No wonder we never were really told what the game was about. It's just a walking/UPS simulator.

Yeah, I was somewhat intrigued by this game. But after listening to a podcast discussing the game - no thank you.

IGN's review makes it sound meh. Metacritic has some that give it a 100 and some that give it a 30. What a bizarre game...

I've been waiting for a good sci-fi game, but this one has looked ridiculous from the beginning.

Are these initial reviews that surprising?

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It's also a cross-country crawl that frequently finds itself mired in an exhausting amount of inventory management, backtracking, one-note mission design, and unprecedentedly arduous travel.

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...you alternate between holding the two triggers to maintain balance and wrestling with the thumbstick to keep Sam's sensitive momentum shifts in check. The result of all of this effort is purely to walk a few metres up a gradual incline without him toppling over and scattering his painstakingly packed luggage rack like a boozed-up bellhop.

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-IGN review

Yeah, no thanks.

Sine poena nulla lex.

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Death Stranding is the Gran Turismo of walking simulators.

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With Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima has finally made a game that is like eating 60 pounds of vegetables at gunpoint.

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What if Zelda breath of the wild was boring... on purpose

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Death Stranding is hiking... for accountants

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Autodesk used to a cool app called 123D (I think) that did something similar for small objects as a photogrammetry demonstration tool a few years ago. Basically, you took a bunch of pictures of an object, uploaded them to the cloud, and a few minutes later Autodesk sent you a model back. It's pretty cool stuff and has come a long way.

Got this pre ordered for Friday

Looks absolutely epic and outside of a few outliers has amazing reviews

Watch the Skill Up review if you're on the fence. He says it's Kojimas best game yet and a masterpiece

Very intrigued by the various gameplay systems too. Very unique

"American Truck Simulator meets QWOP." -Jeff Gerstmann

No thanks.

What I'm trying to figure out is how people can be negative about this....and yet be overwhelmingly positive about games like Shadow of the Colossus.....which that game you could argue was just a horse riding simulator with some boss fights.

That said, I can see how this game may not be for everyone. To each their own. But I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Shadow of the Colossus is a masterpiece and one of my favorite games. Looking forward to Death Stranding, though I know the gameplay may not be for me.

jokershady said:

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What I'm trying to figure out is how people can be negative about this....and yet be overwhelmingly positive about games like Shadow of the Colossus.....which that game you could argue was just a horse riding simulator with some boss fights.

That said, I can see how this game may not be for everyone. To each their own. But I'm definitely looking forward to it.

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So...you can't figure out why some people like something over another thing. But, to each their own? AWESOME analysis Kojima-Stan.

Shrinky Dink said:

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jokershady said:

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What I'm trying to figure out is how people can be negative about this....and yet be overwhelmingly positive about games like Shadow of the Colossus.....which that game you could argue was just a horse riding simulator with some boss fights.

That said, I can see how this game may not be for everyone. To each their own. But I'm definitely looking forward to it.

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So...you can't figure out why some people like something over another thing. But, to each their own? AWESOME analysis Kojima-Stan.

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incorrect.

It's more like:

I can't understand why people are being overly critical of a game they haven't even played yet.....while you have another game that was praised for its scenery, landscape, etc which the main gameplay centered around riding a horse over land and the only action involving 8 or 9 boss fights.

I'm not condemning SotC because I know it's a great game.

But for people to assume this game is going to suck when at it's core (ignoring everything that's been mentioned with online player interaction) it's a more intricate version of SotC is perplexing to me.

I wonder how many people today would outright assume SotC would be a terrible game based on gameplay footage and critics and make similar comments like, "so you just ride a horse around for hours and every once in a while fight a random giant? No thanks."

Interesting take. I only barely remember the horseback riding. Also there were 16 colossi - I only remember that because I saw it in an article yesterday.

I remember climbing big-ass boss monsters and stabbing them to death way more than the horse. If that was the pitch for Death Stranding, I'd have preordered it by now.

I think the hate (so to speak) for Death Stranding comes from the way it's been teased and hyped for so long. From reading a few reviews, the payoff sounds really underwhelming (to me). Like you said, to each his own.

But personally, between the "story" of MGS5, which turned me off in a big way, and the bizarre two years of hyping and teasing from this game, I was predisposed to be out unless it was universally considered to be amazing and interesting. And concise, ideally. But that's just my own bias. The longer that nobody could tell me what this game was, the less intrigued I was and more skeptical.

What the hell did Agro do to you?

Best ******* horse in any video game ever.

swc93 said:

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What the hell did Agro do to you?

Best ******* horse in any video game ever.

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He died!

She did not die, how dare you speak this heresy. Agro lives!

I've been pretty turned off by this game from the moment it was announced. As a fan of the MGS games I can say that Kojima has gotten progressively worse at prioritizing what makes his games great. And he's failed to put out a single trailer that has made me want to play the game. But as the game has gotten closer to release I've started to reconsider picking it up.

This week I've watched maybe six video reviews from all over the spectrum and I have to say, the game just sounds awful. Even the reviewers who have rated it highly haven't been able to explain why this isn't an extremely tedious, boring, and confusing game. In fact, most of them even admit these things yet come away saying it's a great game because the positives balance it out.

I'm sure there will be somewhat groundbreaking elements of this game, and it's really what has me considering picking it up. But it really sounds like a game you have to suffer through in order to find fulfilling and I just can't see the point.

My download should have started. Not going to post any opinions until I get more into the section where the online interaction opens up....from what I understand that doesn't start off right away.

What's neat that they did though, is they made it to where you don't have to pay for online play with PlayStation to get the experience....as long as your PlayStation is connected to the internet you'll get the online experience without paying the monthly fee to PlayStation....kinda cool

Fenrir said:

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She did not die, how dare you speak this heresy. Agro lives!

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If you have a few minutes to spare....here's a funny genuine reaction from the game grumps of his death....happens around the 4:15 mark

NSFW (language)

Their reactions to the ending was pretty great.

Fenrir said:

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Their reactions to the ending was pretty great.

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these guys are hilarious.

Arin already knew what was coming....the beginning of the whole episode he was trying to talk overly positive about Argo so Dan (the guy who was actually playing and had no idea) would get more invested making the death scene much more traumatic for him.

Had my first encounter with the MULEs (can't remember their exact name....the scavengers) and that's about as far as I've gotten.

I want to go back to some places and plant signs and warnings about the BTs and better paths to take that I found.

MULEs is correct. Loving the how the game doesn't emphasize combat for the most part. The stealth feels very natural and tense on those sections.

Infiltrated a MULE camp to see if they had a vehicle to swipe....unfortunately they did not but still was able to take them all out which made traveling through that whole area much easier.

Word to the wise....they detect your valuable equipment..NOT you. So I built a storage area right outside their zone and stashed all my important stuff (kept the ladders, ropes, and things like that cause they're not interested in those) and was able to roam free until they actually saw me.

Spent most of my time this last time playing engaging a lot more with the online aspect. Delivered a bunch of peoples stuff just for the hell of it and worked on building a bridge that'd be beneficial to a bunch of us.

Came across a sign that was extremely helpful in allowing me to find a memory chip.

Just got an upgrade to my PCC to built a battery generator so looks like I'm about to get a motor bike to play with.

So far I'm loving this.

Ok - I'm GETTING it now:

About 8-10 hours in, Chapter 3 - it's starting to make sense, theoretically, but not necessarily in the story sense.

To give those of you that are still curious what this game is about: To it's very core, it's a game about community and expanding and BUILDING/UPGRADING together.

I recently got to Lake Knot City? - I took a boat over. And as soon as I walked out - there were MULEs everywhere. I also noticed a paver just outside. I dumped some materials in and BOOM - I had paved a road. Not 2-3 hours later, people had piggybacked off of my road and this highway stretched some 8-9 lengths from other players. Just made it to the weather station/ timefall farm. Now I'm able to create temporary shelters, floating carriers to carry more AND I have bionic legs to help me spring while I haul TONS of crap.

ALSO! I have the ability to send automated drone/bots to do smaller "standard" orders. I'm probably halfway through the map of America - and I can already see that expansion/building is going to increase exponentially. Which makes me wonder - if someone jumps into the game in 6-8 months, are there going to be highways and vehicles available so everyone zooms around? I wonder how these servers keep up with all the upgrading features? I have to imagine these servers are maybe geographically centered and a finite number of players are assigned to each one?

Curiosity had gotten the better of me. I have no idea what I'm getting into but decided to get the game last night.

The timefall will delete structures over time so it's a constant cycle of building, repairing and re-building. And yes, I think there are a limited number of players per instance or server or whatever.

Ya I'm pretty much hooked on this game right now. Had a crazy awesome experience last night.

Had a delivery where you have to go to an area with a wind generator. The final leg of the path there you have to deal with some BTs and it SUCKS. I almost got caught and died but made it through.

Once I was done with the delivery my first thought was, "**** here we go again" when it was time to leave. Here's what happened.

First, upon leaving I noticed a sign telling me to turn right. Wasn't sure why but figured what the hell let's go since someone left it there assuming for a reason. And I'll be damned there was a hidden memory chip that I never would have found.

Here's the big one though....

I look out and there I see it.....a bridge! A bridge that went completely over the hardest part of the landscape and I avoided the BTs. Never in my whole damn life have I been happy to see a bridge and it was created by another player. Resources and space are limited so players can't just build as much as they want.

But going over the bridge didn't completely take me out of danger. I check my map after going over and then see where someone had posted another sign indicating a certain path. Took that and made it completely out of the area without even a hint of a threat.

This was all done through a community of players I'll never meet or talk to in-game, but still we're able to help me on my journey.

Later on I came across another sign indicating a player needed a bridge in a certain area over a river. So I figured, what the hell....I'll pay it forward and use my limited resources to build one here still for my benefit but others as well.

I'm still only in episode 2 and just straight up loving this experience.

Chase McGuire said:

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The timefall will delete structures over time so it's a constant cycle of building, repairing and re-building. And yes, I think there are a limited number of players per instance or server or whatever.

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Does Timefall move around at all? I've seen some damaged structures that aren't in a timefall area.

Not sure. Would be neat if it did.