Death Stranding - Kojima/Reedus - The Bear and Badger

Paul the sparky

That's not a spoiler by the way, it's just a tip from Kotaku.

FranticPea

I clicked. Could be considered spoilers by some, naughty boy.

I think I am there then, not got some of the things mentioned.

Of the things I have encountered from that chapter

Spoiler:

dynamiteReady

Dark Soldier wrote:

Spoiler:

So a user on 4Chan apparently leaked what could be the plot of this last month. A guy on 4Chan leaked what was pretty much the entire plot of the new Final Fantasy ages ago, which is now known to be true. Take it with a pinch of salt, obviously (POTENTIAL ENDING SPOILERS IF NOT BULLSHIT):

^ Amusing to revisit this. ^_^

g.man

That should really be in spoiler tags.

dynamiteReady

Well, I appreciate that. Though the original post is just a few clicks back.

g.man

Ta.

Tempy

Keep thinking about buying this game

hum hum

regmcfly

Tiny onion

regmcfly

There is something there. When you're in the middle of a mission, no BTs around and the music kicks in and you just realise you're exploring this desolate , gorgeous world. There's a vibe.

regmcfly

It's this

https://twitter.com/goando/status/1193510131679391745?s=19

tigersgogrrr

It is a gorgeous looking game, that's for sure.

Paul the sparky

regmcfly wrote:

It's this

https://twitter.com/goando/status/1193510131679391745?s=19

The vibe is completely undermined by the character having the daft looking boxes on his back and stumbling all over the shop.

g.man

I think it looks fascinating. Lot of interesting themes and concepts.
...but...it's absolutely not for me, which saddens me because I like a good dose of mad Koj, but the gameplay loop and inventory management in this would just drive me insane.
What will be interesting is to see where this sits in the pantheon of video game in a few years time, because I suspect we'll not see it's like again.
Imo Kojima absolutely needs to be kept on a leash and have someone above him in the chain of command to keep him focussed on what he's making. Someone to say no now and then. Someone to kick into touch his more obtuse flights of fancy.
It's nice that he has the status to get stuff like this made, but I suspect that the moral of the story is NEVER GO FULL KOJIMA.

digi

@g: inventory management can be auto loaded with a click of triangle.
It's so easy and excellent.

g.man

Yeah, I'm aware of that.

GurtTractor

I don't mind a bit of a wild singular vision at the helm of something, every now and then. If you go too much the opposite way you get a designed-by-committee bland nothingness that might satisfy everybody, but truly pleases and invigorates almost no one. A good balance is probably having a couple of producers, maybe three, that share enough of the single vision to make something cohesive and unique but still have some friction so that more commonly understandable ideas come out of compromise.

There's definitely cases where good games get overwhelmed by a lead dev. I found GTA V's writing and story to be pretty dreadful, the world creation, artistry and technical showcase were amazing, but I kind of just wish the unfunny and sort of queasy characterisation was thrown out in favour of something a little less OTT and more human. The potential for immersion there is huge.

Kojima's writing has similar issues, though a very different vibe. But I think it might match the setting much better here than in something that's trying to be very real-world, like MGS. I look forward to finding out what I'll think of it.

JonB

I think this sounds utterly fascinating and at the same time completely boring. I get the gist of this idea of exploring themes through this endless trudge, but then I really don't want to actually do the endless trudge. If it was a shorter game, I'd be well up for it. But, I dunno, if it was shorter maybe that would miss the point.

digi

I guess it's only huge if you go out your way to do all the side content.
It's easy to get carried away and do stuff you don't really need to, I'm just enjoying how beautiful and relaxing it can be, it's so different from everything else and the atmosphere and world carries it.
(for me)

afgavinstan

Frankly offended my IASIP post didn't get more love

RamSteelwood

afgavinstan wrote:

Frankly offended my IASIP post didn't get more love

Day bow bow....hmmm...chikka-chik-ahhhh

mrsmr2

GurtTractor wrote:

mrsmr2 wrote:

So I’ve skipped all the comments. One question. Is this good?

If you've watched the trailer on PSN, like I did today, it is not the game shown, or hinted at, there.

So I watched the trailer, I'm assuming it's this one. I'm not sure if I should have as maybe there's a few spoilers in it, but I guess I'll have forgotten by next year. It was entertaining anyway. My question is if the game you got is not what seems to have been shown there, then what where you expecting? The few sections of gameplay they showed were of the walking around variety, with some of the presumeably more exciting and infrequent chase and action sequences. The rest was cutscene fragments. If you based your purchase purely on the trailer then I could imagine being a little disappointed if it turned out to be a lot slower than that. But every trailer for anything ever has always emphasised the most exciting and intriguing parts of a piece of media. If you combine the trailer with the various hands-on and preview articles, out there it seems pretty clear that it involves a lot of walking and thus won't be everyone's cup of tea. Plenty of us called it last year? I remember being disappointed by the first Mass Effect, maybe some of the aspects of the marketing gave me the wrong idea, but certainly I remember getting ahead of myself imagining what it would be like. I imagined that it would be more freeform and open, like a star trek simulator. It turned out to be fairly linear I think, but that disappointment probably wasn't the fault of the marketing, it was because I'd let my imagination run away from the actual information about what the game was going to be. I'm just curious as there seems to be a lot of people who's expectations haven't been met, was there something misleading about the marketing?

Gurt, I don't have the game. I also had no expectation about it having read nothing about it. I'm also immune to hype and hadn't even read the thread here until after I'd watched the first people playing it on Twitch.

The youtube video (not watched it because it wants me to sign in) doesn't sound like the one on the PSN store. The PSN store is a 15 second clip of various custscene snippets. It's based on the same con that the opening cutscenes have in the game. They cover stuff that is almost non existent in the game. Anyone getting excited by that cutscene or the PSN clip is going to sit and think wtf, repeatedly, while they traipse around mountains comically stacking crates on their back while holding triggers to keep balance.

I just found this game hilariously dull - that's how I started posting here.

But what will disapoint me is when people get excited about the opening movie (which has almost no connection to the game), traipse around for 2-3 hours between cut-scenes, repeat that for 20-30 hours (game play doesn't evolve in that time - unless you call faster boots or vehicles to transports crates as evolution), and then watch a final 5 hour movie and declare the game is great. Forgetting they've wasted many hours doing nothing in between cut-scenes.

Minnesänger

Fair enough - every clip I saw before launch was Reedus walking + cutscenes. Seems pretty representative.

GurtTractor

^

mrsmr2 wrote:

The PSN store is a 15 second clip of various custscene snippets. It's based on the same con that the opening cutscenes have in the game. They cover stuff that is almost non existent in the game. Anyone getting excited by that cutscene or the PSN clip is going to sit and think wtf, repeatedly, while they traipse around mountains comically stacking crates on their back while holding triggers to keep balance.

I just found [watching] this game hilariously dull - that's how I started posting here.

Anyone getting excited about a game based on a 15 second clip, and going out and buying it without looking at any previews, reviews, or gameplay footage, needs to have a good look at their buying habits...

Ok it seemed like you were criticising it from a first person perspective, now I realise you've purely been watching streams.

So does anyone know if there has been anything actually misleading about the marketing in the run up to release?

Syph79

Well yeah, they’ve marketed it as a game for one.

Syph79

I’m joking.

Syph79

Serious answer - the initial trailers had a world war scene, and action, and what’s looked like soldiers in kit like an MGS character. I think it looked a lot more like an MGS type game. The later trailers, I think, showed it for what it was/is. I don’t think they’ve hoodwinked people.

Verecocha

Syph79 wrote:

Serious answer - the initial trailers had a world war scene, and action, and what’s looked like soldiers in kit like an MGS character. I think it looked a lot more like an MGS type game. The later trailers, I think, showed it for what it was/is. I don’t think they’ve hoodwinked people.

I felt hoodwinked when it finally came to light what it really was.

GurtTractor

Yeah that was ages ago, near the announcement. It's been a good while since then, and there's been enough hands-on and other footage that's seemed pretty representative. I can imagine that if you'd only watched the initial stuff then switched off for three years then you might be expecting something else, Kojima et al aren't to blame for that though.

LivDiv

I think the marketing offered an air of mystery, a nod and a wink to suggest there is more going on than they wanted to show in a preview or trailer. Which appears to be true for the story but not really the gameplay.

I think some may have understandably filled in blanks that weren't there to be filled.

ZMM

It's very much like MGS5 in a lot of ways, in that it's repetitive but addictive, and there's just something about it that compels you to keep playing. It will be interesting to see how these collaborative elements work out, I've already seen a lot more bridges around the place since starting on Friday!

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories