Hello fellow Offtopicans (Predictor used it so I'm using it too) Couple months back I got hyped over Death Stranding, and when it was released I received the somewhat sobering reality of Kojima's new studio, A purely artistic game, that made up another flawed masterpiece in Hideo Kojima's collection of weird and wild games. Flawed it was; there is no doubt, but a masterpiece definitely. I am going to cover a 3 point critique of this game going across the three components that really make up the entire experience of Death Stranding. Gameplay, Art, and Narrative. Gameplay- If you've watched any of the more scathing critiques on the Stranding you'll have seen that, the gameplay looks boring. And that's because for all intents and purposes, it is. The main mechanic is walking, occasionally Sam (Norman Reedus) tilts to the left or right while carrying his refrigerator sized load of cargo (sometimes larger if you're a dirty try hard like me) and the game asks you to tap or hold the left or right trigger so Sam will shift his backpack strap and keep his balance. The Left and right trigger are "hold my backpack straps" button. Sometimes while standing still Sam will start to tip over backwards on uneven terrain and if you don't mash down those triggers quick you fall over backwards comically and damage your cargo. If you're coming down a hill too quick you may just start falling forward uncontrollably and have to squeeze both triggers to avoid face-planting into a rock. There is combat in the form of BT's (weird black goo demons that use dead people to hunt the living) Mules (former deliverymen driven mad by oxytocin addiction and who will steal your cargo if they can) Gestalt (Bandit Mules that will actually kill you for your cargo) and Homo Demens (Terrorists that oppose BRIDGES) The Combat is not the focus of this game I will say right up front; and that is fitting but also not a great excuse for it being as non-immersive as it was. When I was running from point A to point B, I did really feel like I was on a journey, overcoming obstacles, traversing mountain ranges, and hiding from enemies, but as soon as combat started- all bets were off and once again I was playing a video game. The combat was not poorly crafted but it felt hollow, using cover was not part of the experience, so I had to kind of awkwardly pop in and out from behind a rock to take potshots exposing myself to enemy fire constantly, couple this inconvenience with the fact that some of the weapons literally use sam's blood to do damage to BT's and you have a frustrating situation, in which one or two boss battles with Cliff (Madds Mikkelson) becomes infuriating. Weapons and Gear are awarded to you by Vault-dwellers (-ahem) sorry "Preppers" and BRIDGES employees at waystations, shelters and distribution centers, that make traversing the landscape easier. I was very happy when I received my first all-terrain exoskeleton, because I had recently fallen down a steep cliff face and died. I donned my mechanical wonders and then proceeded to fall off a steep cliff face and die... The building mechanics of the game are well made, allowing you to use a portable 3d printer to build things like postboxes, safe-rooms, and the most broken item in the game- ziplines. Having visited one particular Wind-farm that made you traverse a gully filled with BT's, I may just have ruined the experience for some one by building a zipline around it. Essentially they allow you to turn a 20 minute slog into a 2 minute amusement park ride- and yes I am Dunkey clone. Needless to say making deliveries to that particular Wind farm got WAY easier for everyone that came after me. This is probably currently the most unique aspect of Death Stranding, when you build something, place a later, plant a rope anchor, or construct a vehicle it remains persistant in the game world and also shows up to other players in the game. I left my zipline and returned to it later to see it had received 250+ likes, now seeing as you can just mash the like button a hundred times when liking a structure or item, it's kind of a silly concept, but that sort of feature is part of Kojima's commentary, of the rope and the stick; a single tiny thread- insignificant really- that connected my gameplay to others. Later on in the game you can actually choose to form a "strand contract" with other players whose structures you met. You can make supply requests, build roads , bridges and more, albeit, totally alone and separated from your fellow player- which honestly was not unwelcome. Vehicles are a part of the game as well and as you play you gain access to a different form of reverse Trike (Like a Motorcycle but less manly and more "strandly") and eventually a hopping brick shaped pickup truck type thing (also more strandly) These items seem like they would break the game but seeing as the geography is littered with rocks BT's and steep grades, they become pretty useless until you manage to figure out the roadbuilding feature, and then the game goes from sorta boring to SUPER-BORING... I didn't buy this game to drive on a goop dripping road like a UPS man, I bought it to be extreme mountain climber UPS man, so I didn't bother using them unless a certain delivery had to go quickly. A lot of updates were added to this game to fix certain bugs pointed out by critics in the first couple weeks of launch and Kojima was quick to make the repairs, unlike some developers (@_@) Bugs that caused you to fall through the map were fixed the quickest and impact detection was also adjusted seeing as Sam was seemingly tripping over rocks that weren't actually there, and falling face first into cliff faces while trying to climb them. Some graphical wonk was fixed as well when it came to climbing and walking over rocky terrain. And now addressing the BB... or Lou. Lou is a BT detecting baby because [spoiler]her[/spoiler] mother was killed and held on life support to prevent her from exploding (Dead bodies turn into BT's, and BT's cause voidouts- sort of like mini Big Bangs- I'll explain this all when I write about the Narrative.) as a result Lou has a strong connection with the other side. So when you go out on a delivery, you plug your "Odradek" (basically shoulder mounted scanner- kinda of like Predators shoulder cannon but not a weapon and shaped like a starfish) into the spot where BBs mother "would-be" connected and now you can see the mucky ghost people when your standing still and not holding your breath for some reason. This is annoying because when A BT is searching for you, you have to hold your breath because that's how they sense you. You can of course fight BT's once you have the equipment, an act that will actually net you "likes" from the said BT. When BT's grab you you get pulled into a boss fight with a muck monster and the underwhelming combat returns, I discovered that in most of these situations, running from the muck monster was almost always more effective then fighting it, just run to the edge of the muck and make faces at the BT until it goes away. The alternate route is to battle the BT, and if it eats you, it causes a voidout which leaves a town sized crater on the Map for the rest of your playthrough, and the crater area becomes totally inaccessible- well played Kojima. You can also see a massive black handprint in the hole, an artistic choice I'm sure. BT's in the game vary in size shape and makeup, I came across a glowing BT once, and then dispatched him with my cord cutting cufflinks- (Oh yea you wear a handcuff thing called a cufflink and it connects you to the chiral network, later on one of the main characters gives you a rather uncomfortable looking blade attachment for it for cutting BT umbilical cords, why the curved blade has to rest against Sam's wrist is anyones guess.) I saw Big tall BT's, baby BT's and BT's that for some reason were buried up to their neck in rock. glitch or intentional? who knows, all I know is that I tried cutting it's cord and I couldn't- and thats bS. Tip for those who are willing to play the game; always keep one container repair spray on you at all times, if the container gets ruined over time by timefall it will leak and timefall will begin to damage the goods, which brings me to my final critique of Death Strandings gameplay- Cargo condition. Certain Deliveries value the cargo arriving undamaged, some value it getting their quickly, or getting alot of it at once. You are judged on these criteria for every delivery and receive a ranking based on how well you kept the cargo safe, how quickly you moved it or how much of it survived the journey. Nothing made me more upset then climbing a cliff and having one of my cases get knocked off because it touched the cliff, and plummeted to the ground- stupid... Now I have to climb all the -blam!-ing way back down and get this -blam!-ing -blam!- of a -blam!- rabble rabble rabble! I was pleased when Norman Reedus made a similar noise with his mouth and said "figures..." Yes it does Sam... yes it does... In conclusion Death Stranding suffers from a gameplay loop that is fun but gets old. Unless you are playing straight through the game, the replayability of Death Stranding suffers because there are only so many ways to deliver a package, you can take newer and more interesting routes and use different equipment, but for an endgame loop- constant fetch quests, and deliveries are just not enough. I will say that the tasks that required you to enter a Mule or Demens camp and steal back cargo from them had their moments of excitement. I give Death Stranding, on gameplay alone, a 2 out of 5. [spoiler][quote]So Speaketh...[/quote][/spoiler] tl;dr- Death Stranding is funner than it looks, but you get over it eventually