Blog:Death Stranding

"Hideo Kojima has famously described Death Stranding as being the first "strand" type game. Truly, it is a game so unique and revolutionary that he had to create an entire new genre of video games. And now that we can finally get our hands on this innovation, we can answer the question that has perplexed us for so long: just what is a strand type game? Well, it's a special type of game where everything about it is a complete piece of shit."

- videogamedunkey

Death Stranding is an action game developed by Kojima Productions and published by mh:awesomegames:Sony Interactive Entertainment for the mh:awesomegames:PlayStation 4 and mh:awesomegames:Microsoft Windows. The game released for the mh:awesomegames:PlayStation 5 as Death Stranding: Director's Cut, which serves as an updated version of the game. It is considered as the first "strand" game, the sub-genre of action games, according to the game director Hideo Kojima.

Plot
Death Stranding takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States that was destroyed by creatures known as "Beached Things" (BTs for short). After being persuaded by his dying mother (who is also the president of the U.S.) to rejoin Bridges, a delivery company that seeks to re-build the U.S. as the "United Cities of America" (U.C.A.), Sam Bridges travels across the country to deliver packages that will allow the remaining cities to communicate with each other. While traveling across the country, Sam will have to face obstacles such as the BTs, and a terrorist organization known as the "Homo Demens" who want to destroy Bridges and the U.C.A..

Bad Qualities

 * 1) A majority of the game is just walking/climbing from point A to point B while carrying packages, with almost no interesting obstacles or events to see aside from climbing steep slopes or crossing rivers. This as a result makes the game extremely tedious and boring for the most part.
 * 2) Similar to mh:awesomegames:Red Dead Redemption 2 (albeit handled much worse), the game includes way too much elements that try to make it like real life, with most of the features proving to be more annoying than adding any challenge.
 * 3) *Players will have constantly to maintain Sam's balance if they have heavy cargo, and oftentimes Sam will just fall over without warning.
 * 4) *BB-28 has a stress meter that goes all the way up far too often, and calming him down takes too much time.
 * 5) *Boots degrade fairly fast, meaning that players will constantly have to swap out boots.
 * 6) *Cargo can easily fall off of Sam, whether it be from falling over or getting hit by something.
 * 7) *Repair sprays will have to be constantly used when it rains.
 * 8) The physics are very wonky, especially when climbing slopes/cliffs and jumping.
 * 9) *Sam will often glitch out and jut sharply down the slope/cliff, forcing players to have to climb the slope/cliff again and hope they don't glitch out again.
 * 10) *Using vehicles is also a pain because of the physics, as they struggle to go over even the smallest of obstacles such as slopes or small rocks.
 * 11) **They also cannot go over gaps due to gravity suddenly pulling them down out of nowhere.
 * 12) Boss fights are pathetically easy due to how easily the player can stun them, allowing players to kill them while the bosses are unable to do anything.
 * 13) When the player doesn't have to deal with simply walking from point A to point B, they will have to put up with shooting sections. While this might sound exciting on paper, these sections provide very little challenge as Sam's weapons are overpowered, and Sam himself is capable of tanking a lot of damage.
 * 14) Poor inventory system, as equipment such as weapons, ladders, and ropes all have to be carried on Sam's back like the packages, meaning that carrying them with you will just make delivering the packages that more difficult due to carrying too much.
 * 15) *On the other hand, if the player only carries a small amount of equipment as the game intended, they'll still find themselves ill-equipped, as another set of annoying obstacles will present themselves due to the lack of equipment.
 * 16) Some parts of the game feature an unnecessarily large amount of cutscenes. One such example includes there being four different cutscenes just for taking a shower.
 * 17) The story itself is extremely confusing, in fact it's so confusing to the point that multiple voice actors, and even Kojima himself admitted that they don't understand what's going on. Even with the characters having to constantly explain everything that's going on, players will likely remain confused about what's going on, essentially turning most of the explaining into long stretches of talking with no meaning.
 * 18) Despite there being multiple choices the player can choose during the story, the story remains linear with only one ending. This makes these choices completely pointless.
 * 19) In addition to none of the choices impacting the story, none of the gameplay sections factor into the story, which makes gameplay objectives such as delivering the packages also feel completely pointless.
 * 20) A lot of cringeworthy dialogue, such as one of the characters explaining how she remembers being inside her mother's womb, or Fragile's line "Because I'm Fragile... but I'm not that fragile."
 * 21) Product placement in the form of Monster Energy drinks, which are used to restore stamina.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The idea of having a game where you must complete jobs while trying to tread across a world filled with hazards along the way and maintaining your supplies is actually interesting not just well executed.
 * 2) The setting and world is a very interesting one, with many creative ideas to see here and has a well executed sci-fi horror theme.
 * 3) Although handled poorly, the story and lore are also pretty interesting.
 * 4) *There's also lots of collectible such as notes to get to know the lore better.
 * 5) Players can build helpful constructions that other players can use when playing online, such as making ziplines to skip having to climb slopes or cliffs.
 * 6) A nice, ambient soundtrack that goes well with the mysterious and dark tone of the game.
 * 7) Although it gets repetitive after a while, the stealth sections are fairly suspenseful and challenging due to you having to sneak past BTs, which you can't even see.
 * 8) The graphics are great, and the visuals are also amazing thanks to the game's setting. Cutscenes tend to shine the brightest in this regard.
 * 9) This game includes the charm that other games from Kojima have like the Metal Gear games, where there are some funny moments despite the otherwise serious and dark tone, as well as plenty of Easter Eggs and references to other games. Some examples include:
 * 10) *The fourth wall breaks from Sam when he's in his room.
 * 11) *The humorous celebrity cameos such as Conan O'Brien's character having an obsession with otters and hats.
 * 12) Excellent voice acting that is further enhanced with numerous talented celebrities, such as Norman Reedus providing the voice of Sam.
 * 13) Many of the characters, whether minor or major, are well-written and memorable.

Reception
Although Death Stranding was met with mostly positive reception from critics, there are many critics and gamers who expressed mixed, if not negative feelings towards the game. Along with Pokémon Sword and Shield it is considered the most polarizing game of 2019. On Metacritic, the game has a Metascore of 82/100 for the PS4, and an 86/100 for PC, while the user scores are a 7.3/10 on the PS4, and a 7.7/10 on PC. Despite the decent user score for the PS4, it was much lower initially, with a score of 5.1/10 before Metacritic removed over 6,000 user reviews believing them to be an act of review bombing.

videogamedunkey showed strong disliking towards the game due the gameplay mechanics, with the latter going as far as to give the game a 1/5 and considered it to be one of the most disappointing games he had ever played.

AngryJoe had very mixed feelings towards the game. Although he gave the game as a whole a 7/10, he gave the gameplay a 4/10, and also admitted that he loved, yet hated the game at the same time.

Trivia

 * The game predicted the future, it predicted the pandemic that started in 2020. Even more so when a Chinese netizen modeled a containment suit after the game's Porter Suit during the pandemic, which eventually led to its resurgence in popularity and the release of the PC port and Director's Cut.

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