Death STANDING (Please Jog Instead)

The unfortunate reality is that Death Stranding by Hideo Kojima resembles the Lord of the Rings in all the worst ways. I’ll not spend the rest of this article bashing it entirely because it truly doesn’t deserve to be. However at the end of the day, when the cards are counted and the chips are down, Death Stranding is more talk then walk, and as I’m sure you’ve heard, there’s an absurd amount of walking. Imagine the journey of fellowship of the ring. The movies (and sometimes the books) would have you believe that this journey was chalk full of adventure, combat and valuable lessons learned. In reality, poor Frodo Baggins had to endure more than just the on screen struggles of the road. Despite Kojima’s political and metaphysical indulgences, what Death Stranding has actually taught me is that a journey of similar magnitude comprises mostly of boredom and regret with a sprinkle of sadistic gratification. If I wanted to satiate a similar desire, I’d spend my late nights cruising a dark and cold Toronto, looking for a 24/7 to sell me cigarettes. I can honestly say that the most rewarding parts of the game was when I discovered a feasible pathway to my next destination. A pathway that made the suffering of endurance package delivery just a little bit easier. To me, that’s not enough of a positive to balance the equation. Let’s spend some time with “the good” for a second, because I’m beginning to bum even myself out.

The Good

The scenery—and by association—graphics are truly beautiful. From a white out on the top of a mountain range, to a forest speckled with sunlight, Death Stranding and senior environment artist Andrew J. Nelson and lead environment artist Takayuki Uchida have done some masterful work at creating a legitimate and awe-inspiring world to take part in. I’ve played a fair amount of open world RPG’s in my day, and this takes the whole damn cake for best I’ve ever seen. The pain you endure whilst traversing beyond rough terrain makes an open, and rock-less space that much more appealing. Yet I’m aware that if most of the game was wide open spaces, the appeal of a futuristic motor-tricycle would lose its value respectively. Chapter 3 is so torturous that Chapter 4 feels like a highway in Nevada. It’s an intelligent way to keep your interest in the mundane repetition of Uber Eats in Mordor. Considering that you spend 90% of the game delivering packages back and forth, over and over and over again, I’m impressed with how optimized and fluid the HUD/controls can be. That being said, it took me way to long (and maybe it’s just me) to realize how to effectively take advantage of weight distribution or resupplying. However, once I learned I quickly became a master of my own backpack. Just wish I had some of that sweet Elfish Lembas bread to renew that lost endurance and stamina. The Story of Death Stranding is one of those aforementioned great challenges in the art of video game reviewing. For the most part I wanted to stab my PS4 with the sword I purchased last week (DM for pics). However in the end, and in the fairness of Kojima Productions, I knew what to expect, and I was generally okay with how most of it transmitted. I’m grateful that they took the time to not only create the most Final Fantasy V story-line outside of the lineage, but mostly to explain it in such a monotonous, tedious, yet passionate and vivid way that at the very least you feel somewhat satisfied after said “climax”. The amount of work they did to explain their mentally deranged concepts must be truly staggering, and I really do appreciate that. Finally, there are these moments where your either on route to, or away from a significant event in the story, and as you rip across the countryside, a well-timed, and mood specific song starts playing, similar to a Hollywood blockbuster. A surprisingly small but effective detail in helping the player connect with the game on an entirely different level. Smart move Kojima, you should be proud.  

The Bad (Should have Stuck with Silent Hill Boys…)

So Guillermo Del Toro, Hideo Kojima, and Norman Reedus were supposed to do some epic Silent HIill game about 5 years ago (thank IGN for the link). Instead we get this, half baked, hard to call ‘even a thriller’, monstrosity dubbed Death Stranding. Colour me disappointed. [miptheme_quote author=”Fragile” style=”text-center”]”everything is true, except for the lies”[/miptheme_quote] The story is so overly convoluted that even after 20 hours (I played a total of 34) I still had little idea of what was going on. This is not a game for children or time-pressed adults. My good friend gave it a shot and had to bail after two and a half hours, because he became so disinterested in the (lack thereof) story. I’ve talked a bit about this above, so in the interest of avoiding a plethora of hate mail, let’s move on. (If you want a summary of the story, read this.) The cut scenes that are interspersed throughout the gameplay are so ridiculously long and repetitive I highly considered clicking the “skip scene” button multiple times. Unfortunately, in the interest of the readers I don’t have the luxury of doing that often, so instead I persevered . Death Stranding on one end seems like it was designed for the most adaptable of us. There’s a few moments in the game where the player has to have a “Ureka” moment so grand it feels like you just cured cancer (and in a way, you did.) Yet for the most part, the tedium of hearing the same damn plot points over again leaves little to the imagination on how Kojima really feels about us as gamers. My god man, get a clue! And what on earth is with all the crying. The main characters shed tears as often as I make package deliveries. That’s a lot for those of you who aren’t paying attention. The constant flow of tears robs the luster for when a character finds themselves in an emotionally worthy scene. In continuation, I had a weak moment, where instead of going around a massive mountain in the middle of the map, I climbed up it. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me, however at the top of the mountain, a mountain so massive that it takes up a large portion of the map, there was depressingly zero unique or hidden features to discover. Why create one of the most beautiful virtual worlds in existence and have literally zero interesting things to stumble across. It would have significantly increased my enjoyment of painfully traversing this sick, sad little world if I knew that there a kind of hidden accomplishment lurking around the corners. In the attempt to wrap things up, and pander to our short attention spans, ill finish off with two simple points. The lack of tutorial or in game advice is a pretty strong flaw in my opinion. There’s some help to be found if you actively look for it, yet for the most part it feels like you’re stumbling across this massive lake of tar with little hand holds or railings. I understand this argument can be easily countered, but in a game so complicated and with heavy attention to realism you would think that having a strong understanding of game mechanics would vastly improve the first and worst half of the game. Maybe I rushed through it, or maybe I’m not as bright as I’d like to think, however by the time I learned how to take full advantage of the hundreds of aspects of the game it was for all intents and purposes over (not counting the last hour and a half final cutscenes). Lastly, there’s a problem with having more endings than the Return of the King. I’m all for a neat, and tidy bow at the end of a saga, especially near Christmas. I just don’t want to screw around for a couple of hours after I assume the game is finished so that they may artificially increase the play time. Death Stranding is a beautiful game in so many ways, but where it’s weak, it’s almost broken. Don’t pull me deeper into that pit of tar or I’m liable to head to that “beach” in a literal, IRL sort of way. I give Death Stranding a score of…