Death Stranding - Kojima/Reedus - The Bear and Badger

yourfavouriteuncle

Srsly here, what’s a “raging weeb”? Or actually just a “weeb”?

Roujin

Paul the sparky

dynamiteReady wrote:

Paul the sparky wrote:

I think it's a game for raging weeb Kojima worshipers and/or PlayStation fanboys.

300,000 people are streaming this on day one.
This might be more of a cross over, than some gaming fanboy shit...

Also, interesting to see a large mainstream production by a Japanese auteur, where the lead language is English. Is that a first for games, or even film?

Ah, you're right. That immediately makes trudging through those barren landscapes seem like fun gameplay.

Look, I don't get it, the appeal of it has totally passed me by, but I'm not going to stink up the thread and suck the joy out of it for others. Davie, crack on posting your enjoyment, I hope you can make me understand what I'm missing.

dynamiteReady

I'm just saying it seems quite popular.
You might be right about it playing like a brick of shite though... I don't have it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm very impressed by the detail, if I'm honest.
The game itself is not the common structured, 'this level, that level' fare, and there's so much going on... Story and the game world.

But yeah. The emphasis on delivering stuff, and the barren landscape... I wonder if I could find time for it.
I will buy it on PC though, if mine will run it.

Syph79

I think I’d like to know more about why folks here are enjoying it too. I just watched 20 minutes of gameplay on a stream, and the guy basically spent his time loading a truck. It was inventory management: the game. Another stream had the Reedus character in a room drinking Monster and taking a shower. If folks are enjoying it, all power to them, but it didn’t look like a my sort of game.

I did like The Order though :-)

GurtTractor

Me, back in June 2018 wrote:

If this is just a traipsing simulator in between fancy cutscenes I'll be perfectly happy honestly. If you're not going to make the gameplay actually interesting or unique in some way then I'd much prefer them to just get rid of it and let me experience the world as meditatively as I like.

poprock

I don’t see why everyone’s so down on this. Shenmue was popular.

EvilRedEye

Do people who've played this feel there are Shenmue parallels? Big plus point for me if so.

afgavinstan

Is Monster™ in Shenmue?

EvilRedEye

The original Japanese release of Shenmue had many licenced drinks in it. If the original Japanese release of Shenmue had been set in a modern day Western setting it's quite likely it would have had Monster™ in it.

Yossarian

Okay, I have no interest in shitting on this game, however, someone (I think Davie? I could be wrong) pointed out as a positive about this game is the lack of monetisation.

Obviously, monetisation comes in a lot of forms, and I am in no way defending pay to win mechanics, they are clearly the worst of the worst.

But, it seems like instead of monetisation in this, we have advertising for Monster.

Given the choice, I’d take cosmetic-only monetisation over in-game advertising. Am I alone in this?

FranticPea

I dunno, have you seen the cans of Monster™? They're really nice looking.

Bob

poprock wrote:

I don’t see why everyone’s so down on this. Shenmue was popular.

Cos it’s on PS4

RamSteelwood

I'd be wary of advertising products in games for kids, but as an adult I'm pretty sure i could play a game where they use brands for in game stuff without feeling compelled to go and buy monster drinks.

Bob

I don’t really see the difference between fake brands and real brands ... should no games have real brands? Is it better that monster slip a few quid to help market / make the game and it doesn’t effect me at all
Or should there be loot boxes or optional horse armour ? No contest mate

Yossarian

RamSteelwood wrote:

I'd be wary of advertising products in games for kids, but as an adult I'm pretty sure i could play a game where they use brands for in game stuff without feeling compelled to go and buy monster drinks.

My question is less around the effectiveness of advertising and more around what’s more annoying in a game, unnecessary monetisation or unnecessary advertising.

FranticPea

There's horses in this? FFS Bob, spoilers.

GurtTractor

The product placement stuff sounds really off-putting, I'm someone who despises ads utterly so this pretty disappointing. Maybe with the PC version there will be mods to remove that crap.

But if it's limited to just one brand then I could ignore it if I enjoy the rest of the game enough, I'm never going to buy an energy drink anyway. I'll be looking into it more when the PC release is closer. If it had like constantly updated brands appearing all over the place, and you couldn't get rid via modding then that would be a killer for me.

LivDiv

I'm fine with branding where appropriate.
Billboards in racing games or the pitch side hoardings in Fifa. Likewise I wouldnt mind too much if in something like GTA they put in branded clothing.
Although saying that the guns in CoD are somewhat alarming but are on a similar theme.

This I am in two minds about.
Is it ridiculous product placement or Kojima fourth wall breaking?
The AMC advert amused me because it is just so blatant, has the protagonist on it in a different role and occurs while you shit.
The Monster stuff, well it isn't a new idea to have a brand takeover in a near future landscape, see my Idiocracy post earlier. However I don't think this is the game. I don't think it gets away with the knowing winks like the AMC ad does.

This all really should go in another thread I guess. I was just thinking how streaming is bound to increase the amount of product placement we begin to see in games.

EvilRedEye

Yossarian wrote:

But, it seems like instead of monetisation in this, we have advertising for Monster.

Given the choice, I’d take cosmetic-only monetisation over in-game advertising. Am I alone in this?

Cosmetic DLC violates the integrity of single-player games as a discrete holistic experience in a way that product placement doesn't. Conversely, cosmetic DLC complements F2P multiplayer GaaS games quite well whereas product placement is a bit dodgy in that ecosystem (sponsored items could be unbalanced or confer an unfair advantage).

FranticPea

Different gift wrap for your parcels, bows, string. They could easily have added loot box items.

LivDiv

FranticPea wrote:

Different gift wrap for your parcels, bows, string. They could easily have added loot box items.

If there is no Christmas day cosmetic event then Kojima has failed.

afgavinstan

Really needed Scotch ads in this.

Kernowgaz

LivDiv wrote:

FranticPea wrote:

Different gift wrap for your parcels, bows, string. They could easily have added loot box items.

If there is no Christmas day cosmetic event then Kojima has failed.

And you have a white beard and red outfit on

Bob

You drink something it has a real world name ... nothing could be less immersion breaking

mistercrayon

Depends. What if they wheeled out a coke in the hobbit or something.

Having said that I feel like criticising the presence brands in a hideo kojima game about essentially consumerist aspect fed by Amazon dot com is a bit like putting fish in a barrel so you can shoot them.

LivDiv

Kernowgaz wrote:

LivDiv wrote:

FranticPea wrote:

Different gift wrap for your parcels, bows, string. They could easily have added loot box items.

If there is no Christmas day cosmetic event then Kojima has failed.

And you have a white beard and red outfit on

Bike is a sleigh.
BTs are Jesus.

Where's my cheque?

Bob

mistercrayon wrote:

Depends. What if they wheeled out a coke in the hobbit or something..

Remind me was the hobbit set in a post apocalyptic future? I seem to remember The Road, a seminal post apocalyptic novel mentioning a cola based soft drink.

Can’t remember now whether it was nuka cola, virgin cola or Pepsi cola but it didn’t change my enjoyment of the novel.

Unlike his lack of punctuation which really annoyed me

mistercrayon

I’d suggest that death stranding is as much a fantasy as hobbit.

Bob

Yes but a future set fantasy has more chance of containing an actual
Soft drink ?

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