See you on the beach - the thread for Hideo Kojima's DEATH STRANDING

I guess I should say vibe-wise, since there's not just one band

This is actually pretty fun and addictive. I don’t think the gameplay footage really sells it. There is a kind of tactile satisfaction in hauling yourself over the landscape that doesn’t really translate well to someone not holding the controller.

Not without its problems. The MULE and BT enemy encounters seem really simplistic and half-baked. I’m down with de-emphasizing combat, but I wish those systems were a little more sophisticated.

There are certain elements that seem to be deliberately irritating. Trudging through BT morass, mashing buttons as monster arms tear cargo off your back while a baby is crying in your face via the controller speaker is a good example. But that stuff is relatively minor/brief.

I've only had one BT battle encounter so far! And it was right at the beginning, before I really got the dynamic. If you're cautious and well-stocked with grenades or some of the later weapons, you can knock those suckers back to the afterlife.

I kind of want to trigger a battle because apparently if you take out one of the larger enemies that appear, they drop a ton of crystals

gameplay in the looks a bit like a walking version of spintires, would that be accurate?

THE HEART-SHAPED BUBBLE

the president's henchman is 'die hardman' who wears a leather suit, cravat and METAL SKULL MASK 24/7 i can't

i ended up just running the fuck away from the annoying BTs at the incinerator, suddenly found myself at the edge of a cliff, and somebody named igor had left.... a rope for me! at the edge! i liked the shit out of it and rappelled away, thanks igor.

thomas i think spintires is more frustrating and lets you screw yourself over. here a modicum of attention will keep you upright.

love this game. just got the "speed skeleton" and i am booking it across this rock strewn ghost-scape. also i am getting the rhythm of infiltrating BT areas so it's less of a drag. stupid MULEs not so much. i'll figure them out.

I’ve gotten pretty good at shooting MULES in the face with my bolo gun. Drops em.

Game really starts opening up in chapter 3. Trucking my stolen MULE mobile down the highway, wind in my hair. Feels good.

just got the BRIDGES truck, really adds to the UPS vibe. loading that motherfucker up with claimed metals and ceramics all the way to south knot city.

Tracer, Igor was the guy in the truck with the corpse at the very beginning!

Ahhhh!

I've been trying to put a certain feeling into words and I think this is how one says this these days.. This game has big Tomb Raider 1 energy

I have yet to see a single pyramid-shaped breast

Kojima is still insanely bad at female characters, but I'm just shaking my head and sighing when that issue pops up

This game has big Tomb Raider 1 energy

this, to me, is the highest praise, so consider my interest in eventually playing this officially heightened

oh. that makes me much more interested.

womb raider (because babies (not sure where i'm going with this))

womb raider is a mission in this game, kind of

also my nickname in college

sorry

my phone tells me my copy is on the way, presumably on foot over the scenic tundra of brooklyn

https://www.polygon.com/videos/2019/11/11/20959269/unraveled-kojima-name-generator-death-stranding

Since it was announced I've continued to misread the game's name as "Death Standing," and given so much of the gameplay appears to be about finding your footing while traversing rough terrain, "Death Standing" kind of works!'

it's a strand game though

i love that the president's name is bridget strand. some morally bankrupt new media grad student should write something about kojima character names, aristotle's discussion of names in poetics, the relevant bit of the rise of the novel, and compare and contrast with the work of shigeru miyamoto (whose games feature character with much more "realistic" names inasmuch as they jibe with the contemporary social milieu of their settings).

like, are all porters named porter? and all bridges members named bridges? that doesn't seem to be the case based on the people sam interacts with.

I guess, with some exceptions, you can just run away from boss fights? I took down a creature summoned by a certain bad guy last night and later read a guide saying I could have just hopped my way out of there

I'd probably have a lot more of my blood if I had

In any case, I'm now in the middle of Episode 6

I'm in episode 5, episode 4 was the only real misstep so far, I really hated it--but it was very short.

hi i'm a guy with a metal skull mask named Die Hard Man, i'll be introducing you to your dying mother who is the president of the United States, please don't agitate her to the point of death aaaaaaaaaand okay you already have

I guess if you look at the figurines in your private room, you can replay the "detour" from episode 4.

I'm wondering if there will be any landscapes in the game that you can't revisit. I get the impression that everything's always open

Guys I realise this is really basic but it keeps raining on me and damaging my stuff. I have the ability to make post boxes, but they don't allow me to complete/entrust deliveries - is this something that gets unlocked later? For now I'm tromping around getting rained on and freaking out.

There also seems like way more lost cargo than I can reasonably get back to the Knot Cities but the completist in me sort of hates to leave them lying around.

You'll get a variety of options to help with package damage:
- Find an overhang or cave and take a nap
- Unlock the ability to make Timefall shelters you can sit under until it stops raining
- Weather station that adds a map layer with forecasts up to a half hour (I think) that let you plot routes around storms
- Drive a truck that's enclosed, keeping all your cargo dry
- Run around blasting cargo repair spray at your back

I haven't been delivering hardly any lost cargo because in heavily trafficked areas it's everywhere

I kind of gave up on caring about perfect, undamaged cargo deliveries after getting the DELIVERY ROBOT. I'm guessing I need to upgrade it, but the ability to have small tasks done by a couple robots is nice, even if they get B/C grades

I'm also weirded out by the fact the way the cargo bot walks seems like of sexy, like it struts and swings its robot hips?

trace you are gonna have to make peace with not picking everything up, just look for stuff that's going your way.

i always give myself a good spritz of container repair spray before making a delivery. S rank after devastating S rank over here.

the delivery bot's little shoes fucking ruin me every time

dispatching it on deliveries and shaking my head in shame as it cheerily bounds up the ramp

"the delivery bot's little shoes fucking ruin me every time"

lol same

thing is there's container damage and then there's item damage, right? do you get docked points for container damage?

i was confused by the repair spray stuff at first as it didn't seem to be fixing up my damaged items. was overlooking the fact that it's called CONTAINER repair spray.

i feel like it factors in but i button mash thru those delivery summary screens until i get to the little "numbers increasing" sound and let the dopamine hit.

re: post boxes

i think they only allow to do deliver or entrust "lost" cargo. the stuff you find in the field that's been dropped by others.

You'll get a variety of options to help with package damage:
- Find an overhang or cave and take a nap
- Unlock the ability to make Timefall shelters you can sit under until it stops raining
- Weather station that adds a map layer with forecasts up to a half hour (I think) that let you plot routes around storms
- Drive a truck that's enclosed, keeping all your cargo dry
- Run around blasting cargo repair spray at your back

As a non-player, this is the type of content I'm looking for here

The dynamic with gear upgrades is interesting in that some of the main storyline missions unlock new types of gear, but it's optional side missions that enhance it or provide different functionality

I felt dumb that I was given the ability to set up zipline stations and then immediately forgot! They're a pretty powerful way to get around once you have the resources to set them up.

the game doesn't care about container damage on delivery, only contents damage (i think that's what it's called). the higher the container damage the more damage the contents takes when you stumble etc. and that's what you need to worry about. mostly this just means bringing repair spray and using it if the container gets too damaged from timefall etc but it's not a big deal

can't believe someone posted the kojima name generator but nobody posted their kojima name, i have to rip off half of someone's name because i am a clone

(my current name is OLD COPPER DESIGNER btw in case you too are a clone and need to jack part of my name)

Have a suspicion a lot of these conveniently placed structures are game placed and not user placed.

you don't think other players would build theirs in convenient places?

There have been a few desperate oasis moments where it seemed too perfect, but I’m OK with the mystery.

having spent way too long yesterday finding the perfect spots to a place zip lines and set up a transportation network, I resent the implication it’s all the computer!

Thinking about it, is there a single supporting character in this game who isn't low key super annoying? Don't say Dollman. Dollman is the colleague who comments on what you brought in for lunch and asks if he can "have a smell of it"

That said, anyone else make them sing the "Ba-bam ba-bam bam-bam" song every time they go in the hot spring without fail? Makes me rofl every time, but mostly because it's really out of character when Sam breaks his RBF and has fun

Last night, as the ladt thing I did, I risked life and limb trying to find a hot spring near the Eastern Observatory (or whatever it's called) because the sensor kept signalling me to climb up a huge mountain. I feel down so many times BB went into par-octo-xysms until I realised the spring was on the other side of the mountain

(Apologies for the typos, I really need a new phone and to get better at proofreading myself when typing on the fly)

I love Dollman. The guy who does the voice acting is fantastic!

Maybe it's time you had a shower...

it's really out of character when Sam breaks his RBF and has fun

there was that one time he tried playing the "shoe game" even though his boot was completely laced up so there's no way it would have worked, which he apparently didn't know, because he doesn't understand how boots work

Have we mentioned the very tiny hint of a smile he gives whenever he receives a new tchotchke for his backpack

"does anybody remember laughter??"

If you want a big dose of good-mood Sam, finish a VR training session

ah i need to do that. the game keeps telling me i need to do it.

Sometimes I think i like these games not despite their flaws, but because of their flaws.

One of these flaws are the large BT fights. These are either extremely easy or stupidly difficult. And it has less to do with skill than luck more than anything else.

The speed of a lot of these bosses does not match the speed of the game. Like much of the encounters in this thing, it is near impossible to stop yourself getting injured.

The tar slowing Sam down and sometimes making him walk in funny directions, coupled with the clunkiness of the weapons menu system makes me feel like it's the game itself that is fighting against me rather than the bosses.

Sam will be in the middle of getting ganked by three lion BTs, and instead of picking up the weapon on the ground and firing it, he'll just start do-si-do-ing round it like he's out for his morning exercise.

I also often don't know how to stop these fights from happening. There's me trying to speak into the disused Ghost Mech Factory, now overrun by BTs. I could use a grenade or a cannon. But instead I decide to do it the old fashioned way and clear them out by hand using the boomerang.

After meticulously socking what felt like at least a dozen BTs, one of them decides it's had enough of it. I try to run, but Sam, for some reason, decides he's just going to pace along gently.

Before I know it there's an entire lake of tar around me and I'm being pulled into it. I can't escape - the tar guys are everywhere and they pull me in.

Makes me wonder if this was meant to happen - perhaps the last BT is meant to get you and trigger the Lion fight, but I wasn't prepared for it. I had a single grenade gun and my boomerang. I could not defeat those BTs.