Author Topic: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense  (Read 102613 times)

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benjipwns

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #780 on: November 26, 2019, 01:19:55 AM »
In fact, the “written by“ credit is some other dude I never heard of listed alone.
Written by   Hideo Kojima

Original Story   Hideo Kojima

Writers   Hideo Kojima, Kenji Yano, Shuyou Murata

Director, Translation Services   Sachiko Nagasawa
Manager, Translation Services   Mio Shimizu
Senior Translator   Chi Ichikawa
Translators   Noriko Sather, Reed Baird, Sachiko Ishida
Associate Translators   James Dyce, Karena Fujii, Marko Bursac, Mizuki Miyanishi, Sinya Lee
Assistant Translators   Alicia Bull, Yujin Choi, Hiromi Hatakeyama, Emi Ito, Shiroi Misawa, Aya Nakajima, Mengkin Ragan, Hirano Soda, Chi Fukami Taylor, Mieko Ueno

Senior Director, Social Media   Sid Shuman
Senior Manager, Social Media   Zac Minor
Manager, Social Media   Justin Massongill
Senior Specialist, Social Media   Leah Sanchez
Specialist, Social Media   Kristen Titus

Whistling   Clint Bajakian

BIONIC

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #781 on: November 26, 2019, 02:16:30 AM »
I stand corrected.

But either way, Kojima doesn’t have the sole writing credit :bolo
Margs

chronovore

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #782 on: November 26, 2019, 02:22:30 AM »
How is this game doing saleswise? Is it intended to be a big seller or more hipster.

It's Sony's flagship game for the holiday season. It was in development for 3+ years. They saved some money by using existing technology (Decima) and they obviously got some money with all the ridiculous product placement. I'd ballpark close to $60 million for production and who knows how much for marketing (and they've been advertising it during big sporting events).

I don't think it will hit normal blockbuster numbers by any stretch.
I'd be shocked if the actual budget isn't closer to US$100M. Yeah, Japan's cheaper to develop in, but factor in Kojima's celebrity friends' salaries and the 3-year running costs across not just the studio, but the mocap, etc. I'm guessing it was a bloated mess.


I wonder if it will have divisive sales by region.

I was reading something that it was the biggest new IP launch in Japan since Dark Souls.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see it do 3-5 million on reputation and weirdness factor alone.

Another thing I was thinking about was... how can Kojima get the sole writing credit in this? It doesn’t really make sense as all the dialogue is in English, and some of it is clearly localized.

Like I don’t think some of the jokes (princess beach) would make sense in Japanese because it relies on English wordplay.

Localizers are writers, but more like the way that a person who translates a novel has had to make a bunch of decisions about the best way to convey the content outside of its original linguistic and cultural context while retaining the intended meaning -- but that is not the same as writing the novel to begin with.

Rahxephon91

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #783 on: November 26, 2019, 03:45:06 AM »
The more I play, I have to say the game is pretty damn good.

thisismyusername

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #784 on: November 26, 2019, 10:33:30 AM »
How is this game doing saleswise? Is it intended to be a big seller or more hipster.

It's Sony's flagship game for the holiday season. It was in development for 3+ years. They saved some money by using existing technology (Decima) and they obviously got some money with all the ridiculous product placement. I'd ballpark close to $60 million for production and who knows how much for marketing (and they've been advertising it during big sporting events).

I don't think it will hit normal blockbuster numbers by any stretch.
I'd be shocked if the actual budget isn't closer to US$100M. Yeah, Japan's cheaper to develop in, but factor in Kojima's celebrity friends' salaries and the 3-year running costs across not just the studio, but the mocap, etc. I'm guessing it was a bloated mess.

Also factor in that Kojimbo was flying around EVERYWHERE during these three years (and I do mean EVERYWHERE) while the game was in "development" and those costs go up even further.

We have photos from his assistant that he's retweeted on his Twatter as proof.

BisMarckie

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #785 on: November 26, 2019, 10:39:35 AM »
Eh, these costs are negligible and probably can be written off as marketing cost. 500K to send one man around the world for a couple of years from time to time go a long way.

thisismyusername

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #786 on: November 26, 2019, 10:44:11 AM »
Eh, these costs are negligible and probably can be written off as marketing cost. 500K to send one man around the world for a couple of years from time to time go a long way.

Is it marketing if he's flying to do Refn's cancelled TV series for a day or two? :thinking

I mean, flying to Guriella makes sense (Engine updates/development updates/etc.) but flying to Valve? (I guess for PC licensing/asking how he'd be able to publish it if Sony didn't, thereby getting in touch with 505?) Flying to Italy/Rome/etc/non-gaming?

Dude took a huge long "working vacation" while his team did shit. I can't knock his hustle on that: Sony paid for it, but you do have to wonder what the fuck he actually did while the rest of his team in Japan? LA???? was doing work.

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #787 on: November 26, 2019, 10:54:20 AM »
You expect game directors to be at their desk every day to write some code? What year is this, 1985?

Coffee Dog

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #788 on: November 26, 2019, 11:10:23 AM »
I'm not sure how this game was expensive in any way. Sure, it looks nice, but there's a single playable character, two enemy types, weather, a shitload of recolored/reused assets and the one world map. No other NPCs, no cities, no intricate combat mechanics or AI systems. Just traversing and retraversing a single environment.

The entire game comes off as very cheap, getting as much mileage out of what it has as it can. I'm not saying it was developed for pennies, but given what I played I couldnt imagine the small scope of the game and the budget not being a part of the initial pitch.

BisMarckie

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #789 on: November 26, 2019, 11:36:40 AM »

Is it marketing if he's flying to do Refn's cancelled TV series for a day or two? :thinking
I mean, you know about it, so yeah.  :doge

Let's Cyber

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #790 on: November 26, 2019, 09:27:03 PM »
Imagine making a game about crossing the country to find your sister but framing the journey with these weird romantic implications concluding with a run along the beach while looking longingly into each others eyes.

All because the director of said game had a crush on the actress growing up.

Also
spoiler (click to show/hide)
she isn't really your sister.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
It's your President mom's spirit.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also your mom/sister/President isn't actually related to you at all.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
lulz this story omg
[close]
[close]
[close]
[close]

thisismyusername

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #791 on: November 26, 2019, 10:06:53 PM »

Is it marketing if he's flying to do Refn's cancelled TV series for a day or two? :thinking
I mean, you know about it, so yeah.  :doge

I only know about it because of that dark Twatter image he posted and ya'll talking about it here. I don't care a whit about Refn, so I wouldn't even know and would chalk it up as an unnecessary expense.

chronovore

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #792 on: November 26, 2019, 11:25:58 PM »
You expect game directors to be at their desk every day to write some code? What year is this, 1985?

Yeah, I expect that the majority of a Creative Director's week will be spent with the team reviewing their work and setting direction. I've been in game dev for 25 years. Not sure what experience you're drawing on.

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #793 on: November 26, 2019, 11:51:49 PM »
You expect game directors to be at their desk every day to write some code? What year is this, 1985?

Yeah, I expect that the majority of a Creative Director's week will be spent with the team reviewing their work and setting direction. I've been in game dev for 25 years. Not sure what experience you're drawing on.

Following Kojima's twitter :rejoice
Not really.

In any case, I think the whole "he's constantly traveling" might be a little bit overblown :lol

thisismyusername

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #794 on: November 27, 2019, 12:17:55 AM »
You expect game directors to be at their desk every day to write some code? What year is this, 1985?

Yeah, I expect that the majority of a Creative Director's week will be spent with the team reviewing their work and setting direction. I've been in game dev for 25 years. Not sure what experience you're drawing on.

Following Kojima's twitter :rejoice
Not really.

In any case, I think the whole "he's constantly traveling" might be a little bit overblown :lol

Breh, he's doing a "world tour" right now instead of patches/fixing things with his team. Him and Shinikawa.

Beyond that, he traveled to visit:

-Valve
-Guriella
-Remedy
-Other game studios that I'm forgetting

During the development of the title:

-He went to recruit Mads
-He went to recruit the women
-He went to talk to Refn
-Then starred in a short-lived "TV" show for Refn/cameo at most
-He went to talk to De Niro in NYC

DURING the development of the title:

-He went to NYC for film-fest/con/whatever to talk to De Niro
-He went to Italy/Venice, I think
-He went to Finland/Remedy (studio)
-He went to Japan (home, granted)
-He went to LA (the Game Awards, I think?)
-He went to Seattle (Valve)
-Guriella's location that I'm forgetting (Swiss? Germany?)
-Etc.

Maybe he does work remotely, maybe he does it on the plane (but how if he's not remote syncing before leaving the airport?) but his Twitter certainly doesn't give the impression that he does work with his team.

Also before I forget: His studio (at Konami) seemed to do weekly movie nights/days where they advertised the latest films or stuff Kojima wanted to see on a builtin board during MGS3-4-5/Peace Walker-6/"5"/Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes

Now while he's more a "supervisor" role, it really is a :wtf preposition that he's traveling/going to museums (during the Konami fiasco, but that's partly being "fired" and partly before that point), going to film festivals, going on vacation (not a big deal, this one), and the like DURING the development of his titles.

Most developers are in the studio with their teams and only take vacations after the title has launched.

You expect game directors to be at their desk every day to write some code? What year is this, 1985?

Yeah, I expect that the majority of a Creative Director's week will be spent with the team reviewing their work and setting direction. I've been in game dev for 25 years. Not sure what experience you're drawing on.

:kermit Also let's not forget that he's not first-party to Sony, they bankrolled him. But he still has to manage the day-to-day (or oversee the funds/payments/etc.) of the studio that has HIS FUCKING NAME on it. Where is he doing the work/what work is he doing with how much he's traveling?

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #795 on: November 27, 2019, 12:49:08 AM »


Y'all need to chill :lol


Look, is the dude having a more "social" life than other game directors out there? Well yeah. And he's pretty vocal and transparent about it.
At the same time, how many game directors of his caliber / standing are there? Irrespective of personal (dis)taste for his games, there aren't that many folks he could be compared with.

He was pretty much the last one standing in keeping Konami afloat (at the very least in term of quality of output, and single title sales) for the best part of the last decade, and got unceremoniously shitcanned - granted, with the caveat that we don't know what truly happened. They ran everything else into the ground.

Let him have his fun, I'd say :yeshrug
At the end of the day, he went through a hard reset (sure, with a LOT of help from Sony) but still delivered a huge game; and I think to the surprise of most people, actually on time.


chronovore

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #796 on: November 27, 2019, 01:22:16 AM »
I'm completely fine with cult-of-personality devs getting to have some time in the sun, appreciate their life, and especially get some reasonable percentage of income that reflects the value that their name brings to a project. Hell, Hollywood does it all the time with film; how much do you think James Cameron actually brought to the most recent Terminator installment? I was specifically answering your question about the actual logistics in a studio. I recognize that Kojima is existing in a state that is not common in the industry.

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #797 on: November 27, 2019, 01:42:37 AM »
I was being lightly sarcastic/facetious, dad  :'(


One thing I'll say, is that it's likely not helped much by Kojima's wankery (on twitter especially). But I'm wondering how much of that is a language thing.
For someone who's so open / exposed to the western world (as opposed to, say, Miyamoto), he really can't fucking speak english even if his life depended on it. It's kinda weird.

thisismyusername

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #798 on: November 27, 2019, 05:56:18 AM »
I'm not sure if his English Twitter is actually translated by him or not.

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #799 on: November 27, 2019, 06:09:50 AM »
I'm guessing google translate.

HardcoreRetro

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #800 on: November 27, 2019, 10:14:51 AM »
The way I ended the game after 40 hours couldn't have been more fitting.

Wanted the 50000 likes achievement after the credits rolled so I did some extra deliveries.

"New bag accessory unlocked"

It was a tiny Monster Energy can.

Games are art!

Rahxephon91

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #801 on: November 27, 2019, 03:48:41 PM »
The whole Mama thing is peak Kojima.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Like yeah a woman and her dead stillborn baby is kind of something the game should tackle. I mean the BB's are basically stillborn babies. The story is about life and death. The setting of the world is one where life and death are basically crossing over. Of course you'd want to explore a person who experiences that at the most absolute. A woman. Now it is probably out of Kojima's depth as a writer, but I don't begrudge him trying and I'm not going to say its the most mysgonist thing as some dumb kotaku writer did. It makes sense. And honestly that first cutscene where you meet her is ok. It's interesting. She's clinging to something she feels she has a connection to as a mother(yeah...), but has never really been alive. It really fits the game's themes.

It's just Kojima can't leave enough alone and throws in this dumb ass twist to complicate things. Her twin sister who looks just like her(except wearing some Deus Ex MD outfit) and sounds like her and later basically is her, is also heavily involved in the child birth. To the point that they have a strained relationship over it. They also are like psychics...Oh and Mama is kind of dead herself!. It's fucking dumb and reminded me of Stillman in MGS2(I WAS LYING ABOUT THE BOMB). Here's a simple backstory, lets make it overly dark and dramatic and have the characters tell it to you in intense monologues over and over again.

It really kind of hints at the problem with this story. The characters are very unrelatable, dry, and too dramatic. In a way that sucks all the humanity they could have. A problem for a game about making human connections. All the people are cold, weird, and not really likeable. Yeah, I expect weird stuff, but you gotta kind of ground the weird. A woman with a still born baby who through the spiritual fucked  up stuff of the world has kept her connection to it....thats relatable and understandable. Adding all that shit really muddies that and makes it less understandable and ultimately less interesting.
[close]

Still really like the game though.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2019, 04:09:14 PM by Rahxephon91 »

kingv

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #802 on: November 27, 2019, 04:08:21 PM »
You’re damaged goods!

... so many lines in this are  :delicious

Rahxephon91

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #803 on: November 27, 2019, 04:15:16 PM »
I don't know what exactly happens to Fragile, but thats also a character I don't really care for. I feel like with her condition, you could have explored someone is young, but feels hopeless, already dead, and that life has passed them by. A feeling many young people feel these days. Which of course impacts her connections with people. Like you've got a cool setting and concepts, use them to tackle issues people have in regular life. Like one of the most interesting things that happen is with the Mountaineer and how having a child would happen. Yeah, it's under crazy circumstances, but a child birth with the help of the doctor though skype I'm sure already happens and is weird.

Thats what I thinks makes crazy sci-fi things understandable by regular joes. They can be a container to talk about real things. But in DS, I'm just like whatever to a lot of the out there shit. The stuff that I can see through a lens of our real world though, I'm like "thats neat".

kingv

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #804 on: November 27, 2019, 04:15:59 PM »
Also the delivery of the line
spoiler (click to show/hide)
“I’m fragile but not that fragile”
[close]
. I almost lol’ed in one sentence she says the same word pronounced two different ways?! Wtf?!

I absolutely love the story in this. It’s definitely that “so bad it’s good” kojima level. There are some weird inconsistencies in the beginning though that make the rest of the game kind of
spoiler (click to show/hide)
like when they go to burn the presidents body, they make it really unclear what cause a void out. The game talks about her going nuclear or about to blow or something, which implies that *all* dead bodies cause void outs. I absolutely thought this for like half the game, and it make it really confusing why some characters are shooting themselves in the head while they are being attacked by BTs. I’m pretty sure that void outs are actually caused when a living person is killed by a bt, because that actually seems consistent with the game mechanics.
[close]

Rahxephon91

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #805 on: November 27, 2019, 04:17:25 PM »
Yeah I was confused by that as well.

But I do like some of the themes he's trying to talk about. You know, life is very important. To the point that any death is a huge deal. They really want to tackle these heavy themes, but also have this crazy shit. But also seemingly be taken very seriously. It doesn't really work.

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #806 on: November 27, 2019, 04:22:13 PM »
Also the delivery of the line
spoiler (click to show/hide)
“I’m fragile but not that fragile”
[close]
. I almost lol’ed in one sentence she says the same word pronounced two different ways?! Wtf?!


As far as I'm concerned she can pronounce it 45 different ways, I wouldn't care.



 :whew

benjipwns

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #807 on: November 27, 2019, 04:45:55 PM »
The whole Mama thing is peak Kojima.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Like yeah a woman and her dead stillborn baby is kind of something the game should tackle. I mean the BB's are basically stillborn babies. The story is about life and death. The setting of the world is one where life and death are basically crossing over. Of course you'd want to explore a person who experiences that at the most absolute. A woman. Now it is probably out of Kojima's depth as a writer, but I don't begrudge him trying and I'm not going to say its the most mysgonist thing as some dumb kotaku writer did. It makes sense. And honestly that first cutscene where you meet her is ok. It's interesting. She's clinging to something she feels she has a connection to as a mother(yeah...), but has never really been alive. It really fits the game's themes.

It's just Kojima can't leave enough alone and throws in this dumb ass twist to complicate things. Her twin sister who looks just like her(except wearing some Deus Ex MD outfit) and sounds like her and later basically is her, is also heavily involved in the child birth. To the point that they have a strained relationship over it. They also are like psychics...Oh and Mama is kind of dead herself!. It's fucking dumb and reminded me of Stillman in MGS2(I WAS LYING ABOUT THE BOMB). Here's a simple backstory, lets make it overly dark and dramatic and have the characters tell it to you in intense monologues over and over again.

It really kind of hints at the problem with this story. The characters are very unrelatable, dry, and too dramatic. In a way that sucks all the humanity they could have. A problem for a game about making human connections. All the people are cold, weird, and not really likeable. Yeah, I expect weird stuff, but you gotta kind of ground the weird. A woman with a still born baby who through the spiritual fucked  up stuff of the world has kept her connection to it....thats relatable and understandable. Adding all that shit really muddies that and makes it less understandable and ultimately less interesting.
[close]

Still really like the game though.
Rahx, I'm assigning you to revisit all of this after you finish because I think it will be hilarious.

chronovore

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #808 on: November 27, 2019, 11:48:04 PM »
I was being lightly sarcastic/facetious, dad  :'(
(...)

Sarcasm rarely works in text, son.

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #809 on: November 28, 2019, 01:45:25 AM »
:stahp pls don't terminate me

thetylerrob

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #810 on: November 28, 2019, 02:43:12 AM »
Just read in an article that Kojima’s mom passed away before he told her or showed her anything about his new studio  :fbm

“I thought, I’ll tell her once I’ve become a little successful,” he says. “I didn’t want her to worry.” But she died during the game’s gestation. “The ghosts in the game — maybe my parents are one of them, seeing me in this world,” he adds. “I wanted to have that kind of metaphor, that within you, you’re connected to the people that passed away.” Kojima admits to regrets about not telling his mother about the game. He appears shaken as he says it.

 :crybaby

kingv

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #811 on: November 28, 2019, 10:00:22 AM »
Tfw your mom is Princess Beach  :goty2

Tasty

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #812 on: November 28, 2019, 10:41:01 AM »

thisismyusername

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Svejk

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #814 on: November 28, 2019, 04:34:48 PM »
Finally finished chapter 3!  :whew. Can't wait to play more tonight!  :hyper.  Loving this game even more.

chronovore

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #815 on: November 29, 2019, 01:38:53 AM »
:stahp pls don't terminate me

You and me? We're fine, chap!  :-*

chronovore

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #816 on: November 29, 2019, 01:42:37 AM »


TFW your bullshit is called out by a manager at Der Wienerschnitzel. :lol

Raist

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #817 on: November 29, 2019, 02:41:39 AM »
:stahp pls don't terminate me

You and me? We're fine, chap!  :-*

 :heart


spoiler (click to show/hide)
Now where's my goddam pocket money :hmph
[close]

Let's Cyber

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #818 on: November 29, 2019, 01:50:10 PM »
Despite enjoying aspects of Death Stranding, I'm really grateful Silent Hills didn't happen in retrospect. Man what a fucking incoherent mess that would have been and the tone would have been nothing like the  :bow Team Silent :bow2 games.

thisismyusername

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #819 on: November 29, 2019, 02:02:40 PM »
I mean, compared to post-Team Silent titles would that have been a bad thing?

AKA: Compare Downpour/et. al. past 4 to it/PT.

Don Rumata

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #820 on: November 29, 2019, 02:13:29 PM »
Silent Hills had to die.
Kojima pimping his famous buddies over fucking Team Silent members (who have been put on janitorial duties in Konami's basements) to make the big comeback, was a cunt move through and through.
I mean he went on and got fucking Junji Ito for the monster design, when Masahiro Ito, who basically created the visual design of the series, has been begging to come back to it for years.  >:(

BTW you should follow Ito on Twitter, he posted a lot of interesting behind the scene on the series.

Let's Cyber

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #821 on: November 29, 2019, 02:14:39 PM »
I mean, compared to post-Team Silent titles would that have been a bad thing?

AKA: Compare Downpour/et. al. past 4 to it/PT.
You're right, It would have been a better game than those post-SH4 games for sure.

It also would have been a narrative mess and not much to do with Silent Hill. Even PT didn't feel like SH at all. He needed a new IP for his ideas. I have a feeling he just would have tried to glob some of these DS concepts on to SH rather than make a SH game with a Kojima twist. Some of the core concepts in DS aren't that different from Metal Gear Survive, TBH, which his old team just ran with. I think he's had a lot of these ideas rolling around in his head for a while even before shit went south with Konami.

paprikastaude

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #822 on: November 29, 2019, 02:40:36 PM »
The martyrdom around PT is idiotic and I can only imagine most Kojima sluts haven't actually played Silent Hill 1/2. Game would've been an absolutely terrible SH title under Kojima.

thetylerrob

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Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #823 on: November 29, 2019, 04:03:00 PM »
The martyrdom around PT is idiotic and I can only imagine most Kojima sluts haven't actually played Silent Hill 1/2. Game would've been an absolutely terrible SH title under Kojima.
It's not even just Kojima sluts though, PT became a huge meme on reddit and youtube because of its rarity. I think Abby from Giantbomb said it's her favorite survival horror game ever which is  :rofl :dead considering she did her first playthrough live on the internet and had the chat room giving her the answers to all of the "puzzles."

It's still funny to me that people think we missed out on something when the additional concept demo Kojima had made for Silent Hills was literally just hallways full of "boo! spooky monster!" It would have been interesting and unique, but it wouldn't have been a worthy follow-up to the original SH series.

Rahxephon91

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #824 on: November 29, 2019, 04:12:53 PM »
I mean I think with Silent Hills people were excited more so at the fact that Kojima was making something not MGS, it was a seemingly AAA Silent Hill thing, it as a AAA console Japanese game, it was a Japanese Silent Hill, and the demo and people involved were liked. Not so much that it would have been inline with other SH games.

paprikastaude

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #825 on: November 29, 2019, 04:25:59 PM »
PT also had the luck of coming out at the right time. Shadow drops like that, particularly during bigger conferences, blow up much easier early in a gen, when there's no big selection of proper titles yet.

kingv

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #826 on: November 29, 2019, 04:54:00 PM »
I always felt like PT would have been destined to be bigger than whatever Silent Hills would have ended up as. The gimmicks in that game played perfectly to the then peaking streaming and reacting culture of the internet that celebrated creepypasta. Most would have probably dropped it cause it wasn't PT.

I'm in the camp of being very glad Kojima never got to make Silent Hills cause goddamn are people throwing Team Silent and their incredible work under the bus crying over Norman Reedus, who btw is the weakest part of Death Stranding outside of a japanese IG thot. Kojima getting to make Death Stranding, a glorious mess story wise but fun as fuck videogame, instead of Silent Hills where his skillset would have been detrimental, is the best that could have came out of this situation. If dude wants to make a horror game still cool, do that without calling it Silent Hill and we're golden.

Is the ig thot the chiral artists daughter? Because she was awful.

The dude that you bring her to, I legit thought she was going to end up being his special needs daughter until the mission where you bring her.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
other than the bad acting I thought having them get divorced via emails later was really dumb. Sort of goes against the theme of the game, but didn’t really have any reason to have it be that way because they never seemed to do anything with that. The “oh this woman is driving me crazy” thing was fine enough until he’s like “oh we got divorced and she moved back to her moms. How did she even get there?!
[close]

I’m super close to the end of this and honestly, it’s one of my favorite games this gen. I acknowledge it’s flaws, but it’s better than the sum of its parts for me. The story is fairly dumb, but it has had some twists I didn’t see a mile away, and it’s engaging. And honestly... it’s more coherent than a lot of kojima’s games. I love metal gear solid but still couldn’t really explain the entire story to you. Because there’s so much confusing bullshit, and overlapping conspiracies, and this guy got mind controlled by this guy, and so on.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2019, 04:59:16 PM by kingv »

kingv

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #827 on: November 29, 2019, 06:36:45 PM »
I think the visual design is pretty good, it’s interesting conceptually, and the general idea of the plot is not bad.

Honestly, many of the individual characters and their quirks are not bad either. They are just all written really poorly. I feel like if Kojima has a talented collaborator that wrote all of the dialogue and helped temper some of his worse ideas, the story could have been a lot better. After reading about his trials tribulations on the translation of MGS, I’m not sure he’d ever be interested in that though.

Still, video game stories in general are graded on a curve because very few of them are more than a perfunctory reason to go from point a to point b so any game that even tries is going to seem better than average.

I could see myself messing around with the game afterwards for a few more hours to see what the side content unlocks and complete some roads or zip line networks for fun... but I agree there’s not much reason to replay it. It’s not really that type of game.

Like, I can say I don’t necessarily ever need or want to play a game exactly like it again, even though I enjoyed it.

Rahxephon91

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #828 on: December 01, 2019, 04:29:35 AM »
I'm nearing the end now and honestly, I'd rate this game pretty high.

It really comes into it's own after chapter 3.

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #829 on: December 01, 2019, 01:39:26 PM »


 :lol
🤴

bluemax

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #830 on: December 01, 2019, 05:08:23 PM »
PT is like one of those bands that gets popular due to good timing and not actual talent or whatever and then the lead singer ODs and dies so we don't get to see them flame out.
NO

chronovore

  • relapsed dev
  • Senior Member

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #832 on: December 02, 2019, 05:19:35 AM »
PT is like one of those bands that gets popular due to good timing and not actual talent or whatever and then the lead singer ODs and dies so we don't get to see them flame out.
I mean it genuinely has some good ideas and some great scares, for what it is.
It's just not this revolutionary achievement outside of its marketing exploits.
And it's a bit sad that a lot of zoomers will associate Silent Hill more with it and Kojima, than any of the original games, but that is Konami's fault for making them almost impossible to obtain and run in 2019.

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #833 on: December 02, 2019, 01:00:06 PM »
Got to..
spoiler (click to show/hide)
the boss fight that initiates as soon as you start transporting Mama.  The difficulty for these bosses has certainly started to increase.  It got me and/or Mama a few times.  Kinda stupid that you have to put her down just to pick up anything else.   Finally defeated it with her being 96% damaged.   :-\  Came to find out that you can heal her at a hot spring.  Got to one and shared a hot tub scene with Mama...  :heartbeat   Come to show Sam and Mama facing away from each other, 20 feet apart...  Mama does nothing to tease or anything... Very un-Kojima like...  Disappointing.   :hmph   
[close]
Anywho, still enjoying this game...  It seems to be blooming into something that's definitely unique.

kingv

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #834 on: December 02, 2019, 01:33:38 PM »
Damn, I never thought to do that with that. One thing I like about kojima is he takes the time to think about a whole lot of little touches like that.

HardcoreRetro

  • Punk Mushi no Onna
  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #835 on: December 02, 2019, 02:20:42 PM »
I just walked away. I did hurt her on purpose cause she's an awful character.

Svejk

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #836 on: December 02, 2019, 02:29:14 PM »
I had to look it up, because I wasn't about to spend 45 minutes crossing country only to trip on a rock, kill her, and start over.  Fuck that.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2019, 02:47:22 PM by Svejk »

kingv

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #837 on: December 02, 2019, 03:53:38 PM »
I just walked away. I did hurt her on purpose cause she's an awful character.

Well, duh, Kojima-Sama did a brilliance and made her suck because she is only half a character.

Like all of us, she is incomplete without the strands connecting her to other people in her life.

 :stan

BIONIC

  • Virgo. Live Music. The Office. Tacos. Fur mom. True crime junkie. INTJ.
  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #838 on: December 03, 2019, 12:29:31 AM »
I just drove her in my truck since I already rebuilt all the roads like a proper gentleman :pimp
Margs

bluemax

  • Senior Member
Re: Holy Shit Death Stranding is beautiful nonsense
« Reply #839 on: December 03, 2019, 02:27:26 AM »
PT is like one of those bands that gets popular due to good timing and not actual talent or whatever and then the lead singer ODs and dies so we don't get to see them flame out.
I mean it genuinely has some good ideas and some great scares, for what it is.
It's just not this revolutionary achievement outside of its marketing exploits.
And it's a bit sad that a lot of zoomers will associate Silent Hill more with it and Kojima, than any of the original games, but that is Konami's fault for making them almost impossible to obtain and run in 2019.

That's fair I guess. I never got to play it and I never watched any video of it. Survival Horror games have always felt like someone took all those terrible PC point and click adventure games and decided what they needed were bad controls, inventory management, abusive save systems and zombies. I don't need Gabriel Knight with tank controls in my life.
NO