99 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
99 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Death Stranding Review
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date: 2019-11-11
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series: reviews
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tags:
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- kojima
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- video-game
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- what
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---
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NOTE: There's gonna be spoilers here. Do not read if you are not okay with this.
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For a summary of the article without spoilers, this game is 10 out of 10 game of the
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year 2019 for me.
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I have also been playing through this game [on
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twitch](https://twitch.tv/princessxen) and have streams archived
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[here](https://xena.greedo.xeserv.us/files/kojima_unchained).
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There's a long-standing rule of thumb to tell fiction apart from non-fiction.
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Fiction needs to make sense to the reader. Non-fiction does not. [Death
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Stranding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding) puts this paradigm on
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its head. It doesn't make sense out of the gate in the way most AAA games make
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sense.
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In many AAA games it's very clear who the Big Bad is and who the John America
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is. John America defeats the Big Bad and spreads Freedom to the masses by force.
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In Death Stranding, you have no such preconceptions going into it. The first few
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hours are a chaotic mess of exposition without explanation. First there's a
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storm, then there's monsters, then there's a baby-powered locator, then you need
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to deliver stuff a-la fetch quests, then there's Monster energy drinks, and the
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main currency of this game is Facebook likes (that mean and do absolutely
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nothing).
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In short, Death Stranding doesn't try to make sense. It leaves questions
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unanswered. And this is honestly so refreshing in a day and age where entire
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plot points and the like are spoiled in trailers before the game's release date
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is even announced. Questions like: what is going on? Why are there monsters?
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What is the point of the game? Why the hell are there Monster energy drinks in
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your private room and canteen? Death Stranding answers only some of these over
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the course of gameplay.
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The core of the gameplay loop is delivering cargo from point a to point b across
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a ruined America after the apocalypse. The main character is an absolute unit of
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a lad, able to carry over 120 kilograms of cargo on his back. As more and more
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cargo stacks up you create these comically tall towers of luggage that make
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balancing very difficult. You can hold on for balance using both of the shoulder
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buttons. The game maps each shoulder button to an arm of the player character.
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There's also a stamina system, and while you are gripping the cargo your stamina
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regenerates much more slowly than if you weren't doing that.
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The game makes you deliver almost everything you can think of from medical aid
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to antimatter bombs. The antimatter bomb deliveries are really tricky because of
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how delicate they are. If you drop the antimatter bomb, it explodes and you
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instantly game over. If you hit a rock while carrying an antimatter bomb, it
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gets damaged. If it gets damaged too many times it explodes and you die. If it
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gets dropped into water it explodes and you die. And you have to carry the
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suckers over miles of terrain and even mountains.
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This game handles scale very elegantly. The map is _huge_, even larger than
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Skyrim or Breath of the Wild. You are the UPS man who delivers packages,
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apocalypse be damned. This game gives you a lot of quiet downtime, which really
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lets you soak in the philosophical mindfuck that Kojima cooked up for us all. As
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you approach major cities, guitar and vocal music comes in and the other sound
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effects of the game quiet down. It overall creates a very sobering and solemn
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mood that I just can't get enough of. It seems like it wouldn't fit in a game
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where you use your own blood to defeat monsters and drink _monster energy_ out
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of your canteen, but it totally does.
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There is some mild product placement. Your canteen is full of Monster energy
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drink. Yes, that Monster. Making the player defecate shows you an ad for an AMC
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show. There's also monster energy drinks in your safe room that increase your
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max stamina for a bit. I'm not entirely sure if the product placement was chosen
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to be there for artistic reasons (it's surreal as all hell and helps to
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complement the confusing aspects of the game), but it's very non-intrusive and
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can be ignored with little risk.
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This game also has online components. Every time you build a structure in areas
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linked to the chiral network, other players can use, interact with and upgrade
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them so they can do more things. Other players can also gives you likes, which
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again do nothing. Upgrading a zipline makes it able to handle a larger distance
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or updating a safe house lets you play music when people walk by it. It really
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helps to build the motif of rebuilding America. There is however room for people
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to troll others. Here's [an example of
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this](https://twitter.com/Brad_barnaby/status/1193084242743312384). There's a
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troll ladder to nowhere. There's a lot of those laying around mountains, so be
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on your guard.
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Overall, Death Stranding is a fantastic game. It's hard. It's unforgiving. But
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the real thing that advances is the skill of the player. You make the
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deliveries. You go the distance. You do your job as the post-apocalyptic UPS man
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that America needs.
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By [mmmintdesign](https://twitter.com/mmmintdesign) [source](https://twitter.com/mmmintdesign/status/1192856164331114497)
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Score: 10 out of 10
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Christine Dodrill's Game of the Year 2019
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