Quick Look: Death Stranding

Wow I just came here looking for this, wasn't up, so read Ales's review instead. Click refresh and boom here it is.

this going to be good lol

Damn, I wanted to be first. lol.

Anyway, like I said in the written review, I'll probably check this out once the price drops. This game was not what I was hoping for, but I still want to give it a chance just to see all the crazy Kojima did.

Do we need this many videos of the same game? is this some kind of sponsorship of what?

@zinkn: ...you really think Giant Bomb wouldn't do a QL of one of the biggest games of the year? You high dog?

They did it, they made a Garfield Kart game in 2019.

Garfield, the famous lasagna-loving cat is back to take on Jon, Odie and company in a no-holds-barred racing game!

How is this relevant to Death Stranding? Just wanted to point out that in comparison the Garfield Kart racer is a better game, objectively and categorically according to the internet!

Here is a Death Stranding review, from an actual gaming critic:

"Death Stranding is an irredeemable piece of garbage that should serve as a warning to publishers who give developers carte blanche to create ‘art’."

Here is a Garfield Kart Furious Racing review, from somewhere:

"game

of

the

f u c k i n g

year

really makes you feel like garfield"

I'm excited to watch the two videos you posted of this game but it sounds like people are hyping the wrong game after doing further research on Garfield Kart Furious Racing* for the PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and, PS4 console systems - whereas Death Stranding is only out on the PS 3 so another reason the Garfield Kart racer is a far more outstanding product.

*Not paid for by Jonathan Davis, the writer for Garfield™

I'm going to touch myself while this game gets ripped apart.

proper QL

Hopefully Vinny finds it interesting, otherwise it's just going to be Alex telling us how bad this masterpiece is for an hour.

Why does the US look like Norway in this timeline ?

@castiel: there is something worrying and a little disturbing about the way some people have adopted this very exact stance.

I can't wait to play this........when it's a PS Plus game in a year. Seriously though, I think this looks really interesting, but I am in no hurry to buy this game.

@zinkn: More like an anti-sponsorship

Why is there no option for Norman Reedus to wash his damn hands after a trip to the John?!

I mean sure, water in this world becomes Monster Energy, precious resource and all that, but you can do better than this, Kojima!!!

You do not have to watch them just because they exist.

@humanity: It was meant as joke though from my side. I have nothing personal against this game. It's not a game for me but if other people are going to enjoy it then they absolutely should.

I canceled my preorder a week ago and I'm glad I did. This "game" is a dumpster fire.

Whenever you approach a city you can tell that Kojima liked that "Riding to Mexico" sequence.

Yeah no need to worry about spoilers if you have no idea what any of the words mean or what is going on.

28 minutes and I had to shut it off! Painfully boring to watch and probably worse to play! 60% of the game is delivering items in 30+ hour game? This game is a sick joke.

"It's what porters crave" is a very good joke that Alex snuck in there, and I just want that noted.

@av_gamerWhat does price have to do with it garbage is garbage!:

i want to play this and intended a day 1 purchase.

but i don't know now if i want to $60 play this.

What's hot? What's on people's minds? What are people typing on forums about? What game is getting some good reviews with caveats and getting some really bad reviews with some caveats?

What else would they spend time filming and editing?

I'm not sure that I get it. Sounds like a whole bunch of excuses being made solely because it's a kojima game. It's ok, you can say it's a trash mechanic if it's a trash mechanic.

I seriously believe if you guys played this as a random game you found on steam, and it wasn't called death stranding by hideo kojima. You wouldn't even put 10 hours in let alone 60.

Honestly, if I can somehow ignore and skip the story, I would be very down to play this game.

I find it interesting that they said they didn't like the story and could take the gameplay without it. Oddly enough, having watched a cutscene megacut on youtube... I would take the story without the gameplay.

@zinkn: Video game site covers big video game release, more at 10.

@castiel: oh sorry I’ve seen similar things written a lot recently definitely not as a joke and it just seems bizarre to see folks this excited to see a game get reviewed poorly.

The most important thing to take away from this QL: Alex is a ghost hater.

@humanity: I've noticed an awful lot of that too. The sheer giddiness some folks have in seeing something torn down, just because it's not specifically for them, is a real bummer.

I guess it's like the MULEs found out the hard way: validation's a hell of a drug.

This game looks utterly fascinating. That said, with everything I have on my plate to play, I can definitely wait for a deep sale. Appreciate the great coverage GB has given this game, been very informative and helped me make a good decision.

All this supposed controversy over the review scores than the game itself makes me Feelsbadman.

So I'm picking this up Day 1. I can see why a lot of gamers are 100% put off by it, but I also think there's a niche for this game and a sizable group of people that will play it and love it. As much as the Call of Duty Smash Bros generation like to put gaming into a box that meets their own expectations, there are a ton of people who play games like Farming Simulator, Bus Simulator, Truck Simulator (s), Gold Rush, 7 Days To Die, etc, games with no stories, no characters to flesh out, etc, but a gameplay loop that appeals to a subset of people who enjoy doing a task over and over to build up a meter.

No game is for everyone, but every game is for someone.

Yep. Giant Bomb often takes money from publishers to give tepid-to-negative coverage of games that are trafficking very, very well.

@cikame:

aww thats cute

@zinkn: a sponsorship with a two star review? Not likely.

Seems to me the only thing DS is good for is funny gifs of people biffing it and dropping a huge load equipment from their back.

They didn't cry when the music started outside Port Knot City. I thought everybody cries at that part?

the weird thing that bothers me the most (well beyond Kojima needing an editor) is so much is set into the system to stack your items (pizza must stay flat) then totally ignore that in the animations as he ducks and his entire stack turns vertical but the pizza is fine. Either go 100% from a system and visual, or don't go into it all.

@tayliastwist said:

It's not really a thing unique to this game, or to video games as a medium. People love angry/ranty/"savage" critiques of things. Just look at a lot of the stuff on Youtube that's popular, like those old RedLetterMedia videos about the Star Wars prequels or "Everything Wrong With ___" series or Jim Sterling (love you Jim, ever since your Destructoid days, sorry for using you as an example here). People get a kick out of "reviews" and "reactions" that are negative and/or snarky, even when a lot of it is manufactured and insincere. Edit - to be clear, I'm certainly not saying Giant Bomb is insincere or just cynically going after an audience that likes negativity. I am just trying to point out that nerds get a rush out of seeing something they aren't attached to get picked apart and run through a grinder. Maybe it's a sense of catharsis or a overreaction push-back against things that feel overhyped and overrated. It's really cynical but I can't say I'm not guilty of it myself from time to time.

With so many videos, I wish they showed the area that is supposed to be different.

I'm really glad Vinny and Alex did this quicklook. They give a nuanced, intelligent discussion of the game which I find pretty interesting. Thank you!

This game has zero appeal for me, but I find it fascinating in an academic way: like, what kind of game would Hideo Kojima make if he had no filters, no editors, no one to critique his ideas and an unlimited budget?

The world and scenario seem kind of interesting, but gameplay mechanics are all over the place and more "we included it to prove we could, not necessarily because it's fun."

Was considering buying this game but after seering this... FUCK NO! Thanks Alex, Abby and Vinny for the awesome Quick Look and for saving me 60 bucks.

I am surprised dan is not in the quicklook

@dasakamov: Not saying you truly meant his budget was unlimited, but both anecdotal evidence and the game's design to me says that it actually may have been a significant constraint to him. Think about how different this game would have been if they would have had the budget manually craft the world and generate more art assets? I feel like the monotonous design, although deliberate with the game's themes, seems like it may have also been a workaround to create the scale of game he wanted while not having a "metal gear" budget.

@garwalk: Oh no I get that there is a whole market for making these ranty videos and I do love me some fired up Jim Sterling from time to time. I do think this game specifically has people being just kind of extra focused on making sure everyone knows the game is a failure and that Kojima is a fraud and he was never good to begin with. Like people are weirdly invested in it being bad instead of just enjoying a roast from afar.

It's hard to explain but Kojima does elicit strangely powerful emotions in people from both sides of the spectrum. I mean I found it equally perplexing how so many folks out there were so absolutely in love with this game, cosplaying, making fan art etc like months before we even knew what it was.

I'll say this much. Graphically, both scenery and effects, this is a real pretty game.

edit- I think an exo-skeleton would have worked a bit for believability.