mantralux

"It’s far too easy, too – the lack of consequence for failure makes it feel like you’re just going through the motions"

This is what I was worried about. Looks great visually but after my disappointment with Death Stranding I'm gonna give this one a pass.

I genuinely don't understand how this game has received good reviews. It feels extremely linear and the maps are tiny. Not what I was expecting from a AAA game in 2019 to be honest.

7.4 seems pretty spot on to me. Amazing visuals but story was mediocre and endgame pacing was awful.

I don't mind the primary storyline being shorter than W3, as long as you CAN sink many more dozens of hours into it if you wish (via sidequests and sandbox stuff, similar to how you can clear a map in W3).

Have to say I was very impressed with the stability of the game from day one. Never experienced any bugs or crashes through the entire game. If only other studios were as diligent.

@Constable_What

"You've done absolutely nothing to show how it's objectively bad writing"

I've literally given you multiple examples.

"I also never said the story was complex either. I see you're putting words in my mouth because you lack a cohesive argument."

You tried explaining the underlying themes to me as if you were sitting on some unique insight into the complexity of a story that is simply not that complicated.

"Why is he an awful writer?"

Because he writes objectively awful lines like "I'm Fragile but I'm not that fragile" and evidently thinks this line is so brilliant and key to the story that he has included it at least three times in the script. That is one example of many.

"Just look at the Cliff flashbacks! Those were very well written and acted!"

Acting is not my criticism. Writing is. Nothing wrong with the acting.

"Is it? I interpreted that as an abstraction on Sam's part"

...so why does he have scars on his stomach that hints at something being taken out of him?

"You probably think you're very clever rehashing what I've wrote to suit your own narrative."

No I am just showing you how silly that position is to take, by using the same mechanics against you. I am glad we both agree that this was a silly attempt at some internet win for you.

Here's the problem: you're a Kojima fanboy that has clearly invested too much time into this game. In order for you to feel like that time was well spent you need to defend the game even if you know it was poorly written (or "corny" as you put it). You will stop at nothing, overreaching into erroneously comparing Kojima to Kubrick. It's clear you have a weak grasp of cinema in general, and an awful grasp of cinematic storytelling specifically.

At no point in this discussion have you actually provided a coherent argument as to why Death Stranding's story was "brilliant". All you have done is provide faux interpretations, pretending that Death Stranding offers something more than it does.

The fact remains: the story is objectively poorly written. I know you don't like my examples since they prove my point, but I didn't write "Mario and Princess Beach" - your idol did.

You can excuse this tar pit of a story all you want, but we both know the story and the script are mediocre at best. It's the dumbest storyline I have ever played in a game by a mile, and most people found it both corny and unclear.

There are dozens of plot holes, and you have chosen to ignore them all in order to defend wasting 100+ hours into a game written by someone with the storytelling skills of a three year old.

@LN78 True, sorry about that.

@Constable_What

Listen. I've never seen someone so desperately try to defend bad writing in my life as you are doing here. From the use of recently-Googled technical terms to recommending further reading. You're like a Lost fan, trying to shoehorn explanations into a subpar storyline that was clearly made up on a whim.

"So the story is bad because of two lines of dialogue"

No, because of 40+ hours of poorly written dialogue. Not just two lines.

"Heartman is a little on the nose, but it works. The man has a broken heart. Get it?"

Everything in Death Stranding is on the nose, which is my point. You're not sitting on some unique insight into the game - we all got what Kojima attempted to do. Everything from connections to naming convention of characters. The analogies and messaging wasn't as complex as you make it out to be.

The problem is that the storyline is bad. The lines are amateurish. Kojima introduced visuals that he never explains (why is there a baby in Sam's stomach when he dies? or do I have to sludge through hours of "emails" and "interviews" [supplemental storyline] to find out?)

"I don't know if you've played any of Kojima's other games, but the dialogue is always silly in moments."

Yes, because he's an awful writer. Brilliant game designer and visionary, but awful writer. As evidenced by Death Stranding.

So in that respect, glad I could help you understand why Death Stranding is objectively a poorly written story packaged in an exceptional visual package.

@MightyDemon82

So you're saying there are no plot holes in Death Stranding?

@Constable_What

Talk about reading 100x more into the story than what Kojima actually wrote. This is all a nice interpretation of yours, but it's not what was presented to most people over the course of 40-100+ hours.

Lines like "Because I'm Fragile. But I'm not that fragile." could have been excused if it wasn't for the fact that she says it at least three times in the main storyline as far as I counted. And lines like "Mario and Princess Beach" are ridiculous, at best.

And hey, Mr Die-Hardman's real name was John McClane. Brilliant writing. He was also called Die-Hardman when he was a soldier because...and let me get this right...Unger saved him many times so he was hard to kill...so he's Die-Hardman. Ok. He then goes undercover with the president but using the same nickname he had before that. Ok...

And hey, Heartman has something wrong with his heart. His heart is also actually heart-shaped. And he lives by a lake that is shaped like a heart. Brilliant writing! looks into camera and gives you 20 likes

And Fragile's plotline the entire story was to find out why Higgs betrayed her. That is handled offscreen for some reason, and when Sam asks her at the end why he betrayed her she gives a complete non-answer. Brilliant writing.

"But you didn't pay attention to every single details for 40+ hours, including the emails" is not an excuse for bad writing. Most people are confused as to major plot mechanics. Is that their fault or the fault of the person writing it?

@JoeBlogs It would be like me saying the graphics in Death Stranding are awful. It's objectively not correct.

@JoeBlogs

Please don't make the mistake of believing that the quality of storytelling is 100% subjective.

@Shigurui

I read a normal amount I would say. Not everything, but maybe a third of what was lazily sent over as rewards for delivering 32kg of photography equipment to a hologram in the mountains.

I'm not playing a game to read emails. If the story can't be adequately conveyed by character interactions then something must have gone wrong in the script.

I finished the game so I obviously don't think the game was bad overall. But anyone claiming that the storyline was brilliant must suffer from serious delusions.

@MightyDemon82

We must have played different games. Story-wise it's the dumbest game I have ever played. Kojima relies on "Sam I have to tell you something" mechanics through the entire story.

You are thrown into a world that is never explained, and expected to be surprised at twists that means nothing to you, because relationships are never explained (until the last five minutes of the story). Why am I casually chatting with the president? Play 40 hours to find out.

At one stage the game explicitly says you're now playing the final boss fight. But the game carries on for another few hours after that, with no end in sight. It literally shows end credits on two occasions, hours apart.

An absolute visual masterpiece but story-wise it beyond amateur.

The only problem with this game is that it's too short. Would have loved a sandbox mode that gets activated after the main story, similar to Anno or other strategy building games. Would have been cool to be able to create new cities and build a network to try and restart humanity.

Free advice: don't buy any Razer products. I made the mistake of buying Razer PS4 controllers on two separate occasions and both times have been an absolute nightmare.

For the first controller the USB cable snapped at the connection but since Razer made a proprietary connection on the controller I had to get a new cable from Razer specifically...but when I contacted their customer support I was told that the cables aren't sold separately. Ok so I got a bricked controller. £150 down the toilet.

I then made a second mistake and got the Razer Raiju a year later. At first I was happy with the controller but over time I noticed that certain menu items on FIFA wouldn't trigger. Hooked it up to a PC to check the analog calibration and the left stick does not track fully between left and down. Another bricked controller, this time £200 down the toilet.

Will never again buy anything from Razer.

Pandering to the 0.000001% of people who think they are transgender is "inclusive", apparently.

I was actually pretty underwhelmed with the VR aspect. It's extremely blurry and low-res. Cockpit looks great but I don't get that WHOAH flying feeling that I get from taking off in Ultrawings.

Teleporting everywhere also breaks the fourth wall to me, it's annoying that to turn my body I have to click buttons. Breaks immersion completely.

Ended up taking off the VR set and just playing normally.

@majklpetr I mean...no one is forcing you to play FUT. New career mode looks great. Just play that to avoid the pay-to-play stuff.

@majklpetr Only if you play FUT. Plenty of other ways to play FIFA.

@Shigurui Customer support is trash, but build quality on the Raiju Ultimate is definitely very good.

I've used one of these for FIFA in the last few months. One annoying detail is that the square button is too close to the touch pad, so I often accidentally hit the touch pad during a furious slide tackle, putting the game into spectator mode (not good).

Another issue is that wireless has noticeable input lag, although that doesn't bother me too much as I always play wired. For £200 you'd expect more solid wireless play though.

Another issue is that it seems there is no way to update the firmware without having a Windows machine. I play PS4 only, no Windows machine available. So I seem to be stuck on old dodgy firmware forever. Which is a shame, because the iOS app is pretty good - would have made more sense if you could upgrade the firmware via the app.

Love the weight and build of it though, and love the magnetic interchangeable parts.

The controls are outrageously bad (the fact that L2 is both draw+aim AND interact drives me insane) and the time goes way too fast (sunsets last 6 seconds, immediately takes me out of the immersion)...but those two things are my only problems. Rest is an absolute masterpiece.

I would assume it allows spaceships to go below the oceans and explore massive underground caves and such.

Why even use versioning if you're not gonna adhere to the industry standards? Naming a minor system improvements release using a major release number just goes against the whole point of having versioning formats in the first place. They're supposed to denote the type of release (major, minor, bug fix, etc), not just be sequential for no reason.

@JJ2 This article was the first I heard about it...I'm just talking about the screenshots being vastly different, I'm not really fussed about the size of the puddles. There is definitely a reduction in graphics quality, especially when it comes to shadows and lighting.

...I mean there is a clear difference in the screenshots you have provided? The E3 one clearly has more shadows enabled, much better lighting effects, and the puddles do reflect more than in the second screenshot. It's not really a matter of opinion, the screenshots are vastly different. It's nothing to do with compression.

The only thing I didn't like was the vehicle physics, I had the same issue in Uncharted. The cars are just too fast and flimsy and don't seem to have any weight to them. It makes it a bit silly looking.

@fabisputza00 Why does that annoy you? If you don't like it, don't buy it.

@tomassi Agreed, it's too cringey. I'd prefer it to be more extended cutscenes for direct actions like moving clubs and such, not a forced path where you have to play for LA Galaxy or Real Madrid.

All I want is to be able to change my PSN username. All other features can wait.

Hopefully they will include the previous two chapters in FIFA 19 so you can play through the whole thing in one game.

As for FIFA 20, I wish they turn The Journey into more of a free-flow career mode that isn't as scripted.

@sonicmeerkat Cool, and now make a list of everything that was in at launch.

Definitely going back. My favourite part about NMS was always the first few hours when it was about pure survival. Too bad it's too quick and too easy going from crashed pilot with no skills to having freighters and bases everywhere.

Definitely going back. My favourite part about NMS was always the first few hours when it was about pure survival. Too bad it's too quick and too easy going from crashed pilot with no skills to having freighters and bases everywhere.

Definitely going back. My favourite part about NMS was always the first few hours when it was about pure survival. Too bad it's too quick and too easy going from crashed pilot with no skills to having freighters and bases everywhere.

Definitely going back. My favourite part about NMS was always the first few hours when it was about pure survival. Too bad it's too quick and too easy going from crashed pilot with no skills to having freighters and bases everywhere.

Anthem looks like the perfect mixture of Destiny and Monster Hunter World for me, looks like solid fun even though it's far from unique in any way (apart from perhaps the verticality and scale in the maps).

I happen to be female and I have been gaming my entire life. Not once have I felt odd about playing as a white male protagonist. I also don't have to be saved from some imaginary oppression by Sony.

@Orpheus79V Has it been confirmed that FIFA are getting Champions League this year?

I genuinely do not understand the 10/10. Graphics and acting is great, and it's a very well-made game technically...but the combat system is confusing (why go non-standard?), it's extremely linear, and some opportunities to create atmosphere are lost due to gameplay (boat moving at 60mph for example). Don't get me wrong it's a very good game, but there is no way it should get a 10/10 in my opinion.

@Octane I've only done a few hours (currently at the lake after the witch's house). But again, so far it's been quite underwhelming for a 10/10 game. And if it does become open world soon it still has to compete against other open world games.

@GraveLordXD I'd say Breath of the Wild deserved a 10/10 for many reasons. Uniqueness, scope, progression, innovation, etc. Witcher 3 was a magical game but suffered with technical issues for a very long time. But taking all its expansions into account and judging it how it runs today, I'd be willing to give it 10/10 as well.

My point here is that by giving God of War 10/10, you are saying that it's on par with those two games. Which, in my opinion, is not even close to being true. It has impressive graphics but what does God of War do that Uncharted 4 or Tomb Raider didn't? God of War has essentially the exact same format as those two games. Cut scene, fight, cut scene, puzzle, cut scene, fight, etc. Even the boat scenes in God of War feel eerily like the car scenes in Uncharted 4.

The relationship between the protagonist and his son is a unique take on a storyline, but is that mechanism alone worth 10/10?

@Octane No I'm just saying that a 10/10 game for me has to be a perfect experience. God of War is too limiting and linear in my opinion. Which would be fine if it offered something completely unique compared to all other third-person linear adventure games like Tomb Raider or Uncharted. But it just follows the same format as those games, in a different setting.

@dark_knightmare2 I mean the game is good, but impressive graphics and the one-shot camera gimmick is still not enough for me to suggest it should be GOTY. I'm sure I'm only in the prologue bits but the game would have to turn drastically for me to change my 7/10 to a 10/10. It has to be on par with Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild and Horizon in terms of open areas, progression and storyline for that to happen and I just can't see that happening.

7 or 8 out of 10 I would understand simply because of the technical achievements + well-written storyline and well-crafted characters. But when the half-god protagonist can't even climb a waist-high ledge because it would take him away from the linear game path it doesn't exactly help with immersion. This is what Breath of the Wild did so well, it always felt like you could go anywhere.

And maybe it's just me but I see no innovation in the game outside of the technical ones. Sure the axe is multi-use for both combat and puzzles, but it has been done before. The world feels small because the camera is one-shot so they traverse miles in minutes which again doesn't help with immersion.

I dunno, so far I'm not blown away.

Nothing amazing in my opinion (only 2-3 hours in). Very linear, same puzzle mechanics as in basically every other game. Cut scene + fight + cut scene + fight...solid 7/10 for me but I was expecting more innovation and more uniqueness for it to be game of the year. It's very pretty but it feels like I have seen and played the same game 100 times before, just in different settings.

I'm FIFA all the way but the best outcome for consumers would be if all football games were given equal license rights to all clubs and competitions. The competition in the market would push studios to compete on quality instead of quantity.

Dear Disney executives. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to become rich:

1. Give a Star Wars license to Project Red
2. Give them full creative license and five years to build a flagship Star Wars RPG set in the old republic for the PS5
3. Become billionaires

@Kidfried That's fine, it's not important whether you believe it or not.

@Kidfried No definitely a real article. Was in Swedish though, so maybe that's why you can't find it. Not everything is a conspiracy, I could have just easily just used it as a hypothetical example.