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

Anyone still playing this? I'm close to platinuming the thing, along with listening to the DS audiobook (which is fairly entertaining in a way). Just need to do like a million more specific styles of delivery on hard mode without messing everything up. For a game that's fairly easy, that's not an easy challenge considering you often have to do a speed run with a lot of cargo to a place you haven't been in a while, so all the ziplines need fixing. Generally find I have to do the journey with plenty of chiral crystals and no luggage, then go back and do it again via the zips and with the luggage. It takes an awful lot of planning and foresight

I've just started it..

dl i genuinely admire the grind. i want you to keep reporting back.

Arguably the game really comes into its own once the story's out the way and it becomes more like a strategy city building game

So the rarest kinds of missions that you have to do in order to get the platinum are the time-based missions.

Nevertheless you have to do 20 of them in about a quarter of the alloted time limit on hard mode.

A strong zip line network is essential, but often it turns out that quite a few of the zip lines I set up earlier in the game have since been destroyed by timefall.

Now that wouldn't be a terrible issue until I get to a dead end: I can see the next zip line post, but it's dead. And inevitably, I'm bang in the middle of either a MULE camp or a BT area.

The only thing I can do is to sneak or fight my way to the dead zip line - which is usually in a really high-up place, hard to get to place - and fix it.

But then I get there, and I realise I don't have enough chiral crystals to fix the damn thing, and now I'm stuck up a horrible rocky cliff miles away from where I came from and even further away from where I'm going.

Chiral crystals are hard to come by. You can pick them off the ground and also drop off points will give you a few.

So obviously the best way to get loads of crystals is to get into fights with big BTs, which is very counterintuitive for me because I find the BT fights extremely stressful. I haven't really worked out a strategy for them other than run, jump, shoot, repeat. But it's a great way of farming enough crystals for me to rebuild these zip networks.

All that effort just to complete a single mission for which I'll probably never need that zip network again.

Still keeping on keeping on. These timed deliveries are ruthless. I zipped my way all the way from Geologist to EvoDevo, making a tiny error on my way. I made the delivery bang on 5 minutes and still didn't get the Legend of Legends

Plus I can spend a long time building the perfect zip network only to find that once it's completed there are no more valuable deliveries to make and I have to set up elsewhere

So I platinumed this the other week. It took a very very long time. For some reason I was expecting a bit more fanfare on reaching the platinum, but no, it's the same as if you get any trophy.

There is a DS shaped hole in my life now though. Part of me feels as though I could just play it forever, just exploring, making deliveries, making sure my ziplines are optimised to perfection, fighting BTs and Mules and gaining off the lucre.

Instead I downloaded Metal Gear Solid V. Now I've never really played these games before. I did watch a friend play one of them on PS2 a long way back now, but I remember nothing about it.

Have to say it's confounded me. I've no idea what's going on, even though I'm playing the prequel game. I feel like I've been dumped straight into it with no explanation of what is going on, what I'm really meant to be doing, nor how to do it. There's barely any introduction to the controls and it's all a bit frustrating. I've tried and tried to sneak past the enemy guards so I can rescue these kids in cages but they always see me and they always fun me down before I can run for cover. Not sure it's quite for me. I like the slow anti-violence of DS

Yeah Death Stranding has hardly any stealth bits and this is basically ALL stealth.

Use the binoculars to 'tag' enemies so you can keep track of them.

You can kill guards and then pick them up and dump them behind something to get them out of the way. Later on in the main game there's a really cool alternative to this.

MGS is actually mostly 'anti-violent' in the sense that firing your gun is almost always a consequence of failure to keep hidden and it feels very panicky and you know you've fucked up.

tw when I say killguards I mean sneak up behind them and grab them and then kill them. You can also choke them out to put them to sleep but they will eventually wake up, like the MULEs do.

That's cool. I couldn't work out how to do it (sneak up and strangle) though because the game tells you very little about the controls (I've been muddling my way through on the whole). When I go to the controls section it seems to take me to a website with trailers for the game(?!?)

Yeah it’s lame.

Once you’ve grabbed them you should see three options. One is to force a piece of information out, one is to kill and one is to choke. To choke them I think it’s literally the same button you use to grab them in the first place. But you’re already holding that down. So what you have to do is hammer it several times.

Uh oh.... there's a "Director's Cut"???

Ah PS5 only it seems -_-

what?? this is insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sHd62brMtc

I mean obviously I want to play this but the Fragile Circuit is far fetched even for this game

Didn’t know this was out! 10 dollar upgrade for the Director’s Cut if you own the original. I lucked out on a PS5 and have recently made a significant TV upgrade so I’m currently downloading.

Weirdly don’t feel super compelled to replay this even though I loved it the first time around? Enough additions and enhancements (this seems tailor made for PS5 controller bells n whistles) to make me want to give it a spin at least. May well end up dozens of hours in and obsessively creating zipline networks all over again.

I'm desperate to play the Director's Cut, and I only recently platinumed the original. It really really is worth going for those trophies if you haven't already and enjoyed the game

Recently hiking on the Cornish coast, and half the time clambering over rocks all I could think to myself was boy wish someone had left a ladder here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONfg5qeK_mI

STRAND TYPE GAMING

i knew this revive was for dunkey before i clicked

"The only thing he listens to is Radiohead"

I guess this is going here

2/2
"The LEGO Batman Movie" is a masterpiece that dares to step into this tacit understanding.

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) March 14, 2022

I’m back on my bullshit (playing DS: Director’s Cut on PC)

Not sure how I feel about some of the additions, but the entire field packed with the floating balloon-like visible BT creatures was cool. I’ve got so many chiral crystals now.

Trudging through mountain passes in the snow remains a test of endurance, but one I appreciate

I did find a good use for the cargo cannon, though. I screwed up and managed to get my truck stuck in a treacherous rocky area when it was full. Built a cannon near it and got all the cargo to a safe harbor

I did find a good use for the cargo cannon, though. I screwed up and managed to get my truck stuck in a treacherous rocky area when it was full. Built a cannon near it and got all the cargo to a safe harbor

I think if I went back in it would be to get all the zip lines working. Those things are dope

Yeah, my save game I was working on was pretty early so I transferred it to the DC

Unfortunately it was early enough that my chiral bandwidth was low and I can’t zipline it up

As someone who platinumed the original version of the game a while back, I'll say that the real game starts once the story is over. It becomes a deeply strategic experience setting up those zip lines just so that you can shave seconds off each run

Based

So I recently realised I could transfer my platinumed PS4 game onto the PS5 Director's Cut. So pleased!

Bit miffed to find a lot of my zipwire network now has holes in it - that's not supposed to happen is it? Ziplines don't deteriorate just cos you left the game alone for a few months? Nevertheless, it's now saying a lot of my lines are out of range, despite me having placed them super carefully so I could get from one end of the map to the other in mere seconds.

I'm yet to do any of the cool new stuff. I understand there's catapults, a race track and a shooting range now?

They do deteriorate, I believe, regardless of whether you've been playing or not :(

It’s a feature of Kojima’s “strand-type gaming”

A few years late, but I started this a month or so ago, not quite finished the story but got sidetracked up working on my zipline network (anything better than a 350 line between mountaintops?) and doing special deliveries (which i only recently realized was a thing). incredibly fun and also a lot of incredible irritation at some of the gameplay/mechanics.

one annoyance in particular, why do open/close tabs on your inventory only happen for some sections and not others (like, i can't close my utility bag? great, good to know i have blood bags every time i access my cargo and have to scan past them every time). also, i want to select all cargo in a closed tab, but no. seems minor, but when you are constantly shifting stuff around, it adds up.

but just how tied you are to the earth, it's so much more tactile than any other game i've played.

dog latin, i appreciated your review, especially as i share a deep reverence towards Stalker and DFW

oh, and when i started i could not stop hearing the line from I Think You Should Leave "There's too much fuckin shit on me. I can't do this, we did way too much!"

Thanks francisF.

I watched Dunkey's videos about this game and lmfao'd all the way through.

There is definitely a lot of annoying UI bullshit in this game. A LOT.

And I don't want to be that guy. There's no excuse these days for UI bullshit in modern games.

But, coming in the time that it did, I excused it because it felt like a parody of commercial computer systems. Show me an office worker who doesn't find their interface highly annoying.

Death Stranding is not really a FUN game. It's far from perfect.. But it is a successful work of art - a commentary on Weber's theories about the Protestant work ethic and the parallels between labour and boredom and godliness and beauty therein.

yes absolutely. and if the frustration was too much for me i wouldn’t play it. but i continue, and getting better at working around these kind of problems is satisfying in its own way, getting efficient. i’d love a video of my gameplay at the beginning when i could not make heads not tales of most of this game.

i’m pushing up against the bandwidth with my ziplines, which is annoying, not sure how much more i can acquire at this point - i’ve had to delete all other structures and simplify/curtail my lines more than i like.

you have a lot of agency in this game even if it’s illusory

Optimising my ziplines towards the very end of my playthrough was extremely satisfying. An inch out of place and it could mess up the whole network. But a well placed zipline can connect you to so many places on the map. And before you know it, you can careen from one biome to another in mere seconds.
Thank god you can remove ziplines directly from the map (IIRC) rather than having to travel to them.

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

couple things in there that the last big update added that I never got to, but… holy shit, lol

God-tier strand-type gameplay

I've played a zillion hours of this game (but not the directors cut) and I have no idea what's going on here

my sentiments exactly

90% of that is the jump ramps (you run in and it launches you) and a high level upgrade to the stabilizer that has little jets that are supposed to keep you upright but apparently act as an ad hoc jet pack if you abuse it just right

that and the cargo cannon, function of which is pretty clear

Maybe I'll go back one day, this probably is the pinnacle of Art Games, also it's deeply, deeply funny. If you don't get it, that's very much on you

Bit worried Kojima will leave the medium behind now people are giving him movie money

I suspect Death Stranding 2, or whatever it ends up being called, will have gameplay that’s more than subtly different

Yeah I bet

But this one is like Buddhism Simulator or something, can't imagine where he'll go

oh that’s the stabilizer! i was wondering how i finished this thing without realizing there were jet packs.

i would like to go back to this - i’ve done the lion’s share of special deliveries. i put so much work into my ziplines though, do they really degrade in real time? not a fan of that at all! Really one of the very best games ever.

afaik Kojima has two games in the making: Death Stranding 2 ("Ocean") and this : https://www.gameinformer.com/the-game-awards-2023/2023/12/07/hideo-kojima-is-making-a-new-game-called-od-with-jordan-peele