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

Cocoon is a delight. A strange world all based around that joke at the end of Men in Black (1997) where you find out our whole galaxy exists in a game of marbles some alien dude is playing.

This game only really has about 5 levels, but the trick is that all 5 levels coexist and you're constantly traveling between them at a moment's notice. It's a marvel and a technical mystery. I love all the weird designs of the creatures and environments. feels kinda Cronenberg-y sometimes. I hope we get the sequel it kinda teased, cuz this was a really great and I want more.

Kentucky Route Zero is... difficult. It feels like an experiment on how much patience a person has. There's something here that may truly be great but my GOD is it long, strenuous, and BORING. By "The Barfly" sequence I tapped out. It's just a modern take on The Grapes of Wrath but with a David Lynch influence. You can pack that down into a 2 hour indie and I'd be happy, but no no no this game's gonna make sure you get it by droning on and on and on. I honestly don't know how this game has such great reviews and accolades because as much as I enjoy the aesthetic and wanted to like this game, the week it took for me to beat this game felt like a whole month.

My hottest take in the gaming world is that I've never understood the hype around Rockstar games. To be fair, it's a small piece of my grander opinion of "Some open worlds are just too open for me." Games like Grand Theft Auto, Skyrim, etc. throw you out into a world where there's endless possibilities, but that means I'm endlessly distracted from the content they want you to partake. I never unlocked any of the map in GTA IV when I was kid because I just kept driving around and killing people. Decades later, Red Dead Redemption 2 sweeps the nation. People praise the story so I sat myself down and forced myself to not get distracted, but when I go in I find the plot gratingly repetitive despite a great ending. Now GTA VI is on the horizon with people freaking out, so I've downloaded GTA V to see if something will finally click.

...It didn't.

Even less so than Red Dead Redemption, because there's so much I can do but is any of it really entertaining? Do I really want to figure out investing in the stock market, playing tennis, or doing yoga in my backyard? And then the plot is even less intriguing than Red Dead 2. I hardly care about what's going on past Trevor being a hilarious weirdo and wanting to see what he does next.

Aside from that I also just absolutely hate anything to do with planes or more specifically helicopters in GTA. The controls are awful, and while yes they may be difficult to control in game because they're difficult to control in real life, I ask again is it fun? And on top of that they ask for near pinpoint accuracy with this jank. One mission tasked me with picking up train cars via helicopter. It probably took me 6 minutes to properly align my helicopter with each pickup. Just fucking streamline it. Literally any other open world helicopter is more fun. Just Cause or Saints Row do this so much better.

Is there any good here? Yes. I really enjoy the heists. It is fun to plan out and prepare for these high stakes adventures. Also a lot of the side characters/missions are hilarious. Past that though I'm still indifferent about Rockstar, and most likely will not be getting GTA VI.

I hope it's not actually just me when I say this, but I feel like every kid starts out their video game career by owning a few games and just playing the first few levels, starting a new game, and playing those levels again and again. Then one day someone asks "Why don't you try going farther in the game," and your little dum dum doo doo gooey child brain goes "That's an excellent query." Then you actually try to finish a game and when the end credits roll your mind is blown. Games have endings? They can be beaten? And I, wee little Joe-boi, have the power to beat a game? This was the game that blew my mind. Spyro: Year of the Dragon was the first game I ever beat. One of 2 games I beat before beating games became regular for me, the other game was Over The Hedge for the Xbox.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is a better game on almost all fronts. mobility and combat have been upgraded. New and returning villains galore. A soundtrack that only sounds like banger after banger. Side missions that feel purposefully attached to the themes prevalent in the main plot, which also this game's themes are a lot more cohesive in general.

All these things should lead me to say this is better than Marvel's Spider-Man (2018), but for some reason it just did not fully click with me in the same way the 1st game did. Did it hit me in the feels? Yes, but not on the same level as the first finale with Doc Oc and Aunt May.

It's semantics really. All 3 games from this franchise are certified GOATs.

I remember seeing this lanky ass derp boi in my childhood years. The original MediEvil's cover art terrified me, and he continued to haunt me as I owned some sort of demo disk with the game on it. Sir Daniel Fortesque horrified me, which is a little strange since him and his world were inspired by the art of Tim Burton and I fuckin LOVED Nightmare Before Christmas. Time-skip to high school (during my Xbox years) and I buy a PS Vita with Christmas money literally just so I can play Playstation Allstars Battle Royale. Sir Dan becomes my main and I slay some mofos with the skeletal doof, friends included. I also buy MediEvil Resurrected to get my first taste of what his games are. Love it.

Now here we are. Sir Daniel is back, refurbished in HD and ready to fight. MediEvil, much like the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy and the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, is recreated from the ground up. Although while Crash and Spyro had the big bucks funding their return, Daniel's back with a much smaller budget. One that only gets you 1 game remade instead of 3, but hey I'll take what I can get. MediEvil's back with its Tim Burton flair, Danny Elfman inspired music, goofy voice acting, and british humor. It takes the story and characters of the original PS1 version but uses the sleaker game mechanics of the PSP version, Allowing for easier movement and attacks.

While I loved playing it, my main problem with the game were framerate drops. Any time there's multiple enemies or you wanna use a flashy move the game will stutter. It gets annoying after a while. I've heard reviewers complain about glitches but I never ran into those at all. I hope this made enough money because I would really like them to remake MediEvil 2, and maybe even begin work on a brand new third entry based off original plans and concepts for it.

As someone who usually enjoys walking sims, Fort Solis is a slog to get through. This is mainly due to the fact that this game's walk cycle is the speed of an old man fumbling his way to get some Ensure out of the fridge. Even if the walk cycle wasn't this slow, this game is a compilation of elements done far better by the games that inspired them. The horror of Dead Space's madness, the piecing together of Gone Home's story, The companionship through Firewatch's dialogue, and... pretty much any Quantic Dream game's quick time events. All interesting elements watered down in the hands of people who didn't quite yet have the skill to unlock their potential. Still playable and somewhat intriguing, but hard to recommend to most people. At least the acting's good I suppose

“No one has the eyes for art anymore.”

There’s something about the pixelation of older games from the Playstation 1 era that has an inherent creepiness about them. Not being able to fully comprehend the creatures you’re looking at because of the limited polygons that make up those creatures. Think about those eerie games: Silent Hill, Medievil, A BUG’S LIFE. The fog may be there to hide the draw distance but it sets a tone that could send a shiver up my (back then) 4 year old spine. Now I’ll admit I never played Silent Hill, and my only interactions with Medievil or Bug’s Life were through something known as the demo disk. Short snippets of multiple games meant to give you taste of what you might want, which in a way can be creepy in its own right. Thrust into a game with no idea what’s going on just maybe a tutorial of the controls and an implication to explore the unknown. It all just throws you out of your element, and Fatum Betula captures that mood perfectly.

“Consider this tree and our land to be one and the same. A synecdoche.”

Fatum Betula (translated to “Fate Birch”) is a fairly short indie game created by Bryce Bucher. Bucher is part of a community of small time game creators who make The Haunted PS1 Demo Disks, a series of low rez snippets of horror games. Bryce made Fatum Betula as part of this series but liked the concept so much he decided to expand it into its own indie game. In this game you are given 3 vials with the task of finding a new liquid to add to the waters that feed a magical plant. The growth of this plant determines what will happen to the universe, and feeding it different liquids you can find in the game will give you different endings to the game, Finding a single ending is quite easy and can be done in less than an hour, so the goal is for you to find every ending in the game. Some can be quite difficult to find. I know I had to look up a guide after getting like 3 of the endings.

“Please don’t leave me here. If you do, please come back and kill me.”

Fatum Betula’s atmosphere is very similar to Little Nightmares but while Little Nightmares looks like a playable Tim Burton / Henry Selick movie, Fatum Betula feels like a David Lynch fantasy world with some Hayao Miyazaki influence. A 50s mom with no face, an immortal being withered to a skeleton, a man at the bottom of the ocean whose hands reach for the air above, a really hungry kitty cat. These odd characters permeate the land each with untold stories, but the character design leads to hideous implications to some of these beings. Ethereal music made by Simone Peltier spreads across each landscape, including a song that sounds a lot like Twin Peaks score in the “Autumn” level. Everything in this world could have a super deep meaning or it could be a lot of random pieces put together in a way that just works, and honestly that's how most Lynchian projects feel.

“I don’t even know how long I’ve been here… There is a constant pain in my empty stomach.”

Fatum Betula isn’t always serious though. It knows to make fun of itself just a little bit too. One of the best endings you can find is just hilarious. There’s a diver who admires the ocean and asks you not to tamper with it. Of course I immediately wanted to tamper with it, pouring oil into it turning the entire sea black. The next time I talked to the diver all he said was “I literally hate you.” A simple line that made me out loud chuckle like a loon. All in all Fatum Betula is a truly eerie aesthetic that is entrancing the whole way through. It captures a feeling and uses that feeling to encapsulate you for the entire sadly short runtime.

“It’s all really weird honestly.”