understanding death stranding

[UlvenFenrir]

not sure what title to name it but i feel there is a common misconception or understanding when it comes to new ideas and video games in general. let me start off by first saying, to me personally, i think hideo kojima is someone who knows his craftmanship. he clearly has a passion for his work and it shows. both in his character and personality as well as the attention to quality and detail in his games.

 

seriously, name 1 other game where there has been ever been put that much detail into obscure irrelevant things that most people couldnt care for. like switching the controller port during the mantis fight, hilarious shit like that is why i fell in love with his games. his crazy ideas, the interesting boss designs and characters. codec calls, the convoluted story yet clever writing. i have played through all mgs games countless times and i still dont understand half of it and thats fine. there is just something magical about them. they were also a big part of my childhood so they stuck with me.

 

now, its common for people to hate on everything and to hate on people they dont particularly like and i hear all the time “kojima is no genius, hes full of himself, he thinks too highly of himself” and so on, even so, if any of that is true. you cant deny his creativity and his passion to pursue new ideas and he is clearly not afraid to try new things, out of everyone elses comfort zone. which brings me to death stranding.

 

so the embargo lifted today for death stranding and i had a feeling the opinions and reviews would be all over the place and have mixed reactions. the general idea im getting from the reviews and people in the comments section is how its a walking simulator, oh its so boring to walk from one end to the other, oh the gameplay is boring and so on. look the game is probably not for everyone and thats fine. but what i dont get is why there is all this hate around the game all of a sudden. 
 

games like far cry and assassins creed, even call of duty, they get high praise all the time but for doing what? trying new ideas? not exactly. theyre the same boring paste fest we have come to expect. now with death stranding, its like when people cant comprehend something different, think the last guardian for example. they laugh it off and think “what is this shit?” what ever happened to appreciating a game that tries to be different? i guess its cool to hate on everything these days. its like creativity was once a thing but now the general masses have been spoon fed entertainment for years and they just buy the same shit every year and all it is, is the same game with a new price tag slapped on the cover.

 

people also tend to forget. kojima left konami and within 3 years he got a new studio, new staff and made a new game. how many people can say the same? not many. he also spent all that time creating his vision for death stranding, no strings being pulled, no publisher breathing down his neck. he had the resources, money and all the time he could ask for to make death stranding. no micros, no roadmap. just the game.

 

death stranding wont be for everyone but i know almost with certainty i will enjoy it for what it is. but people hating on the man or the game for no apparent reason is just sad. give the game a chance despite the reviews or what people say instead of buying games off of greedy companies. we need this kind of creativity back and vision for games regardless if they turn out to be great or not. 
 

seriously what is worse? buying fifa and cod anually because its within your comfort zone and giving into greedy publishers that doesnt care about you or spending your money on a game that was made with passion and love with no publisher trying to screw you over?

 

its no lie that humans are sheep. the people laughing off creative ideas are probably the very same people who buy the same anually game because they cant control their impulsive spending behaviours. 
 

id rather buy a game like death stranding, good or not 10 times over than supporting something like an anually game that asks for the same price as last year with next to no new content. just an updated rooster and improvements here and there, yet people are willing to pay for that. but oh no! here comes a creative game, burn it on the stake! seriously wtf is wrong with people these days lol

 

laugh at death stranding all you want, while i laugh at people spending all their money on the same game every year because thinking for themselves is too difficult.

 

i will buy death stranding at midnight and support the shit out of it. i hope you will too!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dreakon13]

22 minutes ago, UlvenFenrir said:

i will buy death stranding at midnight

 

How does one go about buying Death Stranding at midnight?  Because that would certainly solve my unbusy weekend woes.

[UlvenFenrir]

2 minutes ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

How does one go about buying Death Stranding at midnight?  Because that would certainly solve my unbusy weekend woes.

digital pre-order

[scemopagliaccioh]

Reading this the back of my head kept thinking "to be fair, you need to have an high iq to understand Death Stranding".

There are no absolutes in life, innovation doesn't make something better, just like a tried and true framework doesn't make it  worse, let people like or dislike whatever they want, there is nothing to "understand" about it, if the game's good, cool, money well spent, if it's bad great, money saved and off to the next fad, every games have their share of fans, and  people that dislikes it,  you can rationalize those negative arguments  as you see fit, but in that regard, there is no difference between it and say, a Far Cry or whatever fan rationalizing your argument regarding them.

[Sinastran]

Different for the sake of being different and complexity for the sake of complexity is never good. Sadly I feel like Kojima makes this mistake in some of his games and judging by the trailers + gameplay for Death Stranding, this game seems to be similar in that regard. I think you need to take it easy with your eager dismissal of people who don't like the game. There is legit criticism to be raised about a game that is a basically a walking simulator, in the sense that managing how you walk is a core gameplay feature. The fact that the vast majority of the missions seem to be delivery quests isn't exactly innovative either, no matter how much you coat it in fancy graphics and "deep" storylines. Not everyone who thinks the game looks boring is a CoD or AC fanboy with ADHD like you seem to insinuate.

 

There is plenty of criticism against CoD and AC for doing the same thing over and over again. I don't know where you got the idea that those franchises are considered flawless, because they're not.

 

From what I understand from reviews and the gameplay I've watched - this game is beautiful to look at and tells a unique story. If it's for good or bad remains to be seen. However, the fun factor seems to be pretty low, even among people who praise it. So I might as well watch a movie at that point and skip the tedious walking?

 

Perhaps you should wait to "support the shit out of it" until you've finished it and made up your own mind. As for your talk about people being sheep. Same goes for all the Kojima fanboys who buy his games blindly, praising them as masterpieces no matter what.

[UlvenFenrir]

2 minutes ago, SinisterPledge said:

Different for the sake of being different and complexity for the sake of complexity is never good. Sadly I feel like Kojima makes this mistake in some of his games and judging by the trailers + gameplay for Death Stranding, this game seems to be similar in that regard. I think you need to take it easy with your eager dismissal of people who don't like the game. There is legit criticism to be raised about a game that is a basically a walking simulator, in the sense that managing how you walk is a core gameplay feature. The fact that the vast majority of the missions seem to be delivery quests isn't exactly innovative either, no matter how much you coat it in fancy graphics and "deep" storylines. Not everyone who thinks the game looks boring is a CoD or AC fanboy with ADHD like you seem to insinuate.

 

There is plenty of criticism against CoD and AC for doing the same thing over and over again. I don't know where you got the idea that those franchises are considered flawless, because they're not.

 

From what I understand from reviews and the gameplay I've watched - this game is beautiful to look at and tells a unique story. If it's for good or bad remains to be seen. However, the fun factor seems to be pretty low, even among people who praise it. So I might as well watch a movie at that point and skip the tedious walking?

 

Perhaps you should wait to "support the shit out of it" until you've finished it and made up your own mind. As for your talk about people being sheep. Same goes for all the Kojima fanboys who buy his games blindly, praising them as masterpieces no matter what.

kojima doesnt poop out annual games though. if there was that much criticism regarding cod and ac then why tf do they score so high all the time? 

[Sinastran]

2 minutes ago, UlvenFenrir said:

kojima doesnt poop out annual games though. if there was that much criticism regarding cod and ac then why tf do they score so high all the time? 

No, Kojima is definitely too constipated to take shits annually.

 

As for the games scoring high, it's probably due to a lot of people finding them to be fun.

[UlvenFenrir]

1 minute ago, SinisterPledge said:

No, Kojima is definitely too constipated to take shits annually.

 

As for the games scoring high, it's probably due to a lot of people finding them to be fun.

i want whatever it is theyre having then because buying the same game every year while they try to scam you with micros and dots that costs 10 dollars a piece must be alot of “fun”. do you know why these company thrives the way they do? do you know why creative games dont? the people within the medium has changed. the older generation of gamers appreciates a good game. the newer generation just want another episode of the most boring soap opera ever because thats the easiest thing to do.

[damon8r351]

I still play No Man's Sky on occasion, so I can understand people's attraction to niche-interest walking simulators.

[djb5f]

I hope the game does well; it has recently piqued me interest after being nowhere on my radar (possibly because of the title I assumed it was a horror game or such).

 

i am not sure the game is for me or not, will probably give it a try at some point, but I do like that they are trying new things.  

[Sinastran]

40 minutes ago, UlvenFenrir said:

i want whatever it is theyre having then because buying the same game every year while they try to scam you with micros and dots that costs 10 dollars a piece must be alot of “fun”. do you know why these company thrives the way they do? do you know why creative games dont? the people within the medium has changed. the older generation of gamers appreciates a good game. the newer generation just want another episode of the most boring soap opera ever because thats the easiest thing to do.

I don't know what Ubisoft's/Activision's MTX practices has to do with the quality of Death Stranding though? Just because they sell red dot reticles in CoD for 10 dollars doesn't mean that Death Stranding isn't a snoozefest. 50 hours of delivery quests doesn't seem that interesting to me. I'd rather play some Team Deathmatch on CoD if I'm gonna be perfectly honest. But maybe the story can redeem the lack of engaging gameplay? I haven't played the game so I wouldn't know. You seem to assume Death Stranding is good because it is different and because it doesn't have Call of Duty or Far Cry attached to its name though.

 

"the older generation of gamers appreciates a good game, the newer generation just want another episode of the most boring soap opera ever" - What does this even mean? Is Death Stranding objectively good now and if you don't agree you're a 12 year old CoD fan? I'm 26 and I'm very much bored with CoD and roll my eyes at the new Far Cry games. That still doesn't magically elevate Death Stranding. It needs to stand on its own legs, regardless of what the mainstream franchises push out every year.

 

I hope you enjoy Death Stranding. Personally I will wait for a sale. Perhaps I lack the IQ needed to pick it up at £59.  Oooh but look at all those golden skins you get. I'll be missing out...

Edited November 2, 2019 by SinisterPledge

[B1rvine]

1 hour ago, UlvenFenrir said:

i laugh at people spending all their money on the same game every year

 

When I buy a sequel, I more or less expect it to play the same as the previous titles, for whatever reason it was that drew me to the originals I played.

 

I'd expect the story to be continued or expanded upon.

I'd welcome updated graphics or visual enhancements.

I'd assume some tweaks fix a previous clunky mechanic.

I'd expect a new function be added, but leaving the core game almost identical.

 

I buy games I think I'll have fun with. Simple as that. Death Stranding is a potential candidate.

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by B1rvine

[aZombieDictator]

Missed the opportunity to call this "Death Understranding"

[AJ_Radio]

I hate to sound like an asshole, but your opening post is just hard to read through. I'm going to guess English isn't your first language since you're from Denmark.

 

8 minutes ago, SinisterPledge said:

"the older generation of gamers appreciates a good game, the newer generation just want another episode of the most boring soap opera ever" - What does this even mean? Is Death Stranding objectively good now and if you don't agree you're a 12 year old CoD fan? I'm 26 and I'm very much bored with CoD and roll my eyes at the new Far Cry games. That still doesn't magically elevate Death Stranding. It needs to stand on its own legs, regardless of what the mainstream franchises push out every year.

 

I doubt 12 year old kids can just go out and buy the newest Call of Duty game without begging their parents to buy it for them.

 

The newer generation I consider to be between age 14 and 24. You're just above that and you're not that young. The older generation, those of us in our 30s and 40s, are generally people who have been gaming for over two or three decades and expect something good out of the money we spend on games every week.

 

Call of Duty at least has a tad bit of variety and theming between their titles. Far Cry I consider better than Call of Duty because it doesn't have a legion of asshole fans. I roll my eyes at all the new sports games because they're the same bullshit year after year. Madden? NBA 2K20? FIFA? NHL? I pity the morons who bought those Deluxe Editions for $90 - 100. It's pretty much proven that any sports game is going to drop dramatically in price.

 

Look at MLB the Show 19. That game is barely seven months old, it came out in March this year and it's already on fucking PlayStation Plus? Just goes to show that buying sports games at full price is stupid.

 

I have rather mixed feelings on Death Stranding. Honestly I just haven't been impressed this year. God of War 2018 and Marvel's Spider-Man were better I felt, same goes for Horizon Zero Dawn the year before. The exclusives this year, and some of the bigger third party titles, not exactly the best.

[abhinandhan22]

Completely agree with the OP. Its totally fine to dislike death stranding or even dismiss it if it looks like something that doesn't appeal to you but I am starting to see people on social media championing its failure because of mixed reviews. I really don't understand this mentality that some gamers have that every game should try and cater to their sensibilities. I don't really see this in films for the most part and this can also be connected to the accessibility argument sekiro and the souls game face where some section of gamers demand an easy mode so they can play it. Why can't something just be unique from a design perspective and if you don't like it just play 100s of other games available in the market.  

 

Personally pre ordered DS even after seeing the reviews because I really want to try something experimental even if  there are high chances that I might not like this game(Not a fan of micromanagement for the most part) and I am not really a kojima fan either. Only played the OG metal gear(liked this a lot) and I played 3-4hrs of MGS V which i did not like. 

Edited November 2, 2019 by abhinandhan22

[Quink666]

I dislike walking simulators and survival games. But i have so far enjoyed everything Kojima has created and will play this game with an open mind on release. Even if it don't really like the game after beating it i wont mind having bought it day one. I like supporting developers that are consumer friendly and that create games that take actual effort to put out.

[Cassylvania]

We live in a cynical world. More people would rather put things down than give them a chance. It seems like anything that builds up even a little hype these days will have people immediately tear it apart, even if they've never watched, read, or played it. To them, it's different, so it must be bad. That makes it hard to separate the legitimate criticism from the uneducated trolling. It's basic high school bullying, and it's honestly at the point where I don't even bother with mainstream reviews anymore, except from a few select independent YouTubers that I trust.

 

I can't say much for Death Stranding. I don't know anything about the game. That's kinda how it was marketed, and I'm fine with that. But man, people are vicious. Look at how they tore into No Man's Sky when it was released. It had real issues, to be fair, but some people were clearly clamoring for failure from the start. I get that same impression with VR, the new Star Wars trilogy, and basically anything else these days that tries to do something innovative. It seems like people actively want new IPs to fail, to validate the things they already like.

 

My suggestion is to tune them out and form your own opinion. Just don't get to the point where you force yourself to like something to spite someone else, or you're just as bad as them.

[TheSleepyBeauty]

Look at the reviews for Days Gone. Then look at the user's reviews. It's a really fun game and yet critic's still shat on it. So I'm still going to get Death Stranding no matter what the critics say. Sometime's it's good to have a better story than gameplay imo. There's no such thing as a perfect game. Heck, even a few of my friends HATED Ocarina of Time and that has the highest score on metacritic. 

[dmland12]

21 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

I can't say much for Death Stranding. I don't know anything about the game. That's kinda how it was marketed, and I'm fine with that. But man, people are vicious. Look at how they tore into No Man's Sky when it was released. It had real issues, to be fair, but some people were clearly clamoring for failure from the start. I get that same impression with VR, the new Star Wars trilogy, and basically anything else these days that tries to do something innovative. It seems like people actively want new IPs to fail, to validate the things they already like.

 

Add me to the list of people who enjoyed No Man's Sky, even though it's rough around the edges to be sure.  It's definitely more popular to tear things down than it is to just play it and see if it's enjoyable, even if flawed.  But the latter just seems to me to be a much more pleasant way to go about it.

 

I mean, personally, I'm much happier if I'm not going around trying to find the flaws in everything I consider buying or everything I play.  I think I notice enough flaws without looking for them (crashes, trophy glitches, extremely bad story, etc.).  And I can decide to not buy a game without feeling like I must convince myself it's trash first.  When playing games, even "mediocre" ones, I generally try to find a positive experience if there is one to be had and usually there is.

[Feral]

This thread hasn't helped me understand Death Stranding, very disappointing lol.

 

I honestly have no interest in Death Stranding and don't see what all the fuss is about. But I'm not going to come on here or go to Twitter and shit all over it because of that. Just won't play it, seems people forget they have that option when comes to new games these days.

[Killbomb]

I was set on getting Death Stranding until I saw Giant Bomb's video which made the gameplay just look like a chore. I'm sure I will play it eventually but it will most likely be when it is on sale for 50% off or more. 

[Milktastrophe]

The only things I knew about Death Stranding before this thread is that it stars Norman Readus (and possibly babies?). What I learned from OP is that it's a walking simulator. So Death Stranding is a hard pass from me. If it's free on PS Plus/Now then I might give it a go if it's an easy platinum, but I sure as hell won't support a non-game by paying any amount of money for it.

[Brawler]

I'm gonna be honest, you legitimately come off as an angry Kojima fan lashing out at people who don't like Death Stranding. The major misconception here is that you think that these reactions Death Stranding is getting are about it's creativity when it's really about whether or not people consider it a fun video game. If they don't, it doesn't make them anti-creativity and it certainly doesn't mean they don't understand it, they just don't like it and that's 100% okay. You appear to be taking the criticism personally as if you worked on it and feel attacked by anything bad people may say about the game. It's just not worth it to get in that big a huff over what other people think of a video game lol.

[TJ_Solo]

I just want to play the game because I am non-ironically interested in what has been presented.

Time will tell how well it sits with me.

[XjaegerbombX]

I remember, "who's footprints are these?" In snow being so amazing. 

 

Hideo invented Movie-gaming.