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

Kojima in 2019: this game is set in a near future where people live in self isolation hiding from an invisible threat, as a delivery man you play a key role in keeping society alive
Everyone: haha ok kojima

— Hal is in the air tonite (@halphelt) March 19, 2020

So strange that I started playing this almost to the day coronavirus hit the UK. As such I am finding it all at once strangely close to home, somewhat close to the bone and strangely comforting.
Unlike the Witcher, I'm quite content to play just one mission at a time and it doesn't seem to frustrate me if I get stuck or lose all my parcels and have to start again.

You'd think that having to start a mission over after you've trudged miles and miles while trying to stop parcels falling off your back would have the opposite effect, and that after a couple of attempts at getting through BT territory one would get frustrated and quit. But somehow I don't seem to mind. I die, I quit the game and come back to it afresh the next day hoping to find a new and better route.

That said, I'm still only on Lvl2, hoping to reach Lake Knot City. Haven't got the hang of getting past BTs

...oops posted without finishing...

I have tried throwing grenades at them but somehow they still manage to grab me and throw me around like a rag doll. Those parts are especially stressful.

If you create a voidout, is that it? Is it there for the rest of the game? Do you mind? Do you just continue as is, or do you generally go back to an old save point?

you just have to be patient with BTs. crouch, hold your breath while moving, stop, catch your breath, repeat.

not sure about the voidouts tbh.

i think i heard that they eventually clear up? i luckily never had one.

I find some of the confrontation mechanics almost deliberately clunky. like, I'll be confronting a BT and trying to throw a grenade at it, but somehow and for a reason I can't work out, Sam decides to freeze.
I'm also completely unsure how to use that decoy cargo on MULEs. With them I'm trying to use the Bola gun but mostly I just punch them and they go down fairly easily

Every time I think I’m done making Death Stranding Real jokes, the universe throws me a bone pic.twitter.com/JvNoVYI0pN

— Social “Distancing” Snake (@hyenasandgin) April 5, 2020

fuck

https://ve.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_q85k2aanvS1rh1xia.mp4

that is quite a trip

I’ve seen that a few times and there are a couple tells but it’s still somehow anxiety fuel

lol, you guys need to see the real life version of this that takes place in the first half hour of the 2019 film Aquarela; it will break your mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDCmNx22AF8

My wife wants to know where I’m going with all those suitcases on my back. “Just to the store, babe”

xp looks good

That Tracer Hand vid is dope

Also marking down that Ulysses rec

I wrote a thing about Death Stranding https://thequietus.com/articles/28177-death-stranding-video-game-review

cool article, dl!

in other news: death stranding real (and this is not good)

Straight out of a video game: China’s ubiquitous food-delivery app https://t.co/O6kOT9RrJG caught the Chinese internet’s attention this week after testing a powered exoskeleton for its couriers. The exoskeleton endows the wearer with the strength to carry up to 50 kg with ease. pic.twitter.com/4elmxRhLDU

— Sixth Tone (@SixthTone) April 30, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDqTwSO1DDc

Finally completed this last night. As expected, the ending is an increidble piece of exposition wrapped up in genius. Still not quite sure I completely understand everything, but maybe it would be worse if I did. Still need to do the Chapter 15 bonus episode. Looking forward to tracking down the hidden porters and generally bossing the rest of the map with zip-lines and whatnot.

I've decided to put DS down for a while and go back to zip lining the map and completing the extra deliveries another day. that said, there's a DS shaped hole in my life now which I'm having trouble filling. Other, perfectly good, games seem facilities, Hollywood-ised and sophomoric by comparison.
I don't want to get all 'You have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick & Morty' here. It is a game in which you piss grenades after all, but is there anything else on PS4 which comes close to the level of depth; games for grown-up if you will, which prize pacing and patience over pell mell shoot/slash thrills?

I’m on the second WW2 shoot em up level, have tried and failed about ten times so far. Mads is one nimble fucker. Game slightly insulting when it tells me I can adjust the difficulty if I need to - but f that.

i found those really difficult. make sure you’re using the blood rounds rather than normal bullets. i was never able to use the grenades effectively - it was all about the guns.

they are definitely among the tougher and more stressful parts of the game. they come so unexpectedly and it's a completely different style of game play that it's intensely jarring, truly horrific in places. make sure to scan regularly and pick up ammo. each one took me several goes

haha yeah and otm about the patronising way it tells you to adjust your difficulty

Passed it, now back to carrying bombs over mountains. All good brah

you got to the (spoilers) heinous mountain bit?

I miss this game :(

Maybe not enough to start fresh again just yet, but it was an arduous journey that I think fondly back on. I made it.

The rest of my life is basically just killing time before the inauguration, is how I look at it

hah. yeah i finished the game, five starred the first map and zip wired the place, got to the second map and started that but wow this game is at once a slog, a memorable 'arduous journey', a strange meditation on the meaning of everything and also an arcane duty. it has come to symbolise my life under lockdown and I could happily sink a hundred more hours into it. it's sad and hilarious and I love it. I hope it encourages game designers to continue to experiment in similar ways and make challenging games; not challenging as in 'this is really hard' Dark Souls type stuff, but conceptually challenging. the fact a lot of gamers were put off due to the lack of obvious shoot em up action says a lot about the way of the world, and in some ways a more tactful, passive, cerebral approach to entertainment feels like a way out of that

it's sad and hilarious and I love it.

if video games are going to continue to be seen as a progressive art-form, like cinema, then hopefully we can see a snowball. looks like DS has paved the way. I feel rather spoilt that this is the second modern video game I've played all the way through in my life and that there's nothing else that comes close to it

gamers were put off put off due to the lack of obvious shoot em up action

I do like how they were labeled 'nightmares' in the game. in no way were they a glorification of war/violence which is something I dislike about a lot of games

otm

I defeated the giant and beat up gold mask face pretty good, which kicked off a massive cut scene which I left the room for...when I came back some time later, Mads was back, still looking for BB...then Amelie pushed me and I'm back in my private room...this game still isn't over???

Hahaha no.

that’s the mid-game boss. how short did you think this thing was? :)

WHAT

yeah, you need to add canada to the uca now

Funny

Back in the jungle with Mads—sigh

i hadn't played in a while and decided to play on my bday and was gifted with the Mads birthday winky easter egg scene and cake.

Anyone watch the Winding Refn short? Found it on a data chip somewhere. But I can’t figure out how to watch it. Though my cufflink thing?

Yes or in a private room, I think? You can get to it by looking at the map?

i mean the map in the room

that's a thought. I've only found one of those data chips so far

Ugh not going to continue. Fighting mads for a third time just gonna happen.

Just NOT

Back to gta? Ugh