Playstation Death Stranding: A Kojima Productions Joint

The gameplay isn't bad really, just that there's not a lot to do. It's ok for a once through, but it feels like a re-skinned Metal Gear with missing features. Story is interesting, predictable in places, but nothing that I feel the need to re-visit.

 

That's my feeling. I just wish there was more action to the game. I just hate walking around and building ladders.

 

I'm loving it. The atmosphere is simply incredible and evolving in such an impressive landscape is quite unique.

 

I finally got this for $36 usd. Itsnot super cheap as Spider-Man/God of War during last year's State of Play but I've been waiting for the price of this to be cut in half. So I'm eXcited to finally play this.

 

My long review:

Spoiler

When I was playing this for the first few days, I was very confused. There's a lot of instructions even though I was just moving cargos/things from point a to point b. I felt like they made the game a bit confusing with so many details and they could have simplified it. There are also these "like buttons" and things left behind by other players which sometimes are just junks.

The cutscenes are pretty long and I wasn't really getting the story early on. The graphics are amazing, however the setting doesn't look very diverse. Aside from the usual scenery, there's the Mars like setting, snowy mountains, hexagon rock formations and a farm. I feel like 75% of the places looked the same especially the man made structures. A lot of those stations lacked personality.

Its weird for an open world videogame, it took me some time to free roam. I wasn't sure if I could go to the other side of the map very early in the game and not screwed myself over. When I reached the second region, I still didn't free roam until the main/side quests require me to go to those places. For the first four episodes, I was constantly doing story missions. It took a couple of missions before I get to fight the human enemies, build a bridge, ride a motorcycle and fast travel. The pacing was slow. I feel like this game requires a lot of patience in order to do the more interesting stuff. Delivering/going to different stations was not fun as you are going to trek there for minutes. There were a couple of missions in which I had to walk for thirty minutes just to deliver something and it was timed, early in the game that was so tedious. Towards the end, I also walked for like forty minutes just to get to the next cutscene.

It wasn't fun to free roam or just focus on side quests because you need to pay attention to everything. The baby cries. The shoes expire. Sam stumbles a lot. After the fourth episode, I wanted to finish the roads and get the "stars" before I continue on. A lot of side quests gave me tools that I wouldn't get just on the story missions. So there was a lot of back and forth between stations and grinding. Even though its easy to avoid the enemies it really gets tiring, especially the BTs. The locations that the BTs show up always rain, the rain in those locations is never ending and the rain deteriorates the cargos and vehicles. There were times that I had zero patience covering Sam's mouth and walk slowly so sometimes I was caught and killed. I couldn't get away when I was inside the car, and it sometimes led to a boss fight which damages the things that I was supposed to deliver. The BTs aren't hard to defeat if you know what you are doing but they are exhausting to deal with.

Whats also weird is you are accepting orders from so many npcs who are appearing through a hologram, yet when you go out there, there's no one out there but enemies. It wasn't fun to explore as you can't meet an actual person to help you. There are few delivery men that sometimes show up and a handful of npcs that came out of their bunker. But Sam rarely see anyone in the flesh and usually it only happens in the cutscenes. The "cities" also don't look like cities. The entire place just looks completely abandoned and lifeless.

The game started to become engaging when I got a car, when I finally started building roads, craft more things and send bots. I still felt the repetitiveness of the game but it was much better as I felt like it was truly an open world game. My favorite thing to do here is building the roads as it made it easier to go to a lot of places especially when delivering, the battery doesn't run out and no one can attack you in the road. I went to different stations just to get metals/ceramics to complete the roads. It was so satisfying getting those roads done. I also like that the playable character can pee, sit, rest in the middle of nowhere, drink, eat worms, make the baby sleep or happy. The playable character resurrects endlessly as well so I don't need to load a save file when he gets killed. There are stuff/vehicles that are left by other players which helped me a couple of times and saved me crafting materials. There are little features in the game that I appreciate. I liked the first WW1 episode. I like how this game is only less than 50GB and it loads fastly. However you can't listen to music while inside the car. They had a music section in Sam's rest room but you can't access to those songs while you drive for more than 10 minutes. Sometimes a song would pop up out of nowhere, but I drove the roads that I built like a hundred times and the only background music I heard were the noisy sound that was coming out of the car/bike and raindrops. After episode 5, it was back again to being so tedious especially when they took the baby away as it was faster to get spotted by the BTs. Hiking those snowy mountains was exhausting. The zip lines rarely helped. From that moment, I was done collecting stars as I don't want to hike to those locations again. I think I got about 15 stars for Sam's pants and it wasn't fast to get those stars.

The thing I hate doing here the most is if you kill humans, you will need to burn their bodies and you are gonna travel so far to do that. I was in a middle of a side mission hiding from the BTs, when the game turned white. At that time, I didn't know where to cremate the bodies and I left one of the bodies where the BTs reside. So I had to load my 2nd to the newest file, find out what to do next, quickly get a car to get those 4 bodies and hurry up to do the cremation thing, and repeat what I've already finished. It was so annoying. The game punishes players for using the guns that they've added in the game! So starting at that point, I didn't bring any weapons against the humans except for the bola gun. A lot of weapons in the game were no use for me. I also have an issue with the fast travel as your belongings are left behind in a storage. Unless you can afford to craft equipments again and again, and not mind leaving things behind okay. Fast travel here is not as simple as most games. I considered when to fast travel. There's just too many restrictions here. Then the last three hours of the game were cutscenes. Even watching cutscenes, they managed to make it a slog.

Overall, Death Stranding is unique, weird and one of the most tedious games I've ever played. I can see why this was nominated for Game of the Year. This kinda reminds me of Red Redemption 2. The story and concept are well thought and ambitious, the characters are interesting, the graphics are top notch but the gameplay requires a lot of patience. It would take a lot of hours before you access the good stuff. There were times that I was so eager to finish the side stuff that i was playing it non stop. But there were more of "this again?" and "what happened now?" especially towards the end. I don't know how many people managed to complete this and not feel tired a couple of times. I wouldn't recommend this to people who are just looking for a fun and easy going open world game. I played this in easy mode, it still frustrated me a couple of times. I don't know another game that stops your game when you didn't burn the bodies of your enemies, forces you to load your last save and bury those enemies just to continue your progress - in easy mode?! Why can't the character just bring a torch with him? There is a good game somewhere in this, but there are a lot of things that I just simply don't enjoy. Comparing this to the other hyped PS4 games I've played, I would definitely put this near of the bottom of the list. I actually can't think of a big/hyped Ps4 game that I would rank lower than this. Though I played and completed more side stuff in this compare to Metal Gear Solid V so there's that. As for a sequel, I don't want one.

 

Looks gorgeous. 4K @ 120 FPS with DLSS? Hopefully AMD implements a similar solution so that PS5/XSX could benefit from such tech.

 

does anyone know how to delete the save files on PC?

 

I finally collected all the stars from the 2nd map this previous week, and boy. If you've finished the main game and really saved the side quests for the rest of your playthrough. all you'd really do is just deliver items from point a to point b. The rewards aren't even worth the hassle. The memory chips are nothing special. While the only kinda cool thing you'd get encounter along the way are those hot springs which are merely minor cutscenes/stamina booster. So I don't think I'll go back to the 1st map and collect the remaining 7 to 8 stars especially there's no cement roads in the first map/region.

 

Steam? Usually it's in the default directory:

[default Steam directory or wherever you've installed the game]\steamapps\common\[Death Stranding folder]

According to the PC Gaming Wiki, it's located in:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\KojimaProductions\DeathStranding\

Looking forward to playing this once it's on sale. It seems it's been better received on PC than on consoles, unsurprisingly considering the "walking simulator" side of this game.

 

For people who finished this: How do you rate the story? (No spoilers)

And I heard that the pacing picked up after chapter 3, and a lot of action would involve by then. Is it true?

 

I'll give the story a 6.5/10. After I finished it almost after a month, the story is not that special. The characters are interesting but the story like the gameplay was such a drag.

Its confusing at first, and just when you think you are starting to understand whats happening, it gets more confusing. Also this game has the longest cutscenes ever. Like when you're almost at the end of the main story, there's such a section in which you would literally just walk in circles.

The only redeeming quality is the graphics.

 

Director’s cut announced for this game at summer game fest. (looked a bit like MGS!)

 

Damn I thought they were teasing a mgs remaster

 

It was definitely made to be a bit ambiguous haha.

 

I'm not sure this game needs a directors cut. Kojima climbed all the way up his own ass with the original version.

 

Looking back, a year after I played it, it is still the most tedious ever. I am kinda surprised I managed to do all those delivering for star stickers, because I didn't even do a lot of side stuff in games I bought this year. I also completed those roads and that took a lot of grinding because it needed plenty of materials. You can't really confront those mud creatures unless you want your belongings to take damage. Empty open world, and the only npcs (other than enemies) you will come cross when walking or free roaming is your fellow delivery men. Then the cutscenes went on forever.

I rolled my eyes seeing that new video. Okay he's in a box now? Its not amusing. Is it going to make the game less tedious now?

I am kinda surprised that this game is getting a new leash with the ps5 port.

 

I mean, if you watched the little love chat with Keighley, its obvious he can go further....

 

The Director's Cut would really have to add some substantial gameplay to get me interested.

Other than that I just want to see what Kojima can offer outside of Metal Gear. So far he hasn't offered much in my view.

 

Same here.

If I have to mention one of the most overrated people in the gaming industry, I will mention his name.

 

The new features look cool... and I'm just, why are they just coming out now?! I'm definitely not going to double dip but this should at least make the game more engaging.

Death Stranding Director's Cut Releasing For PS5 in September

 

I'm so glad I never pulled the trigger on Death Stranding and that I waited on this game. When I decide to play this, it will definitely be with the Director's Cut on the PS5.

However, as with the Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut, this will be something that I will wait for a sale on. It does appear that the Death Stranding DC will be priced at $49.99, which I think is a fairer price and what the Ghost DC should be priced at.

 

Death stranding probably has a lower price because it is the older game and the less popular game.

But crazy how Sony has TWO director's cut edition for the ps5, coming out in the next 2 months.... And I don't think this Director's Cut of Death Stranding is being released to pc in September yet. So to those who only played the pc port, you might be missing out on new content or you might have wait for a year.

I wonder if Sony planned this all along. They probably did. I bought Death Stranding last year for like 32 dollars but its now 24 dollars in my retail store even before this DC announcement. I just finished playing The Last of Us Part 2 last month, and I would be pissed if they announce a story eXpansion as I waited for almost a year for the price of TLOU2 to drop.

 

I got a disc copy of the original version for $27. Glad I waited.

 

I wish I am still waiting, for the Directors Cut.