Topic: Death Stranding OT

@Jaz007 What chapter did you make it to?

It’s true that when you go to the snowy mountains, it gets really tough and the gameplay can drag for some people. I didn’t really think so, but I could see how the slower pace and increased difficulty could make people want to give up. But the game trickles in new traversal mechanics and it really just keeps you having to strategize every step of the way. It’s a combination of action-stealth combat, third person shooting, strategy game, open world with side questing, world building and simulation, and story driven. The online part of the game is just fantastic as well and also quite unique, although it’s inspired by Dark Souls and ... Minecraft? No, Animal Crossing? No, I don’t know — whatever other game has other people able to build structures that populate your game.

Anyways, I try not to gush too much about it, but I can’t help myself. I’m pretty sure my next play session will be my last with it, so I’m saving it for when I have a big chunk of time so that I can play through to the end unimpeded with time to relish the conclusion. Unfortunately, that won’t happen probably for a while since I have a trip this week away from home.

@Th3solution I'm just past or at the end of the snowy mountians. I thought it was great for the game. It's a pain and it should be. It drags on and tortures (I got past the worst of it") for a while, but it really makes you feel apprehensive as you don't have BB to help you. You have to slowly go through an area just feeling uncomfortable. It really helps you appreciate BB that much and makes him feel like a vital partner. It might bother some people, but since there's an artistic and narrative purpose to it I'm fully in support of it. There's a big difference between painfully bad (or a dip in quality) and meaningful through pain gameplay and story.

@Jaz007 Totally agree. After doing the snowy mountains the early part of the game seems so easy too. I can’t believe I worried about crossing a little stream in the first section. It’s almost humorous to go back and see the ladders and bridges that were placed over simple little streams and gullies that are so easy to just walk across compared to the snow filled canyons and deep crevasses of the second half of the game.

So it sounds like you made it not too far from the end yourself. If you’ve made it through that part, you are sort of on the downhill ... well, sort of. I won’t spoil anything but you should really pick it back up. It would also be interesting to see if you have a bunch of likes on your structures that have been sitting around. Or maybe most of them have been destroyed by timefall by now.

Finished off a few days ago, after picking it up in the Days of Play sale. I didn't find the snow sections too bad at all, even on hard. I just took a load of PCCs with me when I left Heartman's and set up zip lines. I could get all the way around the geologist, paleontologist, and Heartman door to door on zip lines. To get to the mountaineer you just had to hammer it up the hill on a motorbike. BTs can't catch you on vehicles. .

I think things can be made easier depending on what you've unlocked at the non-story preppers. I had the rain cover from the Collector, and had already found the roboticist and unlocked lvl 3 terrain skeletons from the non-snowy side. Without those it would have been much much harder..

For about the first 30/40 hours it was a 10/10, but the last sections dropped it to an 8 I think. Those last missions where you have to run all the way back across the map, half of it with no equipment, and do the exact same endless boss fight against Unger for the third time, were just a bit of a kick in the balls.

Oh yes they can! I've been caught on the motorcycle or in the truck plenty of times.

Sorry, misspoke slightly. As long as you don't drive straight into them, you can drive past them quickly, even making a noise. Just have to be careful. That always worked for me anyway.

@LieutenantFatman Laying the ground-work now before Friday, what was your favourite part of the first two chapters of the game? I've played through those previously.

@Draco_V_Ecliptic
Favourite part there would probably be starting to learn the mechanics of the game and figuring out effective ways to cross the terrain. Felt like the start of an exciting and unique adventure. And it was!

@Draco_V_Ecliptic My favorite part was probably just soaking up the environment and the music. The game does an excellent job of just creating great emotion and attachment to Sam and the visuals are so calming and also treacherous. The music is fantastically done and add to the ambiance. And it only gets better from there.

@Th3solution Last time I played it I completed the prologue, episode 1 and part of episode 2, how far did I get before based on what you and @colonelkilgore know of the game? On a side note, I just restarted it after it arrived today, I am aiming on investing some time into it and getting to the end this time.

@TheBrandedSwordsman You didn't get too far. There are 16 episodes in total, excluding the prologue.

@TheBrandedSwordsman

Been a while since I played Death Stranding... it was one of the few games I played on its release. I’d imagine you just got to, or were about to get to the ‘main’ map area (the first map area is quite small and kind of an introductory space).

I played it through and done absolutely everything, built a map-wide zip line network, fully created all the highways etc, s ranked every delivery and I probably clocked around 100-150 hours. You can probably just play through the story at about 40-60 hours though I’d imagine.

@colonelkilgore @Octane Yeah, I figured I was fairly early on in the game, but hey ho, it doesn't really matter then. I think I will try to do everything in the game as well, colonel. The game reminds me of Half-Life, what with the suits and the scientific and technological mechanics of the game, do you think it was influenced by that game?

@TheBrandedSwordsman never played any of the Half Life series, though I think one of them is in The Orange Box which I have on PS3. Heard they are stoned cold classics but never got around to them. In terms of Death Strandings inspiration, that’s a good question. I kinda feel it’s inspiration probably comes more from film and anime than other games. Even then though I don’t think there is any one thing to which it owes a great deal. For some reason I get a Ridley Scott-vibe from it... I can’t put my finger on why but it ‘feels’ a little Alien-y or Prometheus-y in tone (though quite different in theme). It maybe takes a little from Tarkovsky and then a bit from Vonnegut too... but it’s definitely it’s own thing.

I think it’s definitely a good idea that you intend to do pretty much everything. For me making my own fun (choosing things to do that had nothing to do with prescribed objectives) was where the game absolutely shone. Let me know how you get on with it as it is definitely not for everyone but hopefully you’ll be one of the gamers who get a lot out of it.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, Lovecraftian horror, I think Alien was kinda inspired by that as well. Sci-Fi horror. It's not really a horror game, but it borrows themes and elements from it for sure.

@Octane yeah I suppose that there is some Lovecraft in there too. I agree that it isn’t a horror ‘game’ (as horror games seem to have some very particular aspects to them) but if DS were a film or a show, I think it would be thought of as sci-fi horror. Strange how a difference in medium alters a perspective on genre.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, though so wouldn't have a problem classifying it as Sci-Fi horror as a game either. Sci-Fi horror doesn't really rely on the jump scares, or scary creatures per se, but it also tends to rely heavily on on the psychological side of horror. Games like SOMA would obviously be a better fit, but still; Sci-Fi horror lite in that case!

Though I completely forgot about the fact that Death Stranding is a strand-type game, so there goes my argument!

@Octane yeah as much as I love Kojima, I never bought into this whole ‘strand’ genre he loved to talk up.

@TheBrandedSwordsman Glad to see you’re getting along with the game so far. Are you enjoying it more this time than your first attempt to play it?
Once you get to the part of the game where you have more options to build structures and the connect to the online community, that’s when the game really gets phenomenal, in my opinion. I forget exactly how the chapters break down, but I feel like it’s chapter 6 or so where I was totally enthralled. I’ll admit there is a slight drag toward the end where it becomes ever so slightly repetitive, but then the conclusion really ramps things up story wise. I look forward to hearing what you think.

@LieuetenantFatman @colonelkilgore @Th3solution I just burned Bridget's corpse at the incinerator and am currently making my way back to base I am very impressed with the game thus far and didn't remember much from my previous playthrough so it is like going in afresh, like I said, I didn't get very far last time so I am looking forward to breaking new ground in Episode 2/3. Great game, though, I am starting to "connect" to Sam already.