We Unpack Death Stranding (Giant Beastcast 11/1/2019)

Hideo Kojima's long-awaited new title is finally upon us, and we've all played varying amounts. In this lengthy discussion, we talk about where we landed with our thoughts on the polarizing game.
We Unpack Death Stranding (Giant Beastcast 11/1/2019)
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death stranding reaction

[@KenY2KenTV]

Really appreciate you guys breaking out standalone segments from the podcasts - even though I listen every week it's nice to be able to easily revisit a specific segment if I want to hear it again later. Also, I mentioned this on the podcast page but I really liked the round-table way this discussion was held. Felt like everyone was able to get their thoughts across and people weren't talking over each other too much or cutting one another off completely.

[@thirdcoast6513]

Completely agree! Easy to digest

[@RockBottomRiser21]

Fucking love how heated Vinny gets after 23 minutes.

[@PhatBoyzClub]

Dear Vinney, if you have to say "i dont hate it" after pretty much every single sentence perhaps consider that your sub-conscience hates it and is trying its best to break free. Consider a bottle of beer or wine to unwind and let go.

[@saltykenny5370]

"This game is just not for me" is just the new i dont like this game.

[@thegrimyeaper]

Having a red frame on your video is not a good idea. Thumbnail made me think I had watched this already.

[@PaulLundgren1970]

I feel the same way about CNN.

[@fhqwgads5000]

As someone who has now played both RDR2 and DS I can officially say Dan loves physics games but doesn't know what physics are.

[@TheYee92]

It's important to remember that Dan thinks that Terminator 3 is better than 1 ;)

[@habadasheryjones]

That's blasphemous. That talk to the hand bit alone is enough to make Terminator 3 suck way more than the first one. And that's just one example of cheap blockbuster humor that drags that film down. Dan is high and it's no wonder he struggled with this game. Maybe he is mad that game didn't have Norman Reedus putting on Elton Jon glasses for a cheap laugh. Or have a cyborg inflate it's own breasts.

[@fawkesandhound]

Dan didn’t, and still may not, understand ‘eggs’. Remember that anytime he declares he doesn’t understand something. That said I may agree with him here and FYI I loved RDR2.

[@JeedyJay]

He recanted that a few years ago.

[@SKOMEpocets]

@@habadasheryjones game sucks get over it

[@habadasheryjones]

@@SKOMEpocets You suck, and evidently aren't over it.

[@TepidShark]

I know he's saying it to make a point against the game but I'd actually like to see Vinny's alternate version of 2001 that explains everything just purely for a laugh.

[@boytype]

Great job in being honest and objective enough to point out the flaws, even if some of the panel members "didnt hate it". I think the fact that Abby didnt even want to touch it and that Dan thinks it is a steaming pile of crap are both pretty solid statements. There are so many reviews acting like it is the best game ever created after saying "its not fun" and "its boring" that you guys are almost the only reliable coverage that exists! Thanks!

[@ForeverMasterless]

I respect that this game exists but I definitely don't feel like I need to play it anymore. Maybe if it's free on PS+ one day I'll check it out. The gameplay doesn't seem terrible, I could see it being relaxing, but it's definitely not a must play for me. I also wonder how many of the complaints about the writing will stand the test of time? People absolutely eviscerated the writing in MGS2 when it came out, only to realize years later how prescient and smart that game actually is, and it went on to be incredibly influential. There's a weird barrier going on with Kojima where it's impossible to tell if he's very smart or very dumb. Like, he references philosophers, he's clearly a history buff, he puts allusions to Gravity's Rainbow in his work, but also poop jokes and ridiculous dialogue that doesn't sound like how humans talk that really puts off a lot of people. My theory is that a lot of it is a language barrier thing (and maybe a cultural barrier, too). iirc, the translator for MGS1 took a lot of liberties and since MGS2 Kojima has insisted on a very literal translation. The language used to communicate ideas has such a disproportionately large impact on how intelligent and worthwhile they seem to us, as any non-native speaker of a language can attest to. Would love to know what folks in Japan think of the writing.

[@HeliosEclipsed]

A lot of the ideas in MGS2 have proved very prescient, but for my money, the plot and character writing were never good. I think Kojima is an intelligent guy with real interests who thinks his ideas are deeper than they really are, or at least wants you to think so. He is constantly talking down to his audience, in a way that ends up feeling insulting. I've often felt that he might actually be mocking his audience. He has made statements that suggest he doesn't like video games, and many of his plots mock people who play them. I think he sometimes tries to push the boundary of what people will put up with to see if he can find a breaking point. Death Stranding seems to me that he has placed a very expensively produced, highly publicized product with his name on it, but with nothing compelling about it from a gameplay standpoint. Or maybe it's just an honest byproduct of the fact that he's always been more interested with his writing and symbolism than with the game part of his games. I really cannot tell.

[@BIadelores]

MGS2 was prescient, and with lots of ingenious ideas, yes, but Kojima is a writer of ideas only. His plots make no sense from top to bottom, and his characters are a bizarre mixture of charicatures and something resembling human beings that might be engaging if only for the sheer surrealism of how it feels, but not for complexity. That, and his storytelling is utter tedious dogshit that spends far too much time on exposition that doesn't even add up most of the time. I haven't played Death Stranding, but no MGS game since then has shown itself to be nearly as clever with its ideas and themes as 2 and the character, storytelling and plot writing hasn't improved (in fact I'd argue it's gotten worse as of MGS5), so I don't have much of a reason to think this game will be any different.

[@Alex_Logan22]

Japan definitely praised both MGS2 and Raiden day 1. Raiden had a badass VO though.

[@JG-ib7xk]

The issue with Kojima is all his writing sounds like it was written by a Freshman Philosophy student with the sense of humor of a 12 year old. He knows some basic Philosophical concepts but never gets very deep in to them, and then sprinkles it with pee and poo jokes and some tits to finish it off

[@twistedoperator4422]

Dan now loves Death Stranding. Dude has ADHD.

[@goldenjoel8566]

Wait really? Link?

[@Kevon420]

His original take on the game was about 100x better to say the least.

[@AStrokesOdyssey]

If you loved Metal Gear Solid, and hated Death Stranding, I think you might have been loving Metal Gear Solid for the wrong reasons.

[@robrick9361]

The MGS games are so clunky and poorly designed and if any other developer did even half of what they got away with everyone would demolish them, yet for some reason MGS gets a pass.

[@PeterTeal77]

Lay out what you think are the right and wrong reasons though.

[@Kevon420]

or you like good games and dislike bad ones.

[@witchy4486]

Dan is fucking hilarious

[@_lastnline5369]

They were so rude to Dan constantly.

[@Asblomma]

Man I can not WAIT until friday when I can start learning about the game and do absolutely EVERYTHING this game has to offer!

[@bergbjorn]

Can not wait to play this and meet Miles Prower, V. Pien, Eftee Py and the rest of the crew.

[@cryssnail]

Wow, I was really not expecting Dan to hate it that much. Of course, I had no idea what this game even was, so...

[@HandlesSuck123]

It was fairly obvious that he was going to hate it from the moment gameplay was shown. If he really disliked RDR2, there was no doubt he was going to dislike a delivery simulator.

[@Sammo212]

J i think most of us figured there was a twist...but there isn’t

[@AlexFurry]

I just think it's neat.

[@baconatorrodriguez4651]

Like a big potato.

[@specknacken6507]

Hideo Kojima hasn't made a passionate game with a thoroughly thought out vision which was non-divisive and well received by both critics and fans since MGS3 15 years ago.

[@TheBatman582]

I would GREATLY disagree with you on that one. MGS3 may be seen by most fans as the best game in the series now, but I distinctly remember right after the game first came out & even in the immediate years that followed it that MGS3 was greatly disliked by a lot of people. 3's gameplay is arguably the most unintuitive of the series with its systems since you constantly have to pause the game to heal up Snake's wounds, eat something, and change out your camo, and I knew a lot of people who disliked it due to the hassle the gameplay management was. I think people also took issue with it being a prequel to the entire series, and it was hard to know at the time how important it's events would ultimately be in the overall MG canon. Then of course we all know how hated & disliked 2 was due to it subverting so much of what people wanted, including it's misleading marketing. MGS1 I feel was the last truly universally beloved game he made.

[@timekeeper2538]

Huh opinions CAN be incorrect it seems

[@GotProtectionPCITBACKTOGETHER]

Sounds like Matt aka BoozerTV is talking in this podcast

[@HousePlant_Ambient]

Bought this fucking game on day one. Now, I am over 50 hours and Episode 6, I’m pretty much done. It is fucking tedious, and I was done having to again deliver packages. I have three other games that I put to the side (that were highly praised) just to focus on this. I feel like yeah, I’m done. Now playing Fallen Order and good god how amazing that game and just refreshing.

[@JG-ib7xk]

Complaining about a game you played for 50 hours..... Why did you even get that far in to it?

[@timekeeper2538]

Poor guy actually called Fallen Order refreshing vs. Death Stranding 😂

[@jazzyb9688]

I cried after playing this game last week, and I still couldn't get over. I couldn't listen to BB's theme without being emotional. I'm getting a Platinum trophy for this.

[@JG-ib7xk]

Is it that bad?

[@jazzyb9688]

@@JG-ib7xk I Platinum'd this game~

[@HeliosEclipsed]

I'm not on board with the Ryckert (or Gerstmann, for that matter) school of "I must always be doing something cool and awesome or it's a ZERO OUT OF TEN!!" But nothing about this game's announcement or slow drip of reveal made me want to play it. That TGS presentation last month was just the final straw that broke me of my default interest in seeing what Kojima's next game was going to be like. None of this is surprising, sadly, but I was really rooting for a spectacle. I hoped the game would be either A.) Great or B.) such an embarrassment of self-indulgence that even the Kojima faithful would have to admit its problems or else (metaphorically) hang themselves with their own defense. I was especially looking forward to hearing Dan break his own back trying to love this game. I'm simultaneously proud of his integrity and disappointed that he wasn't more entertaining. Still, I have faith in certain corners of the internet providing us with the apologist scree that this game seems designed to elicit.

[@timekeeper2538]

So turns out Death Stranding is a profitable success and Kojima now has 3 videogame projects and a Death Stranding movie in the works....

[@burneraccount1218]

I don't get why people are criticizing this game for having endless circular exposition and on-the-nose metaphors: That's what Metal Gear Solid is. That's what most Japanese games are! Its what the Final Fantasy games are all like. Its what Kingdom Hearts is like. They all have some kind of very basic, generic sci-fi or fantasy premise but they use massive amounts of over written, convoluted expository dialogue to make it look like something more. Its a smokescreen used to blur the image and make you think you're looking at something more complicated. Now for some reason I guess the trick isn't working? I think its probably because this game doesn't have the words "Metal Gear Solid" on the box; its not actually connected to a franchise people have a nostalgia bias to so the smokescreen inherently can't affect people as much.

[@milboxr9772]

It's because it doesn't have any gameplay to fall back on

[@sainuudotcom]

Recommend BUT...

[@killerdls]

It makes me feel weird when they shit on kojimas intelligence cause he’s making a Japanese anime game but with american actors written in Japanese translated into English. He’s trying to write a game people will understand in a language he doesn’t speak.

[@HeliosEclipsed]

I don't think their complaints are about awkward phrasing, or a message lost in translation, but with fundamental storytelling. They cite the utterly shallow simplicity of the "philosophy" Kojima is so often fascinated with, as well as the repetitive and droning exposition through which he delivers it. Now in fairness, I see that sort of storytelling in a lot of Japanese writing (games and anime and movies), so I think it must be more acceptable to people there, but in most western storytelling traditions, "telling, not showing" is considered to be poor form. Long-winded and repetitive exposition from the first act through the last is not a very engaging way to tell a story. The Beasters here are expressing how exasperated it makes them feel (and I happen to agree with them, FWIW).

[@paulpivaral4832]

lol seriously bro...what do you owe kojima ??? "makes me feel weird" GTFO with that

[@DDLYVNM]

This isn't the first game he has made and sounds like it is the worst written. Not much of an excuse.

[@killerdls]

Paul Pivaral I’m not saying they are racist or anything. I just think kojima wanted American actors to be the stars but wrote the game in Japanese.

[@Alex_Logan22]

@@HeliosEclipsed I've always enjoyed that approach due to how insanely detailed evey cutscene plays out. The longer the exposition, the more absorbed you get into the characters models and environments, really feeling them. And even in the tapes or codecs, I love the lore expansion and philosophical/history lessons. More has always meant more with Kojima IMO.

[@LonelyGamr]

Rather play NMS

[@Kiskey]

Y'all chumps and Boomers, DS is sick nasty! I love it so much it helped me get over my depression and my aids.

[@jamesmc2196]

ok boomer

[@Asblomma]

I would take the words of "game journo's" who either barely scratched the surface of the game or scrambled through it to finish it in time for a god damn podcast with a grain of salt. Or a pound!

[@HunterASR]

Unprofessional, change job

[@P4shaPlays]

Stupid, delete account.