Review cover Death Stranding (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): November 8, 2019
  • Release Date (EU): November 8, 2019
  • Release Date (JP): November 8, 2019
  • Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: Kojima Productions
  • Genres: Action, Strand
  • Also For: Computer

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
After a cataclysmic event sends the world reeling, Sam Bridges sets out on a trek across America to aid survivors and reunify the country.

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Hideo Kojima has long been one of gaming’s greatest visionaries. He popularized the stealth genre with the original Metal Gear titles on the MSX back in the 80’s. His games have always had a strong emphasis on story and cinematics, with Metal Gear Solid widely considered a landmark title in legitimizing storytelling in video games. His writing style is distinct, incorporating complex themes and meta commentary about games themselves, softening the approach with absurd humour and recognizable film tropes. Considering how bold and strange his games are, it’s surprising he’s always managed to pull this balancing act off. At least until Death Stranding, that is.

Story

Given his love for movies and his experience with video games, it’s frustrating that Kojima struggles to reconcile the fundamental difference in storytelling approach between the two here. Death Stranding takes place in a far-distant future after a cataclysmic event has killed most life on the planet and left those remaining struggling to rebuild society. It’s the kind of sci-fi world where random words are capitalized, the words themselves familiar to us but clearly having a whole new meaning here, and it takes its time filling the audience in. This method has been deployed successfully in many high-concept sci-fi movies, where it works because movies are shorter, passive experiences and a mystery surrounding the nature of its world can pull audiences in, with the reasonable assurance that an answer won’t be far behind. In video games, at least ones with roughly forty hour runtimes, it’s harder to tease out information slowly like that; it leaves you struggling to connect with anything and severely impacts your motivation to keep playing, as a lengthy gameplay section is only going to delay getting you your answers. It takes about four hours for Death Stranding to open up, give its players some agency and start explaining the fundamentals of its world. That’s a small percentage of the total playtime, roughly analogous to how long it might take a film to start doling out answers, but it’s too long to spend totally lost in this world. And it simply doesn’t have to be done this way in a video game. Exposition dumps in movies are clunky; in video games, the audience is used to getting an opening cinematic to explain the situation to them. You can even weave bits of lore into the gameplay tutorials if you want a more elegant solution. But Kojima’s passion for film dictates he tell this story like a movie, and it leaves you scrambling for something to latch onto.

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Unfortunately, once the answers start coming they bring with them their own set of problems. Since Kojima is playing in his own sci-fi fantasy world here, there’s a lot of lore to establish and not enough room to do it all efficiently. The cutscenes are reserved for establishing the emotional core of the story, which is smart, but it leaves all the world-building to be done during gameplay. The constant interruptions as you go about your business bring the pace to a crawl, and with Death Stranding carrying a noticeably darker tone than Kojima’s other work, his excessive dialogue doesn't have the humour or campy performances to rely on that it had before. There’s simply too much material to work through here.

Kojima’s scripts have always been needlessly dense, almost unbearably so, but the Metal Gear Solid games used their familiar American spy-movie backdrop to quickly fill in some of the blanks and get you immersed sooner. In Metal Gear Solid 2, for example, it’s easy to get lost in the prattle about the Patriots, the La Li Lu Le Lo and how it all relates to what’s happening on Big Shell. But there was a simple through-line to keep you engaged: you’re a secret agent, and you need to stop all the terrorists on this oil rig. It’s basic, sure, but it’s easy to follow, blends well with the stealth-action gameplay and the cast is charming and outlandish enough to keep you interested until those bigger questions could be answered. That was the key to Metal Gear Solid’s storytelling. No matter how convoluted or insane the overarching narrative became, each game also had its own self-contained story to carry you through. The world of Death Stranding is so alien and the tone is so somber that regardless of what happens any potential impact is lost and it maintains this baseline level of boring weirdness.

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Gameplay

The gameplay can’t offer any respite from the story, either. You are deliveryman Sam Bridges, and as such most of the gameplay revolves around micro-managing the minutiae of getting from point A to point B. The bulk of your time is spent trying to prevent Sam from falling over as the game hassles you to mash the triggers to shift his weight or find his centre of gravity. You can make things easier on Sam by scanning for the least harrowing footpath, but the time spent would never be worth it because you’re constantly facing difficult terrain. These deliveries are only made more frustrating by how clunky and slow Sam is. His movement is affected by how much cargo he’s carrying, but even at his leanest he’s sluggish and precise movements are difficult, particularly when trying to position him to enable a context-specific button prompt.

Ultimately what bogs down the game is the number of systems crowbarred in to give artificial depth to the fetch quests. At any one point, you’re expected to manage Sam’s cargo and equipment placement, cargo container damage, stamina, health, footwear condition, BB stress level and battery levels on various pieces of equipment. You also need to keep an eye out for various building materials along the way, which makes the trips longer as you go out of your way to get them, and also means continuous retreats to the menu to adjust your equipment placement. You’ll also need to remember at what stations your materials are stored, where the structures are that need building, and a few other small annoyances to stay on top of. None of these systems connect to each other in a meaningful way so each one ends up feeling like nothing more than a meter or number to babysit. The game is so obsessed with bogging itself down in various systems that it prioritizes its own pedantry over whether or not these systems form anything fun, cohesive or worthwhile for the player.

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There are also stealth sections where you need to avoid BTs, spectral monstrosities that haunt the wasteland. Removed from the tight hallways and simpler enemies of his previous work, Death Stranding can’t make Kojima’s signature stealth style work. BTs are only visible for brief intervals when you use your scanner and are mainly fought in wide-open areas that they can move freely around, meaning there’s no way to track or avoid specific BTs. Your only real option here is to crouch down and move slowly around the perimeters of the BT area, which is a huge ask for a game that already has such a punishingly slow pace. Of course taking your time will help in any game, but when the only viable strategy is to take as long as possible to complete a task, it’s your patience rather than your skill that’s being tested. There are options for defending yourself, but they can only buy a small amount of time and aren’t suited to taking on multiple BTs at once, which you’ll typically be facing. It’s a shame because the BT sequences are genuinely creepy, the lighting and music darkening to make these areas feel distinctly unwelcoming. The BTs are well-designed too, their loose humanoid shape giving way to a gooey mound that envelops and pulls Sam down. If they were engaging from a gameplay perspective the direction would elevate these moments to nightmarish levels, but as it is it’s hard to appreciate the craft when you’re rolling your eyes at having to trudge through another tedious obstacle.

If you can get your hands on a vehicle, it changes the game significantly and makes some of the more positive aspects come into a clearer light. Trucks allow you to stack massive amounts of cargo and complete multiple deliveries at once. They’re fragile and can’t handle rocky terrain too well, but the roads are decent enough to get you where you need to go, especially if you put in the work to repair them with scavenged materials. With most of the moment-to-moment hassles not present while driving, the game takes on a strangely zen feel - almost like a post-apocalyptic Euro Truck Simulator. Trying to find the most efficient route is fun, and it’s satisfying to get so many runs completed at once, even if that satisfaction mostly comes from knowing how gruelling it would be to try and do that work on foot. Navigating with a vehicle takes enough thought that you’re not totally on auto-pilot, but it’s never really challenging either, making it perfect for mindlessly decompressing after a long day, or if you need something to do while listening to a podcast or music. Given this game’s pedigree, however, it’s disappointing that this was the most enjoyment I could wring out here.

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Conclusion

As I worked my way through Death Stranding, little improvements kept being added that I thought might finally make it click with me. When I was first allowed to choose my own cargo and deliveries, I thought it would help immerse me in the world, but it only made it clearer how tiresome the deliveries are. I thought vehicles would improve the glacial pace, but it only made the game seem more lifeless. With each obstacle that was stripped away, instead of the experience becoming smoother, I only found more issues at its centre. And when the game stopped offering these life preservers, I realized I’d reached the hollow core and that it would never be what I wanted it to be.

Despite all of this, I’m still glad it exists. In an industry where most of the innovation comes from indies, it’s laudable to see a game with this kind of budget, marketing push and star power dare to be so strange. I can certainly respect the ambition in trying to make a game that’s entirely fetch quests and that has so many details to manage it deserves the title “walking simulator” more than any other. But none of that makes this any less of a failed experiment. I still believe in Kojima as a creator; his strange charm pokes its nose through in some of the side characters and there are hints of his better writing tendencies peppered throughout the game. With that in mind, Death Stranding should just be written off as a learning exercise that will hopefully serve as a stepping stone for greater things to come.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Wonderfully detailed environments
  • Vehicles control well
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Dull characters
  • Convoluted story
  • Tedious, static gameplay
  • Clunky controls on Sam
  • Restrictive, lengthy opening segment before the game opens up
5
Gameplay
Much of the gameplay revolves around the incidental details of package delivery and gets bogged down in micro-managing the process. Vehicles offer a calming oasis but don't do nearly enough to make up for the issues with the core game.
4
Presentation
There are flashes of what made his older titles work, but without a familiar backdrop to ground the story, Kojima’s trademark convoluted worlds and bizarre flights of fancy are just overwhelming and confusing here.
7
Lasting Appeal
There’s a spectacular number of side quests to be done, and as time goes on plenty of quality-of-life improvements are introduced to make pursuing them much easier. Cross-country deliveries can be good for mindless decompression, but there are games that do it better with a lower cost of entry, both in terms of price and time investment.
5
out of 10

Overall

Death Stranding deserves credit for daring to be so unique, but the price of experimentation is often failure. It can sometimes achieve moments of tranquil beauty, but is usually such a frustrating slog that it’s hard to appreciate the quieter moments.
I disagree with the score for presentation. It is really well presented in alot of ways with really really good visuals, well done cutscenes, and good voice acting aside from a few standout meh actors. Other than that, yeah it's super boring and just generally not fun to play.
 
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I disagree with the score for presentation. It is really well presented in alot of ways with really really good visuals, well done cutscenes, and good voice acting aside from a few standout meh actors. Other than that, yeah it's super boring and just generally not fun to play.

The reason presentation is so low is because of the script. I realize “presentation” implies sound design, art direction, stuff like that, but since the script doesn’t fit in with gameplay or lasting appeal, I usually lump it in with presentation.

I agree that the cutscenes are well-directed (even short ones like Sam downing a Monster or getting into the shower have enough dynamic camera movement to stop that little room from feeling as small as it is), but it’s hard to overcome the script’s problems.

I’m also curious how the game will hold up visually. It’s certainly impressive right now, but, with the exception of fantastical stuff like the BTs or BBs, it has this naturalistic approach that doesn’t always age well in video games. I think as we get better at approximating real actors with in-game models, this game will be harder and harder to go back to. Even now I found them slightly off, Léa Seydoux’s in particular.
 
I disagree with the score for presentation. It is really well presented in alot of ways with really really good visuals, well done cutscenes, and good voice acting aside from a few standout meh actors. Other than that, yeah it's super boring and just generally not fun to play.
yeah, it's look good. But it a game, not a picture, so it won't be a saving grace.
 
The reason presentation is so low is because of the script. I realize “presentation” implies sound design, art direction, stuff like that, but since the script doesn’t fit in with gameplay or lasting appeal, I usually lump it in with presentation.

I agree that cutscenes are well-directed (even short ones like Sam downing a Monster or getting into the shower have enough dynamic camera movement to stop that little room from feeling as small as it is), but it’s hard to overcome the script’s problems.
Can't argue there.
 
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Death Stranding is an oddball game, in the sense that I simultaneously agree with everything you had to say and disagree with the score. It's absolutely not for people who don't want to slog through endless dialogue and pointless tasks in order to get to the "good bits". If the first three chapters of the game, which amount to 10-15 hours of gameplay, were all one long cutscene the game would've lost nothing in terms of the narrative. However! Once it does open up, it's a really rewarding "zen-like" experience with familiar combat and good mechanics. In fact, I personally had no issues fighting groups of BT's as soon as proper weaponry was added to my arsenal, it was effectively supernatural MGS at that point, but cranked to an 11. Sadly, a lot of the artistry in the title is lost between long stretches of nothing, which is a big issue. If the title was not attached to big names like Kojima, Del Toro or Reedus, it would've been universally panned by critics, as opposed to just "controversial". If anyone has the time and finds Death Stranding on a sale, they should give it a go - it's an acquired taste. Taking the plunge at full retail is a risky move, but I feel like I would've missed out if I hadn't played it at all - it has its moments, they're just few and far between. Death Stranding was very clearly Kojima's art project more than anything else, and as is the case with many eccentric artists, Kojima without any restraints imposed from above is an engine of chaos, and that chaos engine easily goes off the rails sometimes. There needed to be someone there who could say "no" to some of the goofy design decisions to pluck out the good from the mundane, and that was not the case. That said though, I had a blast with it - it was "different" enough to entertain me. Very flawed, but entertaining overall.
 
Let me guess, you played for few hours and now you are writing a review?
From what I read, I think you didn't even reach chapter 4/14, otherothe you won't write things like boring or dull characters.
My second guess is that you didn't play online because you didn't talk about online elements where players help each other to build roads and leave signs ets.
And no the story is not in the far future, if you paid attention you will understand that some people like the elder lived before the death stranding, he even talked about the president who built a boarder across the US (Trump?)

I understand the first few hours can be boring for some, but to be clear the first 3 chapters is like a tutorial, chapter 4 and beyond is when the game become crazy, even chapter 3 was so fun, nobody thought playing as a delivery man will be fun, but kojima did it and I know some people who spend more than 50 hours in chapter 3 alone, you know why? Because it's fun.
The story is really amazing, full of twists, characters like Cliff and Higgs was really interesting, full of emotions, I have no idea why you are saying they are dull.
It's a different kind of gameplay, and kojima did it pretty well, raising mules camps, crossing BTs territories, boss fights, amazing story, cooperation with players around the word in a single player game, that's what kojima wants, and that's exactly what we got.
10/10
 
Ah yes, the good old "You probably didn't play the game enough therefore your opinions are invalid" argument
The game taking double-digits of hours to even *start* properly is a legitimate complaint and a huge con, I don't understand why people argue that it isn't, or that there's some kind of specific amount of time someone should spend with a product in order to form an opinion. If I'm not liking the first 10 spoons of my meal, chances are that I won't like the remaining 40, and even if I do, I still hated the first couple, so what are we even arguing about? Captivating the player from the start and enticing them to trek on is the primary objective of any entertainment product, if the game fails to do that then that's the fault of the product, not the reviewer. The "time" argument is precisely why I consider the original Xenoblade Chronicles to be intensely boring - I only have one lifetime on this Earth and docking points for the game deliberately wasting the player's time is completely understandable. Death Stranding isn't anywhere near 10/10 territory, it has huge technical problems and terrible pacing. A perfect score should be reserved for games that approach just that - perfection. It's a good solo Kojima debut, he'll learn from it and improve going forward.
 
Let me guess, you played for few hours and now you are writing a review?
From what I read, I think you didn't even reach chapter 4/14, otherothe you won't write things like boring or dull characters.
My second guess is that you didn't play online because you didn't talk about online elements where players help each other to build roads and leave signs ets.
And no the story is not in the far future, if you paid attention you will understand that some people like the elder lived before the death stranding, he even talked about the president who built a boarder across the US (Trump?)

I understand the first few hours can be boring for some, but to be clear the first 3 chapters is like a tutorial, chapter 4 and beyond is when the game become crazy, even chapter 3 was so fun, nobody thought playing as a delivery man will be fun, but kojima did it and I know some people who spend more than 50 hours in chapter 3 alone, you know why? Because it's fun.
The story is really amazing, full of twists, characters like Cliff and Higgs was really interesting, full of emotions, I have no idea why you are saying they are dull.
It's a different kind of gameplay, and kojima did it pretty well, raising mules camps, crossing BTs territories, boss fights, amazing story, cooperation with players around the word in a single player game, that's what kojima wants, and that's exactly what we got.
10/10

For what it's worth, I played for 25-30 hours before calling it quits, which I feel like is enough time to give something a chance. I get that it’s frustrating when you’re passionate about something and it feels like people are dismissing it without engaging with the part you like. My favourite show is BoJack Horseman, and everyone I know who’s tried to watch it gave up in the first six episodes, because the first six episodes are shit. That bums me out because I genuinely love the show and want to share it with people, but I also recognize that people are busy and it’s unfair to expect them to sit through three hours of shitty episodes to see if they like the good part. And I know that they're not any less qualified to form an opinion because they didn't engage with it for as long or in the same way I did.

Also, just briefly on your other points: I didn’t mention the online because it didn't make much of an impact on me. I briefly felt some sense of community when I’d see all the likes I got, but then I remembered how mindlessly I’d hit the like button just because I saw a prompt pop up, and it started to feel pretty hollow. The fact that the structures I was using were laid down by other people, or other people were using my structures, never really meant anything to me at any point. I mean, I never thought about other people when I was building structures, I only built them when I needed them. I feel like it's pretty likely most other people played the same way. So if our co-operation is just incidental to us helping ourselves, it doesn't seem that important to me.

And if the prologue through chapter 3 are “basically a tutorial,” then why does it take so long to get through them? Shouldn’t they be condensed to the length of a tutorial? You can see why that turns people off.
 
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And if the prologue through chapter 3 are “basically a tutorial,” then why does it take so long to get through them? Shouldn’t they be condensed to the length of a tutorial? You can see why that turns people off.
It's not. He's crazy. You could maybe consider chapter 1-2 a tutorial at best. Even past chapter 5, you're still doing the exact same stuff you're doing in chapter 1, but with new structures. At most, the delivery complexity goes from "walk from point a to b", to "walk from point a to point b and THEN point c, or you gotta make sure the package stays in a certain orientation or make sure that you don't fall." Off topic, but if you hadn't seen it, chapter 4 is is just a 20 minute badly done third person shooter segment for some bizarre reason and I legitimately dont know why they made that a chapter instead of a mission.
 
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Off topic, but if you hadn't seen it, chapter 4 is is just a 20 minute badly done third person shooter segment for some bizarre reason and I legitimately dont know why they made that a chapter instead of a mission.

Chapter 4 is actually around where I stopped playing. Not because it was particularly bad or anything, but because I had heard it was a big moment and I decided if I didn’t like the game by then I’d give up. I did a little of 5 and it looked the same so I stopped.

And yeah, it didn’t do much for me. I liked the stealthing but it wasn’t above and beyond anything I’d seen before. The shooting was also fine. It worked, nothing more, nothing less. I might have been intrigued by suddenly being in WWI or what Mads Mikkelsen’s deal was if the game hadn’t been throwing out weird shit since the beginning. I was just exhausted at that point. The only thing I really liked was, again, the cutscene direction. That first shot of Mads in all the barbed wire is pretty great.
 
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Chapter 4 is actually around where I stopped playing. Not because it was particularly bad or anything, but because I had heard it was a big moment and I decided if I didn’t like the game by then I’d give up. I did a little of 5 and it looked the same so I stopped.

And yeah, it didn’t do much for me. I liked the stealthing but it wasn’t above and beyond anything I’d seen before. The shooting was also fine. It worked, nothing more, nothing less. I might have been intrigued by suddenly being in WWI or what Mads Mikkelsen’s deal was if the game hadn’t been throwing out weird shit since the beginning. I was just exhausted at that point. The only thing I really liked was, again, the cutscene direction. That first shot of Mads in all the barbed wire is pretty great.
It's funny, I had the exact opposite experience - the game started to grip me during chapter 3 and by the time I got to chapter 5 I knew I won't be able to put it down until I'm done with it. As far as the sense of community is concerned, to me it was all about rebuilding the world around me - I don't even know how much time I've wasted repaving the highways and now every single time I log in I get that feel-good feeling when I see that people have used them in my absence. It's games like this that truly underline the meaning behind "different strokes for different folks" - Death Stranding is just not for everyone. I am 100% certain that if I wasn't a die hard Kojima fan I would've given up on the game a long time ago, so I can see where you're coming from.
 
It's funny, I had the exact opposite experience - the game started to grip me during chapter 3 and by the time I got to chapter 5 I knew I won't be able to put it down until I'm done with it. As far as the sense of community is concerned, to me it was all about rebuilding the world around me - I don't even know how much time I've wasted repaving the highways and now every single time I log in I get that feel-good feeling when I see that people have used them in my absence. It's games like this that truly underline the meaning behind "different strokes for different folks" - Death Stranding is just not for everyone. I am 100% certain that if I wasn't a die hard Kojima fan I would've given up on the game a long time ago, so I can see where you're coming from.

That’s really interesting. Fwiw, I’m a Kojima fan but I wouldn’t call myself die hard. There were hints of the Kojima I love in here, but it was just hard to get to. I’m certainly interested in what his next game’s gonna look like and if he’ll get to keep the total control he seemed to have for this one.

And also, like I said in the review, I am genuinely happy that this game was made the way it was and that it found an audience. I think that’s really cool. I’m just also happy I don’t have to play it anymore :P
 
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Ah yes, the good old "You probably didn't play the game enough therefore your opinions are invalid" argument
That's not an opinion, that's a review, and the worst part of it the story review, how can someone who didn't see half of the story give a story review?
 
A review is literally an opinion. Unless you're specifying objective facts like whether the game crashes alot or doesn't work, than every single thing in a review is subjective opinion.
Review =//= opinion.
For example: I don't like pokemon games because it's not my thing, not my interest, but I know many people like them and become addictive, so I know they are not bad games but they are just not for me, and you don't see me writing reviews because I just played for few hours.
Reviews should cover everything in the game, gameplay, story, music, graphics, characters and even online, this review didn't even mention the online which it is the most important key in this game.
So at the end it's just an opinion.
 
Review =//= opinion.
For example: I don't like pokemon games because it's not my thing, not my interest, but I know many people like them and become addictive, so I know they are not bad games but they are just not for me, and you don't see me writing reviews because I just played for few hours.
Reviews should cover everything in the game, gameplay, story, music, graphics, characters and even online, this review didn't even mention the online which it is the most important key in this game.
So at the end it's just an opinion.
Completely wrong. You cannot asses anything objectively without stating exclusively facts, at which point it is no longer review and is simply a collection of statements regarding the product. Literally ALL game reviews are opinion. If at any point you stop mentioning objective facts and bring up even one single point about something that cannot be assessed objectively, it is opinion. Even your own attempt at "review" includes multiple points of both your own and others opinions. Quote "I don't like pokemon games because it's not my thing" and "they are not bad games but they are just not for me" are both opinions. It doesnt stop being your opinion just because you said some people like them so they aren't all bad. All game reviews are a collection of the reviewers opinions.
 
A review is by definition an opinion - it's a detailed experience a reviewer had with a product. It's subjective because it has to be - it's not a weather report. You can't stick a thermometer into a video game and say whether it's hot or not, you can only describe, to the best of your abilities, what you liked about it and what you didn't. If the story didn't grip him and he gave it what he considered to be a fair shake, that's that. There's no miraculous return from the feeling of having lost 30 hours of your life - even if the ending would've blown his mind, his experience was already tainted by what he considered an excessive introduction, and it is excessive, by any metric. You have to be *very* forgiving to overlook this game's flaws in the narrative department - if anything, it's the fact that the game's getting 9's and 10's from other outlets that should be outrageous to people. If it wasn't a "Kojima game", it would've been universally criticised, no question about it. That reflects poorly on shilling reviewers, not on @relauby. Good on him for giving his honest take instead of bending the knee for the sake of misguided fan loyalty.
 
A review is by definition an opinion - it's a detailed experience a reviewer had with a product. It's subjective because it has to be - it's not a weather report. You can't stick a thermometer into a video game and say whether it's hot or not, you can only describe, to the best of your abilities, what you liked about it and what you didn't.
Lazyboss, ^this is exactly correct. It's explained way better than I could have.
 
By popular demand, here’s my brand new, completely objective redo of the Death Stranding review.


————————


Death Stranding is a video game. The main character in it is named Sam and if you choose to play the game, you will be playing as Sam.


Sam is a deliveryman. Parts of the game involve delivering packages, sometimes by foot and sometimes not by foot. Some people found this very relaxing, while others found it boring. Whether or not you find these sections relaxing or boring will depend on if you find delivering packages relaxing or boring.


There are other parts where you have to hide from the enemies. Similarly to the package delivery parts, some people thought these parts were exciting while other people thought they were boring.


You can have your PlayStation 4 connected to the internet while you play the game. If you do you will see things other people playing the game have done in their game, unless you don’t notice them, in which case you will not have seen them.


The game has audio and visual elements which can be interpreted by the appropriate parts on your body, your ears and eyes respectively, to receive information. There are also interactive elements where if you touch a part on your game controller, it will make something happen in the game. The aforementioned audio and visual elements will create a representation of what you did to help you understand what you did. However this feature is not unique to Death Stranding and is actually quite common in modern video games, as well as in non-modern ones.


In conclusion, Death Stranding is a video game. The main character in it is named Sam and if you choose to play the game, you will be playing as Sam.
 
By popular demand, here’s my brand new, completely objective redo of the Death Stranding review.


————————


Death Stranding is a video game. The main character in it is named Sam and if you choose to play the game, you will be playing as Sam.


Sam is a deliveryman. Parts of the game involve delivering packages, sometimes by foot and sometimes not by foot. Some people found this very relaxing, while others found it boring. Whether or not you find these sections relaxing or boring will depend on if you find delivering packages relaxing or boring.


There are other parts where you have to hide from the enemies. Similarly to the package delivery parts, some people thought these parts were exciting while other people thought they were boring.


You can have your PlayStation 4 connected to the internet while you play the game. If you do you will see things other people playing the game have done in their game, unless you don’t notice them, in which case you will not have seen them.


The game has audio and visual elements which can be interpreted by the appropriate parts on your body, your ears and eyes respectively, to receive information. There are also interactive elements where if you touch a part on your game controller, it will make something happen in the game. The aforementioned audio and visual elements will create a representation of what you did to help you understand what you did. However this feature is not unique to Death Stranding and is actually quite common in modern video games, as well as in non-modern ones.


In conclusion, Death Stranding is a video game. The main character in it is named Sam and if you choose to play the game, you will be playing as Sam.
This is genius XD
 
Meh it's really a weird game. For now I give him a 6 (I'm at chapter 3), but it's a 6 that can easily transform to a 3 or a 8 depending of the people's.

Tbh I really like it for now but it have it's flaw that make it really tedious.
I'm mostly thinking about the sidequests that becomes really boring once you've done some in the same area. There's simply too much quests and doing the same deliveries between the same stations can quickly become boring once you have a good set path to use.
It become a little better once you have vehicules but the BT and terrain can quickly make it tedious imo. I heard you get a lot of things that help you latter, but for now it's quite boring to do those side quest. The game is more interesting when you discover a new area, go to a new station and when you do some quest (but not a lot) after connecting the network.
So my advice is the same that I saw in some reviews : don't do a lot of sidequests until some chapters (4/5 I guess), or just do those of guys that give you neat update.

Aside from that, the game is interesting and have a good online experience, but it'll not appeal to everyone. I think that if it didn't had Kojima game, the score would be a lot more mitigated (and I'm personally bothered by some cameo, like Famitsu one).
 
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All sorts of views on this game, however it seems it is one for the fans of his previous works, which I am decidedly not (I have tried many times in many ways but they do little and less for me), and even then it might still fail to click it seems. I am slightly curious to see the traversal through a space mechanics being what they are (while we have probably all done similar things for years now in various games to see them actually statted and presented like this to be what you might call organic rather than overtly preplanned is somewhat novel), and what lessons they might bring to other games, but if it has to be wrapped in what looks like the rest of the game I guess I will seek out a little vertical slice or series of savestates in a year or two.
 
Can not relate to this at all. As Kojima said: maybe you are not smart enough to play this game ;).

Ah, yes, the sign of a great intelligence: dismissing those who don't already agree with you instead of taking the opportunity to re-evaluate your own opinions.

It’s also kind of an oversimplification to say that Kojima accused anyone of being stupid. He said it didn’t connect with Americans due to cultural differences and because Death Stranding doesn’t have a lot of action. I still think that’s a flimsy excuse - plenty of visual novels, walking simulators and other non-action based games are raved about by American critics - but it’s certainly more tactful than just calling people dumb.

“Perhaps it is a difficult game to understand for a certain type of critic and audience,” is probably the closest Kojima came to questioning anyone's intelligence, but I disagree that this game is hard to understand. "I hope these players can somehow wake up more kindly, better people. This is the key message that Death Stranding wants to bring: be more kind." Even without seeing the ending, this message is pretty obvious. There’s plenty of talk about how the only way to save America is to connect people and all you’re doing in the game is helping people and building bridges to connect them (both in-game characters and the other real people online). It’s a beautiful message, but there’s nothing subtle about it.

And I do want to emphasize how much I respect the theme. Pop culture in general so often focuses on the negative, even if it’s on tearing down awful people or things, but it’s rare to see genuine positivity get the same attention, and I think it’s truly laudable. (Hell, I recently gave Neo Cab a 9/10 mostly because of its overflowing empathy for its characters.) I thought about including something about that in the review but chose not to because it was so long and my thoughts on that were so similar to my thoughts on the game’s overall ambition (that the game’s theme/ambition are praiseworthy but are undermined by the mechanics and pace of the story). Maybe it was a mistake not to mention it, though, and it’s something I’ll give more thought to.

(The Kojima quotes I used are from this Techradar article, btw).
 
Kojima's right, but for the wrong reasons. Storytelling works differently across different cultures on account of different thought patterns. Asian storytelling tends to be circular, in the sense that the story revolves around a central idea and gradually approaches its conclusion. This stands in contrast with Western storytelling most English-speaking gamers are used to where the story unfolds linearly, from the introduction to the finale. This is particularly apparent when you translate a story from one language to another, making the cultural differences stand out. Kojima's stories don't appeal broadly to western consumers because of differences in the way we think and explore ideas. To some people these differences are appealing and novel, to others they come across as poor writing. We're getting into contrastive rhetoric territory here though, so anyone interested in the subject can look up Robert Kaplan's (1966) work.
 
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I don't see the issue here. If the first four hours are a boring drag, then Kojima should be glad that there are any gamers left playing. Okay, so the game becomes better afterward...is that meant to be some sort of excuse or something? can't speak on behalf of the reviewer, but I play games because they interest me. Mostly because I find them fun, others because they interest me, have a good story hook or do something else that keeps me coming back. From what I read, this game has none of those qualities at the start. There are ways around this (starting you off with many powers before taking them away, a good story hook, an interesting gameplay mechanic), but apparently not here.

Of course a review is an opinion and everyone else is entitled to have a different one. But from what I read, the commenters actually agree with this. And that strikes me as odd: if the critiques of the early game are valid, then why the hell shouldn't it be judged for that? We play games for the experience. Fail to impress on that front and we'll go elsewhere.

...okay: those who dislike being bored do. But Jeez...games are entertainment, not a freaking job. It's pretty rude to force someone upon hours of boredom because YOU would have written a different review if you could be bothered to write a review.
 
Kojima's right, but for the wrong reasons. Storytelling works differently across different cultures on account of different thought patterns. Asian storytelling tends to be circular, in the sense that the story revolves around a central idea and gradually approaches its conclusion. This stands in contrast with Western storytelling most English-speaking gamers are used to where the story unfolds linearly, from the introduction to the finale. This is particularly apparent when you translate a story from one language to another, making the cultural differences stand out. Kojima's stories don't appeal broadly to western consumers because of differences in the way we think and explore ideas. To some people these differences are appealing and novel, to others they come across as poor writing. We're getting into contrastive rhetoric territory here though, so anyone interested in the subject can look up Robert Kaplan's (1966) work.
Is this a poor example of a translation of such things, or indeed poor example in general of such a thing, then? There are plenty of examples of Japanese films, books, TV shows, animes and whatever else that do well, high concept and otherwise, and the general awareness and penetration of western markets by Japanese media has probably never been higher. Several of those doing well at setting up a mystery or world that draws you in but takes a considerable amount of time to fully explore it, or indeed unfold into a far greater narrative.
 
Is this a poor example of a translation of such things, or indeed poor example in general of such a thing, then? There are plenty of examples of Japanese films, books, TV shows, animes and whatever else that do well, high concept and otherwise, and the general awareness and penetration of western markets by Japanese media has probably never been higher. Several of those doing well at setting up a mystery or world that draws you in but takes a considerable amount of time to fully explore it, or indeed unfold into a far greater narrative.
How broad do you want the strokes to be? As a general rule very few Asian franchises manage to put down roots in the west, and vice versa - those that do usually more closely resemble the narrative styles we're accustomed to, they're altered or adapted, or at least present a subject that is fascinating to the audience. By and large, Japanese media are niche in the west, even if we consider the proliferation of manga and anime. There are a couple of stand-out exceptions to the rule, but the general public tends to go for the adaptations and not the original source material. A truly good localisation accounts for cultural differences between the source region and the target - if you don't, you lose much of the nuance, particularly if you're translating something idiomatic in nature. If you're not familiar with a concept and it's presented to you, you fail to understand it without some additional information. You can do that fairly easily in books or film without losing the meaning, but with an interactive medium like video games it's much more tricky.

As far as Death Stranding is concerned, it suffers from what I would call the "Too Long of a Ladder" problem. There's a famous ladder in Metal Gear Solid 3 which seems incredibly long, and as you climb it, you listen to a very atmospheric rendition of the game's theme. This scene is impactful because it's a sudden serene moment. In spite of not really doing anything you drift away with the tune. Now, imagine if the entirety of the game, or at least a substantial section of the game, was just that - the ladder. Wouldn't be much of a game, would it? Death Stranding is like that times a thousand. A story set piece takes place and then you climb the ladder for an hour or two until you reach the next set piece. There's a point in that journey where you get sick of climbing, but there is very little you can do besides letting go of the ladder altogether or continuing to climb.

I absolutely "get" what Kojima was going for with this setup, but I also understand why people wouldn't want to repeatedly deliver packages for hours on end waiting for the next "thing" to happen. The game circles around its main story and it can feel like walking in circles on a corn field if you're not used to this sort of thing. In other words, it feels like work sometimes, so it doesn't "translate" well for an audience that's more accustomed to stories that go from A to B without a long "zen" pause that takes you on a detour that seemingly doesn't really have anything to do with the story itself.
 
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The reason presentation is so low is because of the script. I realize “presentation” implies sound design, art direction, stuff like that, but since the script doesn’t fit in with gameplay or lasting appeal, I usually lump it in with presentation.

I agree that the cutscenes are well-directed (even short ones like Sam downing a Monster or getting into the shower have enough dynamic camera movement to stop that little room from feeling as small as it is), but it’s hard to overcome the script’s problems.

I’m also curious how the game will hold up visually. It’s certainly impressive right now, but, with the exception of fantastical stuff like the BTs or BBs, it has this naturalistic approach that doesn’t always age well in video games. I think as we get better at approximating real actors with in-game models, this game will be harder and harder to go back to. Even now I found them slightly off, Léa Seydoux’s in particular.

I can respect your viewpoint about the script being problematic. Everyone has their own tastes, and sometimes the script may simply not resonate with some as it does for others. What I find interesting is that you so go far as to give the story its own subheading in your review, separate from the gameplay, but lump it in with presentation (unlike gameplay, which is arguably a major way to present the game).

Personally, I would have placed the story/script as its own category because I am of the opinion that the method of delivery is distinct from what is being delivered. Just like I wouldn't rate a product on Amazon low because it arrived late, or with the packaging slightly crushed because that has nothing to do with the actual product inside. At the very least, it is misleading. At worst, it is lazy and dishonest, if not spiteful (which is usually the case with people who give low product ratings due to delivery issues). With respect to reviews, presentation has generally meant things like art direction, music, etc. If it deserves 4/10 because of poor acting, music you don't care for, or an art style that doesn't jive with you -- that's fine. However, you admitted you stopped before completing the game. If so, scoring the presentation (based seemingly in large part on the script) is a bit premature. If you complete the game, the story comes full circle and the way the script unfolds is somewhat justified by the actual story (the story is from Sam's POV, and he finally sees his origin story and how everything is connected). Granted, you might still not like the complete story, or perhaps might even score it lower. Nevertheless, scoring the presentation based what seems like in large part on the script without having completed the game should at least be fully disclosed. And at the very least, your review would come off as being more honest for doing so (the game has 15 chapters and you managed to get to chapter 5 -- something that we can only glean after reading your comments).
 
By popular demand, here’s my brand new, completely objective redo of the Death Stranding review.


————————


Death Stranding is a video game. The main character in it is named Sam and if you choose to play the game, you will be playing as Sam.


Sam is a deliveryman. Parts of the game involve delivering packages, sometimes by foot and sometimes not by foot. Some people found this very relaxing, while others found it boring. Whether or not you find these sections relaxing or boring will depend on if you find delivering packages relaxing or boring.


There are other parts where you have to hide from the enemies. Similarly to the package delivery parts, some people thought these parts were exciting while other people thought they were boring.


You can have your PlayStation 4 connected to the internet while you play the game. If you do you will see things other people playing the game have done in their game, unless you don’t notice them, in which case you will not have seen them.


The game has audio and visual elements which can be interpreted by the appropriate parts on your body, your ears and eyes respectively, to receive information. There are also interactive elements where if you touch a part on your game controller, it will make something happen in the game. The aforementioned audio and visual elements will create a representation of what you did to help you understand what you did. However this feature is not unique to Death Stranding and is actually quite common in modern video games, as well as in non-modern ones.


In conclusion, Death Stranding is a video game. The main character in it is named Sam and if you choose to play the game, you will be playing as Sam.
This literally made me laugh out loud for a sec
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): November 8, 2019
  • Release Date (EU): November 8, 2019
  • Release Date (JP): November 8, 2019
  • Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: Kojima Productions
  • Genres: Action, Strand
  • Also For: Computer
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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