Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense

[Tuckers Law]

Repo Man is phenomenal, I’ll not have you sully that picture’s good name.   

[kingv]

drive is ok, bronson is good, valhalla rising is great

Yeah, I'd bump Bronson to great and say Neon Demon is great as well. The Pusher trilogy are worth a watch as well. I hate Only God Forgives and from what little I saw of TOTDY I dislike that as well. But dude legit made some good movies.

Speaking of, spoilers for the most punchable man on the planet in Death Stranding:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

So Nicholas Wending Refn dies every 21 minutes by self inducing cardiac arrest to look for his family in the after life so he does a 20 minute monologue, dies, I hang out in his living room for 3 minutes, comes back for another 20 minutes, dies, so on and so forth

[close]

This game fully won me over, even the gameplay loop is much better through the new equipment you unlock and the community online shit being legitimately great. Building a zip line network with randos to zip through everything

I fully admit to eating crow, this shit bangs.

I’m not sure how far it goes, but I would think it’s cool for the game to get traversal to like a trivially easy level after the community gets enough stuff built and beats a path down.

[thetylerrob]

Welp, just read that the second season of TOTDY is #cancelled.

There was never a chance that Amazon was gonna pick that up for another season, it was absolutely buried upon release.

[BlueTsunami]

To be a fly on the wall when Refn revealed, for the first time, one of those panning shots

I just have to say, that show was MADE for being altered. It's fucking dread inducing and the weirdness is turned up to 11. It really evokes some scary shit when you're in it.

[Don Rumata]

Yeah Refn is very much like Kojima hilariously enough. He just doesn't have the same need to exposit everything all the time, Although he probably lingers way too much in the same way Kojima tends to explain too much.

If anime and jrpgs are anything to go by, that's a Japanese thing, more than a Kojima thing. 
Reason why i couldn't get more than 2 hours into Persona 5, everything had to be explained 5 times.

[paprikastaude]

[thisismyusername]

Yeah Refn is very much like Kojima hilariously enough. He just doesn't have the same need to exposit everything all the time, Although he probably lingers way too much in the same way Kojima tends to explain too much.

If anime and jrpgs are anything to go by, that's a Japanese thing, more than a Kojima thing. 
Reason why i couldn't get more than 2 hours into Persona 5, everything had to be explained 5 times.

It's definitely a japanese storytelling thing but I see it more out of Kojima than I do a lot of work IMO. Another is harping on a word over and over, though I really liked Nier Automata I really didn't need to hear "Memories" every other sentence.

DARPA chief : A weapon with the ability to launch a nuclear attack from any
              place on the face of the earth.  A nuclear equipped, walking
              battle tank.

Snake       : Metal Gear!?  It can't be!

DARPA chief : ... You knew!?  Metal Gear is one of the most secret black
              projects!  How did you know that?

Snake       : We've had a couple of run-ins in the past.  So that's the reason
              you were here at this disposal site?

DARPA chief : Why else would I come to a God-forsaken place like this.

Snake       : I had heard the Metal Gear project was scrapped.

DARPA chief : On the contrary, it has grown into a huge joint project between
              ArmsTech and ourselves.  We were going to use this exercise as
              raw data and then proceed to mass production.  If it hadn't been
              for the revolution.

Snake       : Revolution... ?

DARPA chief : Rex has fallen into the hands of terrorists.

Snake       : Rex?


(A guard takes notice of the converstaion in the cell and slowly creeps
to the door.)


DARPA chief : Metal Gear Rex, the codename for the new Metal Gear prototype.
              They're probably already finished aiming the warhead they plan to
              use with Rex.  These guys are pros.  They're all experienced in
              handling and equipping weapons.


(The guard bangs on the door.)


Guard       :  Hey! Shut up in there will ya!

-----

I think it's a translation quirk, but I don't know the original Japanese lines to confirm my suspicions.

[tiesto]

Yeah Refn is very much like Kojima hilariously enough. He just doesn't have the same need to exposit everything all the time, Although he probably lingers way too much in the same way Kojima tends to explain too much.

If anime and jrpgs are anything to go by, that's a Japanese thing, more than a Kojima thing. 
Reason why i couldn't get more than 2 hours into Persona 5, everything had to be explained 5 times.

It's definitely a japanese storytelling thing but I see it more out of Kojima than I do a lot of work IMO. Another is harping on a word over and over, though I really liked Nier Automata I really didn't need to hear "Memories" every other sentence.

I'm so shitty at retaining information so I don't mind this at all tbh. I'm a bit more annoyed when in certain games with large casts, every character needs to say their piece about the current happenings.

[thetylerrob]

Pretty sure the guy that translated MGS1 has said that it's a translation quirk and that's why it's gotten worse in every Kojima title after the first one (Konami started skimping on localizers). Japanese is more concise I think, so it probably sounds more natural to them than in English where it sounds overly wordy.

[nachobro]

what's with the weird rivalry with flight simulator games

https://twitter.com/jez7780/status/1193539042509496320

https://twitter.com/AEGRO/status/1192206844883873794

death stranding is sony, flight sim is ms. these clowns still console warring as grown men

[Svejk]

What kind of sorcery is this game and why can't I play enough of it? 

[Pissy F Benny]

I watched some cut scenes on YouTube and it seems like the kind of complete nonsense I want from a Kojima game, I hope it goes cheap quick because the gameplay is very  to me.

[HardcoreRetro]

Why not just watch the damn thing on Youtube then?

[Rufus]

Pretty sure the guy that translated MGS1 has said that it's a translation quirk and that's why it's gotten worse in every Kojima title after the first one (Konami started skimping on localizers). Japanese is more concise I think, so it probably sounds more natural to them than in English where it sounds overly wordy.

Japanese is more vauge, actually, but also more polite. The silly repetition is a consequence of the latter. Making reassurances that you're still listening is familiar to all of us, I think. A "mhm" and "yeah" here and there, maybe a clarifying question if you're generous. In Japanese, this is more frequent and can take the form of repeating a key word as a question. This can be obviated in text to make it more natural sounding outside of Japan, but MGS is fully voiced and cutscenes were timed to match the Japanese lines.

Jeremy Blaustein, who translated MGS, did take some liberties though; mainly with tone, quips and by adding military jargon. Things Kojima apparently did not appreciate.

When I read that Snake’s earpiece was just called a 無線機 (“wireless”), I tried to come up with something better for American players. I researched the problem for a significant amount of time before coming across something called a “codec” that I thought sounded cool. I had never heard the term before, but it sounded pretty official.

When Campbell told Snake that he would have to do 現地調達 (“acquire locally”) for his weapons, I knew I needed something that sounded like military jargon. The only problem is that no one in real life would ever put themselves in that situation if they could help it, so I coined the term OSP, or “on-site procurement,” which is still used to this day.

(...)

From what I heard at the time, Kojima began to hear that his work had been “tinkered” with. I’d argue there might have been a lack of appreciation for the needs of localization due to his not being bilingual, but he was not happy. As a result, all future Metal Gear games would be closely monitored for fidelity to the original Japanese script.

[Ed. note: Konami declined to comment when contacted about this story.]

This approach resulted in lines like: “I won’t scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea. I will always be with you. Plant your roots in me. I won’t see you end as ashes. You’re all diamonds.”

There's also an interesting interview with Agness Kaku, the translator of MGS2, who had to deal with some of the fallout from Kojima's clamp-down:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120125211117/http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/metalgear/agnesskaku.htm

And another interview with Blaustein:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120330110037/http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/jb/jb.htm

[kingv]

Finishing roads is so satisfying.

Also big daps when someone leaves a piece of gear higher than I can craft in a share locker.

[Pissy F Benny]

Why not just watch the damn thing on Youtube then?

Cos I feel like I’m missing out on something  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TVC15]

I could come over and bite your testicles for a few hours if you are sexually attractive.

[benjipwns]

[bork]

[thisismyusername]

(Image removed from quote.)

Please update the main site to this. Persona 4 is old as fuck now.

[bork]

https://twitter.com/Tsukisima/status/1194025343595634688

[benjipwns]

I love clips of this game, I can't watch anybody playing it for like more than two minutes straight or anything but all the Twitter clips and gifs are great. MGS V was similar.

Like this classic:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[nachobro]

watched some dude finish the game in russian the other day and it was kinda funny to just guess at the story. i did like that it does the mgs3 ladder thing of walking in essentially a straight line while some emotional song plays just so you can watch a long ass cutscene at the end.

[bork]

https://twitter.com/JordanFringe94/status/1193974584854355968

[nachobro]

Spend hours watching someone play a videogame in a language you don't understand...

.... we truly are fucked as a species.

1. It was one hour
2. I was high as fuck
3. Eat a dick

Probably made as much sense in russian as it did in english anyway Either way I'm cured of any interest to play the game now so it's a win/win.

[kingv]

I can tell you with certainty that every time the blonde chick eats a bug, she says “are you hungry?” Or “do you want one?”

[thisismyusername]

Spend hours watching someone play a videogame in a language you don't understand...

.... we truly are fucked as a species.

Shut the fuck up and post your hog you never shut the fuck up about.

[Tuckers Law]

Spend hours watching someone play a videogame in a language you don't understand...

.... we truly are fucked as a species.

I see you’ve never watched the original green demon challenge!  That shit is completely moon language for most people and it’s still amazing.

[Tasty]

Spend hours watching someone play a videogame in a language you don't understand...

.... we truly are fucked as a species.

If you haven't enjoyed GameCenter CX at some point you're just not a complete human being yet.

[TVC15]

So I just beat Death Stranding.

Was feeling like an 8 for a while there but bumping that shit back down to a 6, was thinking a 5 but had too much fun with it to justify it.

My reasons why it fell apart are:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The game had two solid ass end points that I would have went out feeling high on the game, but nah, it just had to keep going and going, worse than MGS4 in some respects. Hell way worse cause the very ending is a looooooong fucking cut scene that's 95% shit you've seen and been told already countless fucking times, exact same cut scenes just from a different angle but not to show you a new perspective, but the exact same shit

[close]

Wondered why I even should continue playing but then:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Credits rolled, and the last mission I got was "Waste time until the presidential inauguration" and i laughed for a solid 10 minutes

[close]

aight I'm done talking about this, I enjoyed it more than I thought, but it's issues just bother me too much

This is important: how long did it take you to beat in hours and about how much of that was side content/fucking around/not main story path?

[kingv]

You cannot play these games, if you play them as games you will be disappointed. You must experience them 

[TEEEPO]

i'm not exactly aching to play through this game despite being somewhat intrigued with the world and presentation after three or so hours in so learning about its long playtime is a huge turn off

[TVC15]

I was kind of tempted to suffer through it but I don’t think I can do 35+ hours of this Sorry guyz. Maybe this will inspire me to try MGSV again.

[TEEEPO]

yeaaa

[thisismyusername]

Phantom Pain is solid, IMO. The only issues is the fucking stupid timers on the upgrade (past the base game, the Konami added timers sucked shit) and the cut content. I easily put in 200 hours into the game with MGO, Singleplayer (being the base of this) and FOB's (second, but not as much).

[kingv]

This is important: how long did it take you to beat in hours and about how much of that was side content/fucking around/not main story path?

40-42 something hours. As far as side content I mostly stumbled into it and there was lost cargo near the prepper so ended up putting them on the network on my way to a story path lol

like 95% of my time was main story with the added caveat that I took some time to build some roads and ziplines and whatever.

You cannot play these games, if you play them as games you will be disappointed. You must experience them 

Funny you say that, as the part I do enjoy about it is mostly playing around in it, I did enjoy most cut scenes for being bad up until the very end as I described. The biggest issue is literally only one character is any good in Higgs, because I'm pretty sure troy Baker is the only person who understood what Kojima's work actually is so he hams it the motherfuck up and it's the best.

So far I’m really enjoying Mads Mikkelsen too. But I’m just nearing what I think is the end of episode 3.

Mostly I think the story is interesting, even if I can tell it’s going to be at least partly dumb. But i will say I can at least follow it. I’m not sure I can say that about anything post MGS3 from kojima.

[OnlyRegret]

MGSV was excellent gameplay wise and the beginning bit. Being effectively incomplete and Kojima running amok in some instances brought it down.
People give Kojima too much credit and not enough to the people who make his shit sensible.

[kingv]

Yeah, there was plenty of bad in MGS5. Imo too many missions were kind of boring... and definitely I felt the repetition in the last half.

Go to half the same areas and do almost the same mission.

Imo, the best infiltration mission was actually... Ground Zeroes.

[thisismyusername]

Ground Zeroes shows what Phantom Pain would've been if Konami actually sat on their asses and let Kojima finish his middleware for them.

[Don Rumata]

Ground Zeroes shows what Phantom Pain would've been if Konami actually sat on their asses and let Kojima finish his middleware for them.

I think he just bit more than he could chew as a first time open world+new engine+new generation(hybrid, but still).
Even if you factor in ep. 51, MGSV is a mess, and it's a mess because the scale is handled poorly, despite having great ideas.
GZ works perfectly, by comparison, exactly because it's missing a lot of the shit that makes MGSV so ambitious (and such a failure) from the massive interconnected map, to MotherBase.

Nevertheless, it's painfully clear that, from a story standpoint, MGS just had nothing else to give, the game already took 80+ millions to make, plus years of development, more time wasn't going to save it.

[thisismyusername]

I dunno. Another year development time would've given Episode 51 and Chapter 3: Peace. Might call me hopeful, but I do think those just sitting around (well, 51 was concept arted) Kojima would've finished the story in a year. I feel a lot of Phantom Pain (and Ground Zeroes by proxy) problem is that the Fox Engine was meant to be middleware. But outside of Phantom Pain, only PES is using it.

I think that's partially on Kojima thinking Konami was sticking in the console/PC business, when it was clear they wanted to get out. So bad timing.

[TVC15]

At this point in Kojima's career, MGSV probably would have been worse if he got to finish it. Who knows what lunacy he would have pinned on the asexuals if left unrestrained?

[Don Rumata]

Hey you can see exactly what Ep.51 was supposed to be on Youtube, it was a better finale than repeating the intro, sure, but it was just that, a closing climax/set piece.
The story problems and game design problems up to that point are much greater than a bad ending, to my eyes.

Too few ideas spread too thin, too little story spread too thin, too little character development (for any of the characters involved) spread too thin.
A better finale wouldn't have made Quiet or Skullface actually worth a shit, wouldn't have made the skull babes a decent enemy, and wouldn't have gave the game decent bosses.
They still would've needed to repeat all the missions to stretch the run time, they still would've left the map mostly under utilized, etc etc.

I'm a "bigger = better" kinda guy when it comes to open world games, but if there's one exception in my mind, it's MGSV.
It's should've been a series of small, GZ-style maps, pretty much like a Sniper Elite or Hitman of sort.

Simply because they just had no expertise or time to fill two massive, empty maps like they tried to do, and MGSV isn't a game that thrives in a contemplative pace (since you're dropped in with a clear objective every time, and extracted at its completion).

[TVC15]

OK you're talking me out of wanting to give MGSV another shot now. Would it... look pretty on my PC?

[bluemax]

OK you're talking me out of wanting to give MGSV another shot now. Would it... look pretty on my PC?

I feel like that game looked pretty bad on PS4 and it wasn't a hardware issue so much as an art issue.

I was kind of tempted to suffer through it but I don’t think I can do 35+ hours of this Sorry guyz. Maybe this will inspire me to try MGSV again.

The reviews all said this was ~40 hours just to finish the story and 60+ to 100% it. It doesn't feel like it should be that long but the mechanics help bloat it out.

[Don Rumata]

I like the naturalistic look of MGSV, and it runs very smooth, but it's an old gen game ported over, and it shows.

[Rufus]

People still claim how amazing the Fox Engine was and how well it runs on a variety of machines. No shit, it's rendering a barren landscape most of the time.

[OnlyRegret]

Hey you can see exactly what Ep.51 was supposed to be on Youtube, it was a better finale than repeating the intro, sure, but it was just that, a closing climax/set piece.
The story problems and game design problems up to that point are much greater than a bad ending, to my eyes.

Too few ideas spread too thin, too little story spread too thin, too little character development (for any of the characters involved) spread too thin.
A better finale wouldn't have made Quiet or Skullface actually worth a shit, wouldn't have made the skull babes a decent enemy, and wouldn't have gave the game decent bosses.
They still would've needed to repeat all the missions to stretch the run time, they still would've left the map mostly under utilized, etc etc.

I'm a "bigger = better" kinda guy when it comes to open world games, but if there's one exception in my mind, it's MGSV.
It's should've been a series of small, GZ-style maps, pretty much like a Sniper Elite or Hitman of sort.

Simply because they just had no expertise or time to fill two massive, empty maps like they tried to do, and MGSV isn't a game that thrives in a contemplative pace (since you're dropped in with a clear objective every time, and extracted at its completion).

Needed someone to tell to tell Kojima his ideas were stupid when it came to Quiet. And Skullface, yeah man glad to know you were cleaning up my vomit after eating rotten food or whatever. I'm in a box and you were in a box behind me all along.

Yeah, there was plenty of bad in MGS5. Imo too many missions were kind of boring... and definitely I felt the repetition in the last half.

Go to half the same areas and do almost the same mission.

Imo, the best infiltration mission was actually... Ground Zeroes.

That later in the game mission, the one that leads to Won't Scatter Your Ashes to the Heartless Sea though... That was pure fucking videogame kino.

[Raist]

Phantom Pain is solid, IMO.

No, it's Venom.

 

[thisismyusername]

Hey you can see exactly what Ep.51 was supposed to be on Youtube, it was a better finale than repeating the intro, sure, but it was just that, a closing climax/set piece.
The story problems and game design problems up to that point are much greater than a bad ending, to my eyes.

Too few ideas spread too thin, too little story spread too thin, too little character development (for any of the characters involved) spread too thin.
A better finale wouldn't have made Quiet or Skullface actually worth a shit, wouldn't have made the skull babes a decent enemy, and wouldn't have gave the game decent bosses.
They still would've needed to repeat all the missions to stretch the run time, they still would've left the map mostly under utilized, etc etc.

I'm a "bigger = better" kinda guy when it comes to open world games, but if there's one exception in my mind, it's MGSV.
It's should've been a series of small, GZ-style maps, pretty much like a Sniper Elite or Hitman of sort.

Simply because they just had no expertise or time to fill two massive, empty maps like they tried to do, and MGSV isn't a game that thrives in a contemplative pace (since you're dropped in with a clear objective every time, and extracted at its completion).

Sniper Elite would've fit better for the series, since that's essentially what MGS3 is: Go forward a la Final Fantasy 10 and just sneak around folks while moving forward.

Thing is: That style of gameplay has kinda fallen by the wayside, it's why Final Fantasy (to tie the comparison in) is now trying to Sandbox-ize everything (whereas the problem with 13 was that it was too "tube"-y and not necessarily the hold forward shit, after all a lot of folks [not me] enjoyed 10 which has the same fucking problems that 13 does), and other franchises are "Ubisoft tower"ing their shit.

I feel the empty-maps is partly due to cross-generation hardware focus and partially because Kojima was still literally developing the engine at the same time as Phantom Pain. Engine development (espeically Middleware) takes years now a days, so him being like 4 years into developing one isn't out of the realm of crazy-long.

I mean, granted, Japan has had issues with making engines for in-house (Square/Crystal Tools) or middleware (Konami, but this is because of cold-feet/pulling money) engines for a while and barely any Western company is doing in-house engines now a days without serious (read: Platform owners like Sony) money. Most third parties are using middleware that got there sooner/earlier like Unreal Engine now a days to where going middleware-to-license is a bit of a fools errand.

[thetylerrob]

That euphoric feel when you remember that Kojima Game Studios will continue to bless us with genius future titles for years to come. 

[Coffee Dog]

I'm having a lot of fun with this, but it's hilarious that the best advice I can give is skip the cutscenes and focus on the post apocalypse fedex simualtor. 

The story has MGSV's pacing with MGS4's writing. This is seriously some of the worst crap he's ever done. I don't think I care for anybody onscreen except for Norman Reedus. Not Sam, but the actor.

[thetylerrob]

It's surrealism juxtaposed against post modern sci-fi with Kojima's trademark repetition of jargon and copious amount of pop culture worship. I assumed the writing would be weird and abrasive because of the trailers but it's 100x more interesting to me than MGS5's meditation on loss, longing and language politics stuff.

[HardcoreRetro]

It's not surrealism. It's symbolism.

[TEEEPO]

you're telling me a melting clock isn't symbolic?

[thetylerrob]

You right, but it still evokes some surrealist imagery and you can't take that from me!!!

[kingv]

The terrain can be such a hassle to cross that it feels like a huge blessing when some guy went and finished a bridge or road for you.

[EightBitNate]

This is basically just a shitty Netflix series

What am I missing

[TVC15]

oxytocin

[thetylerrob]

Filler oxytocins are quite rare in this economy, or so I've heard