinho que o jogo te força a atravessar o mapa inteiro com uma desculpa bem bestinha. Sobre o combate, é bem simples e funcional, a porradaria tem impacto, as armas tem bastante variação até e são divertidas de se usar, um ponto bem legal é que se você matar um inimigo humano sem querer, você precisa cremar o corpo dele pra não causar uma obliteração. O tal novo genêro do Kojima chamado Strand acabou me surpreendendo também, as estruturas dos outros jogadores são uma mão na roda depois de conectar na rede quiral e elas ainda conseguem se conectar com as estruturas que você cria durante o gameplay.
O gráfico do jogo é simplesmente fantástico, as expressões faciais, modelos e até o mapa apesar de se resumir a terra e pedra são muito bem feitos, cada detalhezinho do jogo é extremamente bem pensado e mesmo 4 anos depois não parece ter envelhecido nem um pouco, o jogo consegue transparecer totalmente cada expressão e reação dos atores, que por sua vez deram um puta show no jogo, principalmente o mito do Mads Mikkelsen. E o gráfico do jogo que já é do caralho, acaba sendo somado com uma trilha sonora impressionante, fiquei viciado na grande maioria das músicas, ouvi Don't Be So Serious e Ludens diversas vezes, e apesar do jogo não ter um Walkman igual em Metal Gear, cada vez que uma música tocava durante as entregas era muito bem encaixado, a sensação de desolação e solidão que esse jogo transmite é uma parada bem única.
Por fim, tem o melhor ponto do jogo que é a história, pensei que ela seria bem confusa e difícil de entender, mas é justamente o oposto, o jogo te insere no universo dele muito bem já nas primeiras horas e cada ponto-chave da história é explicado de forma muito natural e te mantém preso durante a gameplay toda, é evidente que o jogo força diversas bizarrices sem motivo algum, mas todas elas são bem explicadas, o universo apresentado no jogo é interessantíssimo e é uma das melhores obras de ficção científicas já feitas, a forma com que o Kojima "previu" a época de pandemia foi brilhante, deixando ainda mais em evidência como as pessoas precisam se conectar mesmo em tempos difíceis, ninguém consegue sobreviver sozinho ainda mais em um mundo onde as pessoas se afastam cada vez mais, estudar em EAD, trabalhar de home office, o avanço das inteligências artificiais e da internet, tudo isso acaba fazendo com que as pessoas nem se vejam mais e o jogo acaba reforçando ainda mais como as pessoas devem se conectar. Cada personagem principal é bem desenvolvido e traz uma backstory maneira, destaque pro Heartman que é um dos melhores personagens do jogo, os twists da história também são muito bem inseridos, e tudo vai se amarrando com maestria até o último segundo do jogo, cada coisa introduzida lá no começo é usada durante o jogo todo sem você nem perceber.
No geral é um dos melhores jogos que eu já joguei e eu considero nota 10 apesar de ter alguns probleminhas, com certeza não é pra todo mundo, mas é uma obra que traz muita personalidade e inovação em uma época onde todos os jogos são muito parecidos e não trazem nada de novo, só apostam no seguro. Espero que Death Stranding 2 seja ainda melhor.
Super interessante e muito único. Os conceitos são profundos e criativos, e são explorados num universo bem concebido, através de uma narrativa cativante cheia de twists, onde até os red herring são bem naturais. Fora do texto, a direção é ótima e a execução técnica é excelente. Há boas ideias e bastante variedade de recursos para compor uma estrutura bem completa de gameplay. Muito bacana.
Entretanto, não consigo ignorar um fator que realmente arrasta muito a experiência com o jogo: A quantidade de missão fútil obrigatória. Eu percebi bem cedo que o jogo se exaustaria rapidamente se eu me mantivesse fazendo side quests e entregas opcionais, então passei a me focar totalmente nos objetivos principais, mas mesmo assim ainda me cansou muito a frequência com que o jogo estacionava o andamento da história e das interações importantes para me segurar apenas com missões frívolas.
O fator "walking simulator" é bem interessante a princípio, mas se desgasta demais com a quantidade de pedidos "filler" que nos são encarregados só pra tomar tempo entre cada passo da narrativa. Além de parar de inovar bem cedo, nos mantendo num ciclo repetitivo de caminhadas árduas pelas montanhas de neve. Por conta desse formato, muitas vezes eu terminava minha jogatina insatisfeito, sentindo que progredi muito pouco na minha aventura, mesmo tendo gastado um bom tempo jogando. Foi algo que fadigou consideravelmente minha relação com o jogo.
Em suma:
Muitas vezes se torna chato pelos enxertos, parece que preencheram artificialmente entre uma parte e outra, mas é uma experiência bacana. Há bastante sobre o que refletir nas camadas mais substanciais, e considerável "Kojimismo" nas camadas mais superficiais. Sem dúvidas muito ímpar.
Entretanto, não consigo ignorar um fator que realmente arrasta muito a experiência com o jogo: A quantidade de missão fútil obrigatória. Eu percebi bem cedo que o jogo se exaustaria rapidamente se eu me mantivesse fazendo side quests e entregas opcionais, então passei a me focar totalmente nos objetivos principais, mas mesmo assim ainda me cansou muito a frequência com que o jogo estacionava o andamento da história e das interações importantes para me segurar apenas com missões frívolas.
O fator "walking simulator" é bem interessante a princípio, mas se desgasta demais com a quantidade de pedidos "filler" que nos são encarregados só pra tomar tempo entre cada passo da narrativa. Além de parar de inovar bem cedo, nos mantendo num ciclo repetitivo de caminhadas árduas pelas montanhas de neve. Por conta desse formato, muitas vezes eu terminava minha jogatina insatisfeito, sentindo que progredi muito pouco na minha aventura, mesmo tendo gastado um bom tempo jogando. Foi algo que fadigou consideravelmente minha relação com o jogo.
Em suma:
Muitas vezes se torna chato pelos enxertos, parece que preencheram artificialmente entre uma parte e outra, mas é uma experiência bacana. Há bastante sobre o que refletir nas camadas mais substanciais, e considerável "Kojimismo" nas camadas mais superficiais. Sem dúvidas muito ímpar.
Feeling small, the weight of your body and cargo shifting moment to moment, you wander through landscapes with a real sense of scale and elemental menace. Marking out your favourite routes, you build up memories of the texture of the earth and the incline of the terrain. America has been swallowed by a rift in deep time, emerging as (Iceland?!) a volcanic wasteland haunted by the dead. Tethered to others via ghostly gestures and transient structures, every trip has an eerie loneliness that rises in waves.
The closer this gets to Metal Gear, the more it fumbles, especially with movement a little too clumsy for combat. Spectral and human entities are at their most affecting when glimpsed just out of sight or over the horizon, often throwing off your concentration for a moment, resulting in hilarious mistakes. The deliveries are (mostly) emptied out of significant narrative content or reward, a minimalism that just leaves you alone with the landscape.
The closer this gets to Metal Gear, the more it fumbles, especially with movement a little too clumsy for combat. Spectral and human entities are at their most affecting when glimpsed just out of sight or over the horizon, often throwing off your concentration for a moment, resulting in hilarious mistakes. The deliveries are (mostly) emptied out of significant narrative content or reward, a minimalism that just leaves you alone with the landscape.
Delivering opiates to the last bastions of humanity in a dying world to absolve yourself of all the people you let down. When you feel broken, the only thing that feels good is making other people feel fixed. Sam escapes his past by being who his people need him to be, taking on their burdens until his knees buckle and he's covered in mud. That we could all be so selfless.
This is mostly the kind of game that I've been waiting for for a very long time, a true "walking sim". Instead of using this term derisively for linear, plot-driven games where you hold W and click things, walking is instead given a full set of mechanics and is your main way of interfacing with the game world.
In that regard, this game is a fucking masterpiece. Using your tools and your mind to navigate this world is a treat and seeing those tools benefit others is one of my favorite parts of any game, period. A special mention goes out to the floating carriers, because finding a good spot to plop that bad boy down and turn this into a snowboarding game is always an excellent feeling. Even the combat with other humans is fun, as it's just difficult enough to pose a threat without being oppressive.
Where this game really falls short for me, though, is the story. It is the kind of dense throwaway lore you should probably expect from Kojima, a world that is dead set on breaking your immersion every possible moment by having everyone repeat the themes of the game back to you every time you have the audacity to interact with someone.
Any time the story ties into the gameplay, it begins to cross the line from "encouraging the player to find fun in minutiae" into straight-up tedium. The game attempts to force you to care about BB by taking him away for a couple missions, but I ended up liking those the best by far. The BTs are literally never any fun to interact with, and the fact that they become comically easy to deal with as you upgrade your gadgets doesn't make it any better. Last but certainly not least - putting boss fights in a game like this should be punishable by a substantial prison sentence.
It is an excellent set of gameplay mechanics bogged down by Kojima bullshit. It's really a shame this is the price we have to pay to actually play this game, then, because you can bet your ass that at any other studio this would be some bonkers scrapped idea that would get an employee laughed back into a coffee-fetching role. Despite all the things that make me groan and all the venom I have for the plot, it's one of the most unique games I've ever played wrapped up in a AAA package, and if every 7 out of 10 I've played was like this I'd never have a fucking dime to my name again.
In that regard, this game is a fucking masterpiece. Using your tools and your mind to navigate this world is a treat and seeing those tools benefit others is one of my favorite parts of any game, period. A special mention goes out to the floating carriers, because finding a good spot to plop that bad boy down and turn this into a snowboarding game is always an excellent feeling. Even the combat with other humans is fun, as it's just difficult enough to pose a threat without being oppressive.
Where this game really falls short for me, though, is the story. It is the kind of dense throwaway lore you should probably expect from Kojima, a world that is dead set on breaking your immersion every possible moment by having everyone repeat the themes of the game back to you every time you have the audacity to interact with someone.
Any time the story ties into the gameplay, it begins to cross the line from "encouraging the player to find fun in minutiae" into straight-up tedium. The game attempts to force you to care about BB by taking him away for a couple missions, but I ended up liking those the best by far. The BTs are literally never any fun to interact with, and the fact that they become comically easy to deal with as you upgrade your gadgets doesn't make it any better. Last but certainly not least - putting boss fights in a game like this should be punishable by a substantial prison sentence.
It is an excellent set of gameplay mechanics bogged down by Kojima bullshit. It's really a shame this is the price we have to pay to actually play this game, then, because you can bet your ass that at any other studio this would be some bonkers scrapped idea that would get an employee laughed back into a coffee-fetching role. Despite all the things that make me groan and all the venom I have for the plot, it's one of the most unique games I've ever played wrapped up in a AAA package, and if every 7 out of 10 I've played was like this I'd never have a fucking dime to my name again.
I've known him for a long time. That person was the one who used to shoot guns and do crazy things. And when I met him after a long time, he had become a monk or a hermit or a philosopher. That kind of feeling.
Where is Hideo Kojima now? And where will he go from here?
Where is Hideo Kojima now? And where will he go from here?
Kojima shut up about america and let me deliver a god damn package!!!
I’m just looking for my princess beach 😔
é muito difícil encontrar palavras pra descrever a experiência de terminar esse jogo.
já nas primeiras 2h, tudo grita enigma e novidade. o jogo não te da informações previsíveis logo no começo, muito pelo contrário, te faz criar mil teorias sobre aquele universo e o que aqueles personagens devem enfrentar. é tudo muito misterioso e confuso mas foi justamente o que me prendeu pra querer continuar a história e entender os significados daquilo tudo.
pra mim, acho que o viciante de concluir as entregas é como se fosse a mesma sensação de riscar uma tarefa na sua checklist. ver o que você já fez e sentir que expande cada vez mais a rede quiral e receber recompensas com isso (não só o sisteminha de likes e elo social que achei um super estímulo pra continuar desbravando por aí) é sensacional. também gostei muito da dinâmica dos jogadores te ajudarem e você ajudar eles com construções e itens pelo mapa, realmente estamos todos conectados! obviamente algumas partes são bem chatinhas e infernais (montanhas de neve nem se fala) mas um pouco de paciência valeu a pena no fim!
foi lindo ver a evolução do Sam como personagem, enfrentando os medos dele com a ajuda do BB e renovando sua esperança na humanidade. os personagens principais são interessantes e suas backstories são bem exploradas sem se perder na trama principal. Heartman e Deadman queridos <3 (confesso que ri com alguns nomes..)
terminei de madrugada e não consegui dormir pensando nessa história.. serio, imagina pensar que aquele era o final, depois Aquele era o final e depois AQUELE foi o final. a ultima entrega acompanhada da trilha sonora me fez chorar igual bebê e ver o passado do Cliff como jogador foi triste demais. as aparições dele são todas fodas e era um dos que eu mais queria ver onde ia parar. já sabia que o Mads Mikkelsen era um atorzão mas a performance dele aqui é chef’s kiss.
e pra finalizar, a mensagem que o kojima quis passar é linda, o mestre conseguiu tocar nos temas vida e morte, esperança e caos de uma forma que te pega la na alma. esse jogo tem uma magia que te da vontade de se tornar uma pessoa melhor só por aquela cena antes de rolar os créditos finais. entendo que não é pra todo mundo mas esse jogo realmente mexeu comigo e entrou pra minha lista dos melhores que já joguei. mega ansiosa pra ver como vai ficar a adaptação desse jogo pra filme e pro Death Stranding 2!
já nas primeiras 2h, tudo grita enigma e novidade. o jogo não te da informações previsíveis logo no começo, muito pelo contrário, te faz criar mil teorias sobre aquele universo e o que aqueles personagens devem enfrentar. é tudo muito misterioso e confuso mas foi justamente o que me prendeu pra querer continuar a história e entender os significados daquilo tudo.
pra mim, acho que o viciante de concluir as entregas é como se fosse a mesma sensação de riscar uma tarefa na sua checklist. ver o que você já fez e sentir que expande cada vez mais a rede quiral e receber recompensas com isso (não só o sisteminha de likes e elo social que achei um super estímulo pra continuar desbravando por aí) é sensacional. também gostei muito da dinâmica dos jogadores te ajudarem e você ajudar eles com construções e itens pelo mapa, realmente estamos todos conectados! obviamente algumas partes são bem chatinhas e infernais (montanhas de neve nem se fala) mas um pouco de paciência valeu a pena no fim!
foi lindo ver a evolução do Sam como personagem, enfrentando os medos dele com a ajuda do BB e renovando sua esperança na humanidade. os personagens principais são interessantes e suas backstories são bem exploradas sem se perder na trama principal. Heartman e Deadman queridos <3 (confesso que ri com alguns nomes..)
terminei de madrugada e não consegui dormir pensando nessa história.. serio, imagina pensar que aquele era o final, depois Aquele era o final e depois AQUELE foi o final. a ultima entrega acompanhada da trilha sonora me fez chorar igual bebê e ver o passado do Cliff como jogador foi triste demais. as aparições dele são todas fodas e era um dos que eu mais queria ver onde ia parar. já sabia que o Mads Mikkelsen era um atorzão mas a performance dele aqui é chef’s kiss.
e pra finalizar, a mensagem que o kojima quis passar é linda, o mestre conseguiu tocar nos temas vida e morte, esperança e caos de uma forma que te pega la na alma. esse jogo tem uma magia que te da vontade de se tornar uma pessoa melhor só por aquela cena antes de rolar os créditos finais. entendo que não é pra todo mundo mas esse jogo realmente mexeu comigo e entrou pra minha lista dos melhores que já joguei. mega ansiosa pra ver como vai ficar a adaptação desse jogo pra filme e pro Death Stranding 2!
The world of Death Stranding is like visiting someone else's dream with all it's bizarre and alien details
Actual beautiful game
Gameplay which while simple in the surface level becomes much more interesting and fun when all its features come to play, a story that, while it has its weak points at times, is absolutely beautiful with the stellar performances of the cast, the amazing writing, and just the sheer and perfect integration of gameplay and story woven together
I cannot describe it as anything but beautiful, every single piece of it just works and it has one of my favorite if not favorite ending in the medium itself and even just by the sheer accomplishment of being able to make the relationship between a baby in a pod and Sam Porter Bridges feel so realistic and beautiful to the point I cried at the end.
Just immaculate.
Gameplay which while simple in the surface level becomes much more interesting and fun when all its features come to play, a story that, while it has its weak points at times, is absolutely beautiful with the stellar performances of the cast, the amazing writing, and just the sheer and perfect integration of gameplay and story woven together
I cannot describe it as anything but beautiful, every single piece of it just works and it has one of my favorite if not favorite ending in the medium itself and even just by the sheer accomplishment of being able to make the relationship between a baby in a pod and Sam Porter Bridges feel so realistic and beautiful to the point I cried at the end.
Just immaculate.
I'd rather have a million ultra-earnest and occasionally groan-inducing games with actual artistic ambition like Death Stranding than one more bloated, inoffensive, frozen bread "We have nothing to say but will pretend we do," copy-paste AAA game.
Forget about the whole narrative of "Death Stranding is unique because no other developer would make a game about just walking across open world and doing deliveries." Anyone who thinks like that don't know a single thing about video games (also somehow doesn't know games like Euro Truck exists). The achievement of this game has nothing to do with how "novel" it is with its core theme or some bullshit.
Death Stranding is great because gameplay mechanics supporting the idea of doing deliveries are thoroughly and meticulously systematized and game-ified that their feedback loops are incredibly addicting, while also buttressing the core conceptual themes of connection, being alone and altruism. Kojima and his team made sure that fetch quests are fun not just because of the instant gratification of achieving grades at the end and people giving you likes, but because of your own planning before making the delivery and making sure you are going through your routes while in full understanding of your current resources. Once you begin to see the larger picture and build network of roads and ziplines, the game now becomes something else, testing you to be as efficient as possible, and rewarding you for being smart.
Kojima has always loved systemic gameplay, but he always understood how to balance it out to make sure it's manageable, localized and most importantly, exploitable. Death Stranding is no exception. The game's focus is in the systemic exploration, but unlike other emergent open world games and "immersive sims," Death Stranding is not about emergent experiences; it's about constantly dangling the carrot of "you can be even more efficient here." And it's damn good at amplifying that gameplay loop. But instead of the pursuit of efficiency diminishing the humanity of the narrative and the world, it makes it stronger because you are creating these "strands" tighter and tighter.
Death Stranding is great because gameplay mechanics supporting the idea of doing deliveries are thoroughly and meticulously systematized and game-ified that their feedback loops are incredibly addicting, while also buttressing the core conceptual themes of connection, being alone and altruism. Kojima and his team made sure that fetch quests are fun not just because of the instant gratification of achieving grades at the end and people giving you likes, but because of your own planning before making the delivery and making sure you are going through your routes while in full understanding of your current resources. Once you begin to see the larger picture and build network of roads and ziplines, the game now becomes something else, testing you to be as efficient as possible, and rewarding you for being smart.
Kojima has always loved systemic gameplay, but he always understood how to balance it out to make sure it's manageable, localized and most importantly, exploitable. Death Stranding is no exception. The game's focus is in the systemic exploration, but unlike other emergent open world games and "immersive sims," Death Stranding is not about emergent experiences; it's about constantly dangling the carrot of "you can be even more efficient here." And it's damn good at amplifying that gameplay loop. But instead of the pursuit of efficiency diminishing the humanity of the narrative and the world, it makes it stronger because you are creating these "strands" tighter and tighter.
I really hope Kojima keeps making more ridiculous, utterly self-serious games like this because they have so much fucking heart.
My new favourite game, actual masterpiece
My new favourite game, actual masterpiece
resumo da ópera;
gameplay e worldbuilding legal, roteiro tem boas ideias extremamente mal escritas, kojima é inseguro demais no que tenta transmitir e tem que se 'autoexplicar' a todo momento, além de dramatizar personagens que mal conhecemos sem nenhum desenvolvimento, criando algo novelesco e BREGA; até o nome do personagem tem que ter uma cena com bordão meia boca pra cagar o conceito "eU mE cHAmO FRaGIle maS nÃo soU fRÁGIL!!!". Ademais, Cliff Unger é baseado.
gameplay e worldbuilding legal, roteiro tem boas ideias extremamente mal escritas, kojima é inseguro demais no que tenta transmitir e tem que se 'autoexplicar' a todo momento, além de dramatizar personagens que mal conhecemos sem nenhum desenvolvimento, criando algo novelesco e BREGA; até o nome do personagem tem que ter uma cena com bordão meia boca pra cagar o conceito "eU mE cHAmO FRaGIle maS nÃo soU fRÁGIL!!!". Ademais, Cliff Unger é baseado.
Enjoyment - 10/10
Difficulty - 5/10
Death Stranding is the PlayStation 4. Death Stranding is a fine dining restaurant serving you a delicious fast food burger, but it turned out it wasn't a burger. You begin to question what you just ate, and you cannot place the taste. The only thing you do know is that it was familiar and the best thing you ever ate. Death Stranding touches souls, and cleanses them. Death Stranding is a video game.
🏆
Difficulty - 5/10
Death Stranding is the PlayStation 4. Death Stranding is a fine dining restaurant serving you a delicious fast food burger, but it turned out it wasn't a burger. You begin to question what you just ate, and you cannot place the taste. The only thing you do know is that it was familiar and the best thing you ever ate. Death Stranding touches souls, and cleanses them. Death Stranding is a video game.
🏆
👍 compelling and stylish opening, got me excited to finally sit down and play this
😍 seeing lea seydoux here after enjoying her in crimes of the future (my favorite film of the year) is lovely and her (fragile's) spiky black outfit is sick as hell, also she eats a weird floating space grub and seems to be aroused by this
🔥 the bt scene where a necrotic human body triggers a voidout - everything going on here is wild and mysterious and holy shit all at once
😬 uncanny del toro with some other guy's voice
🤡 "make america whole again!" the word "america" appears in dialogue about 600 times in 30 minutes, and i'm thinking this is taking a turn for the very dumb and the already extremely blunt themes of social reconnection should be more universal, in some anonymous earthly setting... but no - america, y'all
😱 are you a bad enough reedus to carry the president's (also your mom's) corpse to the incinerator before she makes neo knot city e-x-p-l-o-d-e
🌧️ long stretch of solitudinous trekking, leaden interactions with npc holograms praising you-reedus and almost a hint at something about the working class and their labor being the lifeblood of a functioning country but this game isn't that subtle and that's probably not even remotely within kojima's wheelhouse
👼 while sam's laconic and distant demeanor is familiar and comfortable to me, i also find myself identifying with his affinity for bb more than i had expected
💩 lol poop grenades
💬 none of the structures i build are getting likes from other players (some of them have tens of thousands) and the gameplay loop of making deliveries is buckling under the weight of kojima's hubris... i'm getting some sort of comfort or fulfillment out of working out the logistics of making deliveries and prepping for each journey, ensuring that i have the blood bombs and repair spray i may need, etc. but if this goes on for 20-30 hours uhhh idk
💀 do i even like this game? it's painfully heavy-handed and none of its characters are particularly interesting, least of all the fucking cool looking golden skull masked villain voiced by a troy baker devouring scenery (going hard, as everyone says too much now) while saying virtually jack shit... right now i would say the phantom pain was actually much better, and death stranding is starting to feel like its inverse - a failure of a game driven by some really cool ideas
🌈 i do feel, still, that i could come out at the end of this feeling all the drudgery and vacuousness were worth it, so i will continue playing (it's a relaxing distraction from my fucked brain anyway) and perhaps say more when i am done
😍 seeing lea seydoux here after enjoying her in crimes of the future (my favorite film of the year) is lovely and her (fragile's) spiky black outfit is sick as hell, also she eats a weird floating space grub and seems to be aroused by this
🔥 the bt scene where a necrotic human body triggers a voidout - everything going on here is wild and mysterious and holy shit all at once
😬 uncanny del toro with some other guy's voice
🤡 "make america whole again!" the word "america" appears in dialogue about 600 times in 30 minutes, and i'm thinking this is taking a turn for the very dumb and the already extremely blunt themes of social reconnection should be more universal, in some anonymous earthly setting... but no - america, y'all
😱 are you a bad enough reedus to carry the president's (also your mom's) corpse to the incinerator before she makes neo knot city e-x-p-l-o-d-e
🌧️ long stretch of solitudinous trekking, leaden interactions with npc holograms praising you-reedus and almost a hint at something about the working class and their labor being the lifeblood of a functioning country but this game isn't that subtle and that's probably not even remotely within kojima's wheelhouse
👼 while sam's laconic and distant demeanor is familiar and comfortable to me, i also find myself identifying with his affinity for bb more than i had expected
💩 lol poop grenades
💬 none of the structures i build are getting likes from other players (some of them have tens of thousands) and the gameplay loop of making deliveries is buckling under the weight of kojima's hubris... i'm getting some sort of comfort or fulfillment out of working out the logistics of making deliveries and prepping for each journey, ensuring that i have the blood bombs and repair spray i may need, etc. but if this goes on for 20-30 hours uhhh idk
💀 do i even like this game? it's painfully heavy-handed and none of its characters are particularly interesting, least of all the fucking cool looking golden skull masked villain voiced by a troy baker devouring scenery (going hard, as everyone says too much now) while saying virtually jack shit... right now i would say the phantom pain was actually much better, and death stranding is starting to feel like its inverse - a failure of a game driven by some really cool ideas
🌈 i do feel, still, that i could come out at the end of this feeling all the drudgery and vacuousness were worth it, so i will continue playing (it's a relaxing distraction from my fucked brain anyway) and perhaps say more when i am done
it cant be overstated how important kojima is to the game industry. like him or not, he's revolutionized the way we see game design more than once. with his newest game he may not change the way we look at games, but he still proves he knows how to make a new idea work perfectly well.
i went into this game expecting it to suck hard. i thought it would just be walking from point a to b with some face-level story on top. i was severely wrong.
the amount of nuance from just getting package x to point a is insane, with everything down to the terrain keeping your attention. hell will rise from the ground to keep you from delivering some packages. but deliver them you will god damn it, because youre Sam Porter Bridges.
there's so many things that keep gameplay from getting stale, down to the end of the game youre constantly unlocking new weapons and gadgets and modes of transport. on top of that youve got MULE camps which never stop being satisfying and the BT sections which never stop being tense. everything feeds into everything else and its impossible to look away from the screen once it starts, and i have never played anything like it.
but what truly elevates this game is the balls to the wall story. the horrifying symbolism of strands and hands and uterine glands makes for a visual experience unlike anything before it. it's a weird thing to say, but this might be the most well-shot game i've ever played. not to mention that every character is extremely well written and even more interesting than the last, the obvious highlight being Mads Mikkelsen.
death stranding's america is a world i wont forget and the tense package delivery along with it. theres truly nothing like this game and i applaud everyone involved for making such an interesting, dare i say bold game work so god damn well. just one more feather in kojima's cap.
i went into this game expecting it to suck hard. i thought it would just be walking from point a to b with some face-level story on top. i was severely wrong.
the amount of nuance from just getting package x to point a is insane, with everything down to the terrain keeping your attention. hell will rise from the ground to keep you from delivering some packages. but deliver them you will god damn it, because youre Sam Porter Bridges.
there's so many things that keep gameplay from getting stale, down to the end of the game youre constantly unlocking new weapons and gadgets and modes of transport. on top of that youve got MULE camps which never stop being satisfying and the BT sections which never stop being tense. everything feeds into everything else and its impossible to look away from the screen once it starts, and i have never played anything like it.
but what truly elevates this game is the balls to the wall story. the horrifying symbolism of strands and hands and uterine glands makes for a visual experience unlike anything before it. it's a weird thing to say, but this might be the most well-shot game i've ever played. not to mention that every character is extremely well written and even more interesting than the last, the obvious highlight being Mads Mikkelsen.
death stranding's america is a world i wont forget and the tense package delivery along with it. theres truly nothing like this game and i applaud everyone involved for making such an interesting, dare i say bold game work so god damn well. just one more feather in kojima's cap.
You ever heard of A24? It's a film company known for trying to bring experimental and indie films into the mainstream. It's made films like Moonlight, Uncut Gems, The Witch, Midsommar, Good Time, Ex Machina, and one of my personal favorite movies of all time Swiss Army Man. Death Stranding is like an A24 video game.
I've never played a Kojima game before this. I say this because some people will try to strike good reviews of this game up to fanboy mentality. I can't be a fanboy if I hardly know who the guy is, so believe me when I say Hideo Kojima's newest creation took my breath away. It's an experimental piece with a gameplay unlike any other and while some may call it "rage-inducing" or "boring", I call it "integral to the game's message" and "intricately connected to the plot". It's not a gameplay I would want popularized, because I don't think it could work anywhere else. You also need to be sort of a completionist to even better appreciate the game, cuz going out your way to earn 5 stars from every location also provides to Kojima's vision.
Death Stranding is about making connections. Loved ones, friends, even neighbors or acquaintances all connect us to one another and Kojima's trying to celebrate that. Main protagonist Sam Porter Bridges is a man who wants no connections and with good reason (a reason you won't find out until later in the story). A delivery man who travels the world alone, but due to unexpected circumstances Sam is forced to help the organization BRIDGES on their quest to reconnect all of a fragmented shell that was once the USA. You see some doomsday shit happened and now the land of the dead has fused with the land of the living, and now a whole bunch of foolishness such as rain that makes anything it touches age rapidly and invisible ghost creatures is keeping everyone from leaving their homes. Sure, they all have futuristic 3D printers at home to make most of what they want, but they still need food and meds and other things. Now Sam has to not only deliver packages but also install a new version of the internet into every home, allowing for communication to reconnect the nation as one.
This is where the gameplay kicks in. Surprisingly the start of the game may be the hardest point. Sam is alone with nothing but the packages on his back and the BB on his chest, forced to endure through the rough terrain and hazardous weather and ooky spooky ghosties! However as you meet new people they'll grant you with gifts of equipment that make the job all the more easier, and ranking up these locations to 5 star service grants even better equipment. Making connections stronger make you stronger, even more so with Death Stranding's online features.
That's right Death Stranding uses online features, but in a very peculiar way. You will never see another player but their presence in significant. You see, as you're playing the game you will use equipment to help reach high places or cross rivers easily or even heal your cargo from Timefall (that aging rain I told you about earlier). If you leave this stuff behind on your ventures, other players will run into it and use it for their own benefit and vice versa. You're working together heal a broken world, creating rest stations and shortcuts for everyone to share thus creating strong connections with people you don't even know much like the beloved indie game Journey. Now of course you're not receiving everything every single player has left behind, more you're receiving stuff through a filter that gives you just enough to constantly feel like you're not alone on this journey. If you start noticing a particular gamertag coming up few times with very helpful equipment drops, you can even form a Strand Contract with them in which anything they leave behind from this point on will always appear in your game. This is why I feel the gameplay is so integral to what is Death Stranding, and why I think most of those who hate this game probably sped through the story without stopping to take in these brilliant details.
And by the way the story is one of the most emotional journeys I've ever been on in a video game. I don't think a game has ever made me cry. I've definitely been on the verge of tears with games like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Mass Effect 2 but Death Stranding finally broke me. Sam Bridges starts out as your typical gruff game protagonist. Annoyed grunts and a deep, angry-at-the-world voice. However by Chapter 3 you notice a crack in the persona, and with ever chapter that crack gets bigger and bigger. At first I thought most of the chapters were just character studies. Learning about one character in this chapter, learning about another one the next, and so on. In a way this is true but for Sam each chapter is making a new connection. Sam, and in turn you, are learning what makes characters like Fragile or Deadman tick and thus forming a relationship with them. A man with no connections is finally gaining friends and he's learning to sympathize. To be kind. To be a person.
All of this is brought to life by an amazing cast. You got Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux, Mads Mikkelsen, Lindsay Wagner, Emily O'Brien, and Margaret Qualley all bringing in their A-game. I heard complaints of antagonist Higgs being a one-note character and while that is true I think Troy Baker really has fun with the role. The likenesses of directors Guillermo Del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn appear in the game as characters, but due to what I'm guessing is their fear of not being good actors they have voice actors fill in for them.
Not only that but there's so many cameos in this game through the different stations you visit. Junji Ito, Geoff Keighley, Conan O'Brien, goddamn EDGAR WRIGHT, and so much more. All face-scanned and subsequently dubbed by voice actors. Except Conan. He wanted the full cameo treatment voice and all.
I bet you're asking about BB huh? How can you do an entire Death Stranding review and not talk about BB? There's not much to say that hasn't already been said, bucko. I'd die for the little stinker I wish I had gotten the collectors edition so I could carry my very own fetus around and creep out all my roommates! I got the collector's edition for Christmas, and just like I said I'm torturing my roommates and friends. I love my BB.
Now what would I fix about the game? Not much really. I think any story based game that has an upgrade system can always be more fun with a New Game Plus mode. Also even though there are 14 chapters in all, completing Chapter 9 is a point of no return. You won't be able to upgrade any more stations till you finish the story. Wish I knew that going in cuz I had a lot more after-story cleanup than I expected. I feel a New Game Plus would make this cleanup a bit more fun. Also I'd make the Music Player usable out in the field. I get you want us to slowly unlock the music you wanna showcase throughout the game and already having our own music going would mess with that timing and ambience, but dude at least let us use it after the story is finished Hideo. I'm working my ass off delivering these packages at least let me jive to some tunes my guy! I can't even open Spotify because Kojima fuckin blocked the feature which is something I'm beginning to think Japanese games do as a "fuck you" because the last Digimon game I played also blocked Spotify usage.
To sum things up, I didn't really know who Kojima was before Death Stranding and now because of it I'm a loyal fan like so many people already are. experiencing this masterpiece is something that will stick with me forever. It's one of my favorite games of all time, and I doubt anything will ever change that. It's an experience like no other. I think Kojima Productions has a very successful future in store.
EDIT: A24 is working with Kojima to make a live action movie I FUCKIN CALLED IT
I've never played a Kojima game before this. I say this because some people will try to strike good reviews of this game up to fanboy mentality. I can't be a fanboy if I hardly know who the guy is, so believe me when I say Hideo Kojima's newest creation took my breath away. It's an experimental piece with a gameplay unlike any other and while some may call it "rage-inducing" or "boring", I call it "integral to the game's message" and "intricately connected to the plot". It's not a gameplay I would want popularized, because I don't think it could work anywhere else. You also need to be sort of a completionist to even better appreciate the game, cuz going out your way to earn 5 stars from every location also provides to Kojima's vision.
Death Stranding is about making connections. Loved ones, friends, even neighbors or acquaintances all connect us to one another and Kojima's trying to celebrate that. Main protagonist Sam Porter Bridges is a man who wants no connections and with good reason (a reason you won't find out until later in the story). A delivery man who travels the world alone, but due to unexpected circumstances Sam is forced to help the organization BRIDGES on their quest to reconnect all of a fragmented shell that was once the USA. You see some doomsday shit happened and now the land of the dead has fused with the land of the living, and now a whole bunch of foolishness such as rain that makes anything it touches age rapidly and invisible ghost creatures is keeping everyone from leaving their homes. Sure, they all have futuristic 3D printers at home to make most of what they want, but they still need food and meds and other things. Now Sam has to not only deliver packages but also install a new version of the internet into every home, allowing for communication to reconnect the nation as one.
This is where the gameplay kicks in. Surprisingly the start of the game may be the hardest point. Sam is alone with nothing but the packages on his back and the BB on his chest, forced to endure through the rough terrain and hazardous weather and ooky spooky ghosties! However as you meet new people they'll grant you with gifts of equipment that make the job all the more easier, and ranking up these locations to 5 star service grants even better equipment. Making connections stronger make you stronger, even more so with Death Stranding's online features.
That's right Death Stranding uses online features, but in a very peculiar way. You will never see another player but their presence in significant. You see, as you're playing the game you will use equipment to help reach high places or cross rivers easily or even heal your cargo from Timefall (that aging rain I told you about earlier). If you leave this stuff behind on your ventures, other players will run into it and use it for their own benefit and vice versa. You're working together heal a broken world, creating rest stations and shortcuts for everyone to share thus creating strong connections with people you don't even know much like the beloved indie game Journey. Now of course you're not receiving everything every single player has left behind, more you're receiving stuff through a filter that gives you just enough to constantly feel like you're not alone on this journey. If you start noticing a particular gamertag coming up few times with very helpful equipment drops, you can even form a Strand Contract with them in which anything they leave behind from this point on will always appear in your game. This is why I feel the gameplay is so integral to what is Death Stranding, and why I think most of those who hate this game probably sped through the story without stopping to take in these brilliant details.
And by the way the story is one of the most emotional journeys I've ever been on in a video game. I don't think a game has ever made me cry. I've definitely been on the verge of tears with games like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Mass Effect 2 but Death Stranding finally broke me. Sam Bridges starts out as your typical gruff game protagonist. Annoyed grunts and a deep, angry-at-the-world voice. However by Chapter 3 you notice a crack in the persona, and with ever chapter that crack gets bigger and bigger. At first I thought most of the chapters were just character studies. Learning about one character in this chapter, learning about another one the next, and so on. In a way this is true but for Sam each chapter is making a new connection. Sam, and in turn you, are learning what makes characters like Fragile or Deadman tick and thus forming a relationship with them. A man with no connections is finally gaining friends and he's learning to sympathize. To be kind. To be a person.
All of this is brought to life by an amazing cast. You got Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux, Mads Mikkelsen, Lindsay Wagner, Emily O'Brien, and Margaret Qualley all bringing in their A-game. I heard complaints of antagonist Higgs being a one-note character and while that is true I think Troy Baker really has fun with the role. The likenesses of directors Guillermo Del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn appear in the game as characters, but due to what I'm guessing is their fear of not being good actors they have voice actors fill in for them.
Not only that but there's so many cameos in this game through the different stations you visit. Junji Ito, Geoff Keighley, Conan O'Brien, goddamn EDGAR WRIGHT, and so much more. All face-scanned and subsequently dubbed by voice actors. Except Conan. He wanted the full cameo treatment voice and all.
I bet you're asking about BB huh? How can you do an entire Death Stranding review and not talk about BB? There's not much to say that hasn't already been said, bucko. I'd die for the little stinker I wish I had gotten the collectors edition so I could carry my very own fetus around and creep out all my roommates! I got the collector's edition for Christmas, and just like I said I'm torturing my roommates and friends. I love my BB.
Now what would I fix about the game? Not much really. I think any story based game that has an upgrade system can always be more fun with a New Game Plus mode. Also even though there are 14 chapters in all, completing Chapter 9 is a point of no return. You won't be able to upgrade any more stations till you finish the story. Wish I knew that going in cuz I had a lot more after-story cleanup than I expected. I feel a New Game Plus would make this cleanup a bit more fun. Also I'd make the Music Player usable out in the field. I get you want us to slowly unlock the music you wanna showcase throughout the game and already having our own music going would mess with that timing and ambience, but dude at least let us use it after the story is finished Hideo. I'm working my ass off delivering these packages at least let me jive to some tunes my guy! I can't even open Spotify because Kojima fuckin blocked the feature which is something I'm beginning to think Japanese games do as a "fuck you" because the last Digimon game I played also blocked Spotify usage.
To sum things up, I didn't really know who Kojima was before Death Stranding and now because of it I'm a loyal fan like so many people already are. experiencing this masterpiece is something that will stick with me forever. It's one of my favorite games of all time, and I doubt anything will ever change that. It's an experience like no other. I think Kojima Productions has a very successful future in store.
EDIT: A24 is working with Kojima to make a live action movie I FUCKIN CALLED IT
Building connections
It's funny how life works sometimes. I never had the original intention of playing Death Stranding until a friend gave it to me out of nowhere for giving her something for Christmas and yet here I am several weeks later thanking her once again after going for every achievement and over a hundred hours. The reason I bring this up is that it relates to how Death Stranding wants you to experience the benefits of being part of something more than a single entity hoping we don't regret it.
I had a lot of reservations going into this one with how I knew that if the gameplay didn't keep my hands moving and my mind contained throughout the whole experience in that I wouldn't like it but Death Stranding has a surprising amount of depth in how to approach every delivery. The act of just delivering and constantly running around isn't what makes Death Stranding completely unique in this facet but the act of "walking" and "traversal" makes this one of the most engaging experiences for a first time. All of this wrapped in one of the most heavy handed and odd writing style for a Kojima game in my opinion makes this one of the best open world games by a long mile.
It's probably the first time in a while that I felt like it was quite obvious what Kojima wanted to tell with this title. The world is disconnected from everything due to an deathly apocalypse called the Death Stranding. Everyone is out for themselves and too scared to even go outside relying on porters to survive like our protagonist, Sam Bridges. Sam never had a connection to the human society except for one moment and then it being taken away has let him believe that connections are meaningless and only bring pain. One of the best parts of his development was going all over America, meeting new people and helping them bring stuff. There's a personal satisfaction when you've done all you can and their best reward isn't some random item or overpowered item but opening that door for you and letting you in. Doing all this made me feel the change was genuine as I felt the same way too, I ended up helping everyone except one person. I won't say who it is but one of the preppers you meet is really sick and their deliveries consist of bringing medicine to them. I ended up doing this for a while until I almost maxed them out until I decided to do story and hold on delivering packages to them. After a while, I decided to deliver one final package to this person so I can max out our connection and then I wondered why they didn't pick up when I came but saw a BT. After I delivered my package and received an email from them asking where we were and only hoping we were continuing the good fight before sharing the news that they moved on from this world. It's a small thing but it made me sad that I couldn't deliver that one final package for them. To my dismay, I found out you can keep them alive but you had to constantly deliver to them throughout your whole experience but people will probably tend to move on from them from a gameplay standpoint like I did. "Why go back when you already maxed them out?" is what people thought until this happened but it's just surprising that it actually happened. With all that said, the supporting cast are interesting and even with cheesy names like Deadman or Heartman (guess what this guy is all about), they still manage to hit the right spots in the emotional space with the game beginning how it ends in a sense.
I feel like watching Death Stranding's gameplay is deceiving yourself in the sense you only see it in its simplest form. When you watch someone going up the hill carrying something in their hand, you expect not much is happening on the controller or attention span but to someone actually holding the controller, there's a lot going on and this is one of the best strengths of Death Stranding. Open world games tend to have this problem of going from point A to B being some of the most minut interactions in their games with the player running forward or being in a vehicle and driving there but in Death Stranding, the world puts up a fight. It won't make things easy until you work to make them easy. Running up hill requires you to manage stamina and your balance along with any cargo you might have, holding an item in your hand isn't just a button press but requires holding down the trigger button based on your hand. I initially thought it was tedious to constantly hold down the trigger to hold something in your hand but it does make sense. When you're holding an item in real life, it's not a touch but a constant effort of holding and holding down the trigger represents that your arm is in constant effort of holding up the arm which I thought was pretty intuitive. The gameplay loop mostly kept my hands and fingers on the control going through a death torn America trying to get a video game collector an old PSP system. Fortunately that's not all there is to the "traversal" as the game gives you plenty of tools to circumvent the worst the world and the terrain has to offer. Starting out with ladders and climbing hooks and then turning into elaborate structures like ziplines and bridges. You can eventually build a network of structures that make the world a little easier on you and your boots but that's not all. The online experience is what I feel is the definitive experience for Death Stranding as you don't just your world but a shared one. Various signs of life, tools rusted out from use long ago, and networks already set up are here to help you as your tools and structures help them. You are never alone. It starts to feel more like collective doing everything it can to make everything easier which is how it should be. Personal satisfaction when I poured the most effort into making roads for everyone to get through easier and the only form of thanks is "likes" which don't really serve much of a purpose is all you need sometimes. It also helps that the world just provides a variety of challenges to confront to endless ravines, rocky surfaces, to snowy mountains that tax every facet of your health and tools so you'll need to stay connected to make the most of everyone's efforts. There are vehicles in the game and you're probably thinking "well that'll just make everything easy and trivial like every other open world game" but actually using them might make you think otherwise. They're mostly for flat surfaces or roads you already built since the rocks on the ground will immediately stop you on your tracks to frustration even more so with trucks that provide a lot of cargo space for bigger orders but become bordering on wielding outside of anything but roads unless you know how to drive up the terrain properly. All these tools and I'm reminded of Metal Gear Solid V where Venom Snake had every tool and gun in his arsenal to perform stealth and missions however he wanted in an open world environment and now Death Stranding gives you these tools and structures to perform deliveries and missions in any way you wanted in an open world environment as well.
Apart from "traversal", there's two forms of combat in Death Stranding in which you fight the living and fight the dead. Fighting MULEs which are the human combatants will eventually be required of you and you'll hopefully prepared some tools for it. Early on you'll have a Bola gun that only really ties them up for you to incapicatate later until later on when you get non lethal conventional weapons like assault rifles and shotguns. I really think you can approach these camps early on in a stealthy manner and it would work for the most part and feel a bit fun since you don't have much but eventually when you get the bola gun, you can just shoot them at mules that essentially just run towards you anyway so it stops being a challenge. Later on though, MULEs get a huge upgrade in capability that makes them pretty fun to go against for a while in that they're actually trying to kill you with guns. It's pretty jarring that they do this considering actually killing someone is something you don't want to do. BTs initially feel like this horror mechanic in the preferred way is to go past them undetected since you don't really have any single way of fighting them for a bit and I liked this dichotomy of relaxing traversal and having to keep focus on going through a BT infested zone in the world. You do eventually get tools and weapons that let you fight BTs more efficiently that it unfortunately feels like an annoyance more than something you should be scared of at some point. Boss battles rely on these huge creature like monstrosities that take a lot of damage to defeat and will probably run out of ammo if it wasn't for the other players coming from the tar and helping you by throwing blood bags and rocket launchers. I do recommend playing on Hard at least to keep this a bit challenging and not completely mindless as you will still die pretty quick without armor on Hard. Overall I find this aspect of the game adequate but it was never really the focus of the experience but a good way to break up the action.
As I've mentioned before, the multiplayer aspect of Death Stranding is essential to fully enjoying this experience. Apart from being in a shared world where you can see other people's structures and struggles, you can see warnings of danger, deliver their lost cargo for them if it's on the way anyway, help them with weapons or tools if they really need it or donate materials so everyone can use them. There's a lot of ways to help the collective of people you're with and I think it's the best use of asynchronous multiplayer yet. The traversal also doesn't get made easy by this as you have to face the challenge yourself at least once before you get connected in specific areas too.
The sound of metal clanking against the weight of your cargo, small medleys playing during specific moments in the world. The music and sound of Death Stranding reaches a high note in what was used and how it was used. The highlight is the usage of music throughout the game playing these licensed haunting and serene songs from Low Roar and Silent Poets to give a few examples. It really helps to reflect how quiet the world can be in its photographic view of america based on Iceland from what I can tell. Going down a snowy mountain and it becoming a grass hill while this is playing is a zen like experience that's hard to describe when the game puts you into this reflective state of mind. My favorite original piece has to be this and when you hear it makes it one of my favorite experiences I've had in a bit. The whole song feels somber and later on sounds like one of Sufjan Steven's electronica efforts. I do understand why they didn't have a music player for this game considering its use during certain moments but they could've made it a reward for completing the game or a 100% reward at least.
With all that said, I can understand that this game isn't for everyone or a purely perfect game to anyone but I think in terms of how this game carries out itself is extremely rare and something I wish for more in the industry in general. Death Stranding practices what it preaches and then some with some of the most innovative open world gameplay I've played in a long time, themes I can understand due to my personal isolation barring COVID and the fear of connecting with people. I always felt like every link I made with people is something tangible people can eventually cut off and cutting something always hurts. Reaching out might not be so bad after all. Even in the way BTs are, even in death we are always connected and are never gone from this world as long as that connection is there. We are always connected.
It's funny how life works sometimes. I never had the original intention of playing Death Stranding until a friend gave it to me out of nowhere for giving her something for Christmas and yet here I am several weeks later thanking her once again after going for every achievement and over a hundred hours. The reason I bring this up is that it relates to how Death Stranding wants you to experience the benefits of being part of something more than a single entity hoping we don't regret it.
I had a lot of reservations going into this one with how I knew that if the gameplay didn't keep my hands moving and my mind contained throughout the whole experience in that I wouldn't like it but Death Stranding has a surprising amount of depth in how to approach every delivery. The act of just delivering and constantly running around isn't what makes Death Stranding completely unique in this facet but the act of "walking" and "traversal" makes this one of the most engaging experiences for a first time. All of this wrapped in one of the most heavy handed and odd writing style for a Kojima game in my opinion makes this one of the best open world games by a long mile.
It's probably the first time in a while that I felt like it was quite obvious what Kojima wanted to tell with this title. The world is disconnected from everything due to an deathly apocalypse called the Death Stranding. Everyone is out for themselves and too scared to even go outside relying on porters to survive like our protagonist, Sam Bridges. Sam never had a connection to the human society except for one moment and then it being taken away has let him believe that connections are meaningless and only bring pain. One of the best parts of his development was going all over America, meeting new people and helping them bring stuff. There's a personal satisfaction when you've done all you can and their best reward isn't some random item or overpowered item but opening that door for you and letting you in. Doing all this made me feel the change was genuine as I felt the same way too, I ended up helping everyone except one person. I won't say who it is but one of the preppers you meet is really sick and their deliveries consist of bringing medicine to them. I ended up doing this for a while until I almost maxed them out until I decided to do story and hold on delivering packages to them. After a while, I decided to deliver one final package to this person so I can max out our connection and then I wondered why they didn't pick up when I came but saw a BT. After I delivered my package and received an email from them asking where we were and only hoping we were continuing the good fight before sharing the news that they moved on from this world. It's a small thing but it made me sad that I couldn't deliver that one final package for them. To my dismay, I found out you can keep them alive but you had to constantly deliver to them throughout your whole experience but people will probably tend to move on from them from a gameplay standpoint like I did. "Why go back when you already maxed them out?" is what people thought until this happened but it's just surprising that it actually happened. With all that said, the supporting cast are interesting and even with cheesy names like Deadman or Heartman (guess what this guy is all about), they still manage to hit the right spots in the emotional space with the game beginning how it ends in a sense.
I feel like watching Death Stranding's gameplay is deceiving yourself in the sense you only see it in its simplest form. When you watch someone going up the hill carrying something in their hand, you expect not much is happening on the controller or attention span but to someone actually holding the controller, there's a lot going on and this is one of the best strengths of Death Stranding. Open world games tend to have this problem of going from point A to B being some of the most minut interactions in their games with the player running forward or being in a vehicle and driving there but in Death Stranding, the world puts up a fight. It won't make things easy until you work to make them easy. Running up hill requires you to manage stamina and your balance along with any cargo you might have, holding an item in your hand isn't just a button press but requires holding down the trigger button based on your hand. I initially thought it was tedious to constantly hold down the trigger to hold something in your hand but it does make sense. When you're holding an item in real life, it's not a touch but a constant effort of holding and holding down the trigger represents that your arm is in constant effort of holding up the arm which I thought was pretty intuitive. The gameplay loop mostly kept my hands and fingers on the control going through a death torn America trying to get a video game collector an old PSP system. Fortunately that's not all there is to the "traversal" as the game gives you plenty of tools to circumvent the worst the world and the terrain has to offer. Starting out with ladders and climbing hooks and then turning into elaborate structures like ziplines and bridges. You can eventually build a network of structures that make the world a little easier on you and your boots but that's not all. The online experience is what I feel is the definitive experience for Death Stranding as you don't just your world but a shared one. Various signs of life, tools rusted out from use long ago, and networks already set up are here to help you as your tools and structures help them. You are never alone. It starts to feel more like collective doing everything it can to make everything easier which is how it should be. Personal satisfaction when I poured the most effort into making roads for everyone to get through easier and the only form of thanks is "likes" which don't really serve much of a purpose is all you need sometimes. It also helps that the world just provides a variety of challenges to confront to endless ravines, rocky surfaces, to snowy mountains that tax every facet of your health and tools so you'll need to stay connected to make the most of everyone's efforts. There are vehicles in the game and you're probably thinking "well that'll just make everything easy and trivial like every other open world game" but actually using them might make you think otherwise. They're mostly for flat surfaces or roads you already built since the rocks on the ground will immediately stop you on your tracks to frustration even more so with trucks that provide a lot of cargo space for bigger orders but become bordering on wielding outside of anything but roads unless you know how to drive up the terrain properly. All these tools and I'm reminded of Metal Gear Solid V where Venom Snake had every tool and gun in his arsenal to perform stealth and missions however he wanted in an open world environment and now Death Stranding gives you these tools and structures to perform deliveries and missions in any way you wanted in an open world environment as well.
Apart from "traversal", there's two forms of combat in Death Stranding in which you fight the living and fight the dead. Fighting MULEs which are the human combatants will eventually be required of you and you'll hopefully prepared some tools for it. Early on you'll have a Bola gun that only really ties them up for you to incapicatate later until later on when you get non lethal conventional weapons like assault rifles and shotguns. I really think you can approach these camps early on in a stealthy manner and it would work for the most part and feel a bit fun since you don't have much but eventually when you get the bola gun, you can just shoot them at mules that essentially just run towards you anyway so it stops being a challenge. Later on though, MULEs get a huge upgrade in capability that makes them pretty fun to go against for a while in that they're actually trying to kill you with guns. It's pretty jarring that they do this considering actually killing someone is something you don't want to do. BTs initially feel like this horror mechanic in the preferred way is to go past them undetected since you don't really have any single way of fighting them for a bit and I liked this dichotomy of relaxing traversal and having to keep focus on going through a BT infested zone in the world. You do eventually get tools and weapons that let you fight BTs more efficiently that it unfortunately feels like an annoyance more than something you should be scared of at some point. Boss battles rely on these huge creature like monstrosities that take a lot of damage to defeat and will probably run out of ammo if it wasn't for the other players coming from the tar and helping you by throwing blood bags and rocket launchers. I do recommend playing on Hard at least to keep this a bit challenging and not completely mindless as you will still die pretty quick without armor on Hard. Overall I find this aspect of the game adequate but it was never really the focus of the experience but a good way to break up the action.
As I've mentioned before, the multiplayer aspect of Death Stranding is essential to fully enjoying this experience. Apart from being in a shared world where you can see other people's structures and struggles, you can see warnings of danger, deliver their lost cargo for them if it's on the way anyway, help them with weapons or tools if they really need it or donate materials so everyone can use them. There's a lot of ways to help the collective of people you're with and I think it's the best use of asynchronous multiplayer yet. The traversal also doesn't get made easy by this as you have to face the challenge yourself at least once before you get connected in specific areas too.
The sound of metal clanking against the weight of your cargo, small medleys playing during specific moments in the world. The music and sound of Death Stranding reaches a high note in what was used and how it was used. The highlight is the usage of music throughout the game playing these licensed haunting and serene songs from Low Roar and Silent Poets to give a few examples. It really helps to reflect how quiet the world can be in its photographic view of america based on Iceland from what I can tell. Going down a snowy mountain and it becoming a grass hill while this is playing is a zen like experience that's hard to describe when the game puts you into this reflective state of mind. My favorite original piece has to be this and when you hear it makes it one of my favorite experiences I've had in a bit. The whole song feels somber and later on sounds like one of Sufjan Steven's electronica efforts. I do understand why they didn't have a music player for this game considering its use during certain moments but they could've made it a reward for completing the game or a 100% reward at least.
With all that said, I can understand that this game isn't for everyone or a purely perfect game to anyone but I think in terms of how this game carries out itself is extremely rare and something I wish for more in the industry in general. Death Stranding practices what it preaches and then some with some of the most innovative open world gameplay I've played in a long time, themes I can understand due to my personal isolation barring COVID and the fear of connecting with people. I always felt like every link I made with people is something tangible people can eventually cut off and cutting something always hurts. Reaching out might not be so bad after all. Even in the way BTs are, even in death we are always connected and are never gone from this world as long as that connection is there. We are always connected.
kojima doesn't understand "show, don't tell". the trailer promised an effectively surreal, weird horror. the game, however, delivered reams of exposition in endless cutscenes and crudely brandished about the overarching themes/messages without an ounce of subtlety. no dead horse left unbeaten. death stranding absolutely works better when it's being a game rather than when it's being a film, and oh boy is kojima keen on trying to do film shit.
i compare kojima to david lynch half-jokingly: the two are highly acclaimed auteurs in their respective creative fields bringing their eccentric visions to the mainstream public while indulgently incorporating their deep passion for certain actors, musicians etc. unlike kojima, lynch actively refuses to tell, not just within the fiction but in interview too; he's (in)famous for it! and his work is all the more powerful for it, reaching harrowing, nightmarish intensities. and through this refusal to tell, lynch seems more respectful of his audience's intelligence and imagination.
(sidenote: also, in my opinion, lynch is far more successful at incorporating his media passions than kojima, from what i've seen. the latter's range from charming to incongruous, but not at all as effective as the chilling tonal juxtapositions of the former)
now, would it be uncharitable to say that, given both men hold comparable positions of high esteem as directors in their fields, with accolades and critical analysis devoted to their oeuvres, gamers simply have lower standards than cinephiles on the whole (even as certain film-enjoyers are continuing to consume marvel/disney and are concocting hays code 2.0 as we speak)?
answers on a postcard please.
ending note: i just think it's funny how kojima went to iceland, saw the landscape (beautiful) and heard low roar play, and thought "holy moly i have to put this in a game!" and then had to come up with a reason why america looks like iceland now.
extra context: i watched my gf play it so i can't speak to the gameplay itself, which is apparently kind of a neat hiking sim.
i compare kojima to david lynch half-jokingly: the two are highly acclaimed auteurs in their respective creative fields bringing their eccentric visions to the mainstream public while indulgently incorporating their deep passion for certain actors, musicians etc. unlike kojima, lynch actively refuses to tell, not just within the fiction but in interview too; he's (in)famous for it! and his work is all the more powerful for it, reaching harrowing, nightmarish intensities. and through this refusal to tell, lynch seems more respectful of his audience's intelligence and imagination.
(sidenote: also, in my opinion, lynch is far more successful at incorporating his media passions than kojima, from what i've seen. the latter's range from charming to incongruous, but not at all as effective as the chilling tonal juxtapositions of the former)
now, would it be uncharitable to say that, given both men hold comparable positions of high esteem as directors in their fields, with accolades and critical analysis devoted to their oeuvres, gamers simply have lower standards than cinephiles on the whole (even as certain film-enjoyers are continuing to consume marvel/disney and are concocting hays code 2.0 as we speak)?
answers on a postcard please.
ending note: i just think it's funny how kojima went to iceland, saw the landscape (beautiful) and heard low roar play, and thought "holy moly i have to put this in a game!" and then had to come up with a reason why america looks like iceland now.
extra context: i watched my gf play it so i can't speak to the gameplay itself, which is apparently kind of a neat hiking sim.
Death Stranding is a game that is hard to describe, not because of its complexity (of which there isn't much), but because of the sheer quantity of elements and ideas present. But if this game proves anything, it's that more can often be less.
While its main idea of traversing through the mostly empty open world in the most efficient way possible has potential, even if not terribly original, it's pretty much bogged down by everything around it. Not only are the physics really inconsistent and very easy to exploit, but the game itself does its best to undermine the walking the most it can by introducing all sorts of ways to not actually engage with the game on that level: vehicles, ziplines, fast travel, you name it, the game eventually becomes more about parsing through boring menus than having a better understanding of the layout or the game mechanics. There's also some action segments which are both really out of place and really basic, and not even worth mentioning outside of what I just said.
As with every Kojima game, Death Stranding also contains a ton of story to it, mostly told through endless cutscenes. Your mileage may vary on his writing as always, but what I will say is that I don't think having such a convoluted and character-centric story added much to the game, but if anything detracted from it. The last few hours especially really drag, with the game mostly tying loose ends of events that already occurred and that you might or might not even be interested in, depending on how long ago you went through them and how invested you were to begin with.
Death Stranding is a man's unfiltered, complete vision, and while it might look like a mess to me, I'm sure it made a lot of sense to him. And that's the reason why, despite not thinking much of most of it, I'm glad I played it to completion: it's almost unheard of to see a modern AAA game that has an identity and sticks to it, regardless of how controversial or unpopular it may be. It's probably more of a statement of how dire things are creatively in the game industry, but I ultimately found Death Stranding to be a mildly interesting game. Whether "mildly interesting" is worth going through 35 hours of a game that takes way too long to start and end in the first place will be up to the individual.
While its main idea of traversing through the mostly empty open world in the most efficient way possible has potential, even if not terribly original, it's pretty much bogged down by everything around it. Not only are the physics really inconsistent and very easy to exploit, but the game itself does its best to undermine the walking the most it can by introducing all sorts of ways to not actually engage with the game on that level: vehicles, ziplines, fast travel, you name it, the game eventually becomes more about parsing through boring menus than having a better understanding of the layout or the game mechanics. There's also some action segments which are both really out of place and really basic, and not even worth mentioning outside of what I just said.
As with every Kojima game, Death Stranding also contains a ton of story to it, mostly told through endless cutscenes. Your mileage may vary on his writing as always, but what I will say is that I don't think having such a convoluted and character-centric story added much to the game, but if anything detracted from it. The last few hours especially really drag, with the game mostly tying loose ends of events that already occurred and that you might or might not even be interested in, depending on how long ago you went through them and how invested you were to begin with.
Death Stranding is a man's unfiltered, complete vision, and while it might look like a mess to me, I'm sure it made a lot of sense to him. And that's the reason why, despite not thinking much of most of it, I'm glad I played it to completion: it's almost unheard of to see a modern AAA game that has an identity and sticks to it, regardless of how controversial or unpopular it may be. It's probably more of a statement of how dire things are creatively in the game industry, but I ultimately found Death Stranding to be a mildly interesting game. Whether "mildly interesting" is worth going through 35 hours of a game that takes way too long to start and end in the first place will be up to the individual.
Death Stranding has not left my thoughts ever since finishing it in early 2020, and oh man, what a perfect game indeed to start off that cursed year. Directorial legend Hideo Kojima once again flexes his eerie powers of prescience in his first post-Konami independent project, creating a fictional world that would, only a few months after release, reach unforeseen levels of resonance with a global audience suddenly thrust into the grim reality of having to deal with a historic pandemic under late stage capitalism. True, Death Stranding's base writing is an undeniably self-indulgent mess, but all the repetitive, on-the-nose dialogue in the world cannot distract from this game's downright therapeutic impact and exceptional effectiveness in communicating its central themes of isolation and connection through its singular world and mechanics. It also helps that the game is on so many levels tailored exactly to my emotional and aesthetic sensibilities—hell, this game even knows my specific interests in politics and science. Traversing gorgeous, lonely, desolate landscapes as a central gameplay mechanic? Post-capitalist economy based on solidarity and mutual aid? Particle physics references and metaphors permeating the entire game? CHVRCHES in the end credits? It's almost ridiculous how much this game panders specifically to me. But regardless of my personal biases, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to call this one of the most bold and forward-thinking gameplay experiences the modern AAA space has to offer.
Além das piadas, além das promessas do Kojima, Death Stranding é algo que só pode ser entendido após jogar, não um jogo apenas sobre entregas. Mas serve como uma resposta as tendências de game design da indústria com os AAA.
Por de trás de horas em cenários monótonos existe uma narrativa que esbanja personalidade e alma, um gameplay solido e diferente , um jogo excepcional, em resumo. E com isso dito, os problemas são evidentes, como o combate estabanado (que poderia ser totalmente excluído) um pacing inconsistente no inicio do jogo ou capítulos inteiros dedicados ao gunplay desastroso desse jogo.
E listando os problemas eu apenas não consigo os vê tão binariamente, os "problemas" são consequências de um jogo que arrisca e com o aval de errar, um tiro no escuro. Death Stranding é anômalo no meio dos AAA atuais, e se existem jogos que não são para todos, talvez esse seja um desses, e não me entendam mal, mas esse é um jogo que exige muito do jogador, é intrínseco ao seu game design.
E por mais que eu entenda que odiou, tem receio de começar ou parou de jogar, ainda acho que é um jogo que merece a atenção de todos e deve ser cultuado daqui em diante. Ambicioso é pouco para definir a experiência.
Por de trás de horas em cenários monótonos existe uma narrativa que esbanja personalidade e alma, um gameplay solido e diferente , um jogo excepcional, em resumo. E com isso dito, os problemas são evidentes, como o combate estabanado (que poderia ser totalmente excluído) um pacing inconsistente no inicio do jogo ou capítulos inteiros dedicados ao gunplay desastroso desse jogo.
E listando os problemas eu apenas não consigo os vê tão binariamente, os "problemas" são consequências de um jogo que arrisca e com o aval de errar, um tiro no escuro. Death Stranding é anômalo no meio dos AAA atuais, e se existem jogos que não são para todos, talvez esse seja um desses, e não me entendam mal, mas esse é um jogo que exige muito do jogador, é intrínseco ao seu game design.
E por mais que eu entenda que odiou, tem receio de começar ou parou de jogar, ainda acho que é um jogo que merece a atenção de todos e deve ser cultuado daqui em diante. Ambicioso é pouco para definir a experiência.
Gameplay of this game is good for mental problems
a life changing game. i just finished it & am absolutely speechless.
i will be annoying & say that the fact this game is just boiled down to being a "walking simulator" & boring makes me so sad. there was so much to this game, the deliveries don't take too long, & the fact there's an online community helping them out makes this so special. it was an absolute joy to play & a wonderful, unique story.
i will be annoying & say that the fact this game is just boiled down to being a "walking simulator" & boring makes me so sad. there was so much to this game, the deliveries don't take too long, & the fact there's an online community helping them out makes this so special. it was an absolute joy to play & a wonderful, unique story.