Death Stranding - Hideous Kojumbo does it again

[Gimmick Account]

so you know it's going to be a woke nightmare.

let's just ignore that and agree to try not to give him any ideas for fart-huffing character creation gags

 

[Maker's Mark]

Just hit me that Kojima is a hack for his own stories. Neil and Cliff are literally the exact character.

> Obsessed with BB/Lou
> Implied to be the villain
> Surprise! They’re actually a good person that got fucked over.

 

[Miller]

Also just hit me the entire point of the pregnant shit is because kojima liked mad max fury road. Guy is such a fucking hack lmao

That's also why he 3D scanned George Miller's face.

 

[Gimmick Account]

Just hit me that Kojima is a hack for his own stories. Neil and Cliff are literally the exact character.

> Obsessed with BB/Lou
> Implied to be the villain
> Surprise! They’re actually a good person that got fucked over.

Eh, it's definitely lazy how his sections fulfill the exact same function in punctuating the game but I don't think you're meant to believe he's the villain. It's kinda obvious and we already did this in the last game as you said, so the intention this time was probably for the player to be questioning it from the start while the other dipshit characters are fooled.

I appreciated how the relationship was inverted almost. It feels downright unfair by the last fight ("inversion" apparently being the theme of that plane too, if he first two were "fire" and "water"), where he's just a normal dude running and trying to hide from you, a virtual cyborg carrying infinite hardware who can see him through walls.

 

[cocainePRESIDENT]

The setting is also really fucking stupid. It's post apocalyptic but also post scarcity? Like matter fabricators exist and are commonplace so no one is in any danger of starving. Fuck it's canon that this "post apocalyptic" world has fucking Uber eats, it makes no fucking sense.

I'm playing Stellar Blade right now which is a silly coomer game where the protagonist walks around with her tits and pussy out and even in that game the people in the post apocalyptic setting are concerned about food shortages and failing generators and shit.

Post apocalyptic world yet looks better viable option to live in than india

 

[Scarthew]

Sometime after MGS4 Kojima fell in love with tedious grindfests instead of well designed boss battles and well paced stories.

I assume DS2 will fall into this category by its very nature. I just hope it now has well designed combat.

Peace walker very much copies monster hunter's chunked up gameplay design as well as its progressive upgrade system because its a portable title. The idea being that since portable games will often be played on the go you can do a mission or two and put it down satisfied by progress and if you're left with not enough time to play another mission you can fiddle around in the upgrades menu.

In theory MGSV was going to be followup to this progression but its botched in almost every way. Aside from the very few bosses (most of which are avoidable and quiet doesnt count) the enemies don't upgrade at all so your upgrades are never needed. From start to finish guards are taken out by a single headshot either tranq or lethal. I'm guessing its this way because they didn't want the mainline game to be frustrating for casual players who scream about realism any time they don't understand a game. While guards to upgrade in more interesting ways they never have a proper defense against headshots. Aside from the tin can enemies which only spawn in one expert mission and the very top tier of side ops. The adaptive difficulty never addresses how optimal sniper rifles are either since you can clear most camps without even entering them and 3 of the 4 buddies will mark entire camps for your for free. Sahelanthropus and the Skulls fights are the only ones that test your current gear levels and even then you can have gear TOO HIGH for ranking. MGSV is a failure and we can say its unfinished or that Kojima spent all his budget on hollywood actors worth hundreads a word. (I tend to blame Kojima more than Konami for its failing)

Death Stranding isn't really an evolution of these games. The thing it goes uncredited for is addressing the issue many "outpost simulator" open worlds like ubisoft titles create. See most open world games have their gameplay isolated to conspicuous camps or outposts and the open world just adds long travel times between said outposts where you wish they were just levels with load screens anyway. Death Stranding inverts this trend by making the traveling into the engaging part by making it a constant moment to moment decision making process involving risk assessment, resource management and an ever receding stamina bar. And then relegating the outposts, camps and cities to planning/menuing. Death Stranding justifies its open world by making the world itself an obstacle. I just hope 2 fixes its balance issues (I know it wont...) and ramps up the difficulty faster since the first map of 1 really is just nothing but filler.

 

[Nobunaga]

How come we can't play as this dude instead of the autistic package carrying dork?
View attachment 7591261

You want to play as cucked viper?

 

[Gimmick Account]

I know this was partially answered, but the fabricators are just fancy 3D printers. Pretty sure they can't replicate food (or water, but you can just filter that from timefall). Most deliveries are stuff like food, energy drinks/alcohol, fuel, pre-apocalypse media, non-printable chiral tech, scientific samples or experiments that need to go between researchers that haven't been made into printer blueprints yet, etc. Or mislabeled stuff you're being duped into smuggling.

And the printers don't even work until you hook up their wifi so nobody's even post-scarcity in terms of printing their own anime figurines until you get there.

Death Stranding justifies its open world by making the world itself an obstacle. I just hope 2 fixes its balance issues (I know it wont...) and ramps up the difficulty faster since the first map of 1 really is just nothing but filler.

I'm sorry.
This one doesn't even have MULEs hunting you for cargo which were a highlight of the first one. There are outposts, but only two that are actually on the (same!) road requiring you to care about them outside of quests.
By midgame they're pretty upgraded and hypothetically even use cool shit like jetpacks and shadow clone holo decoys against you, but the tranq sniper is still optimal--or air strikes/artillery if you want; I didn't feel the need--so you will barely see it (in like 100 hours I saw each one actually used like once).

At a certain point the red robot foes who are legitimately varied and fun start spawning all over the map and even have ambushes, which is something I was craving all game. But it happens far too late, and you disable them like two deliveries later. I did a lot of side stuff at this point just to enjoy it. You can't turn them on again until the post-game.

The bosses/giant BTs are pretty great at least, but you have to restrain yourself from pressing the win button because this time around there's a pokemon mechanic where you can capture your own, completely un-nerfed giant BTs and send them out for kaiju battles.
Which is a fun spectacle and I have enough self-control so I ain't shitting on it, plus actually capturing em adds another minor challenge to the boss fights since it requires ending things by landing a special grenade in their mouth.
...But YMMV in terms of your philosophy on suboptimal tactics. I know I can't resist sniper rifles even though the sneaking/melee stuff seems pretty fleshed-out in this one and would be fun if I ever had to use it or any of the associated tools.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Peace walker very much copies monster hunter's chunked up gameplay design as well as its progressive upgrade system because its a portable title. The idea being that since portable games will often be played on the go you can do a mission or two and put it down satisfied by progress and if you're left with not enough time to play another mission you can fiddle around in the upgrades menu.

PeaceWalker's boss fights were so tedious and boring, I remember just hiding with a machine gun and spamming care packages to whittle down their health. It's so ironic that the little base building and personnel management stuff from PW and even MGSV were what I ended up enjoying the most.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm about 2/3 of the game in, it's very much a pointless sequel but I can't help but find it fun trekking around the map charting courses and seeing how it evolves. The difficulty is pretty non existent, using stealth is a lot less fun than going guns blazing, at least on normal. One really annoying thing is that there are too many missions that force you into a truck due to massive carrying rates, so it's pretty much feels like Post Apocalypse Aussie Truck Driver simulator. The very stupid plot is a plus.

As for the plot:
* Holy shit the naming is even worse. You have a woman that rain follows everywhere called Rainy, and a guy that got his arm eaten by tar called Tarman. The worst is the protagonist's likely reincarnated daughter called Tomorrow (that she didn't even name herself). At least call her it in Japanese so it's slightly less cringe.
* The coomerism is even worse. Rainy is eternally preggo (nevermind how it collides with her backstory). Tomorrow is bare footed mud girl and potential incest. Add to it Fragile having grandma body and it's just creepy. The amount of foot fetishism is off the chart.
* Norman Reedus, despite being the main character, barely speaks. 95% of the scenes in the games he just looks with a dumb expression.
* Black woman in every video game is, at least for now, barely in it, thanks god. Just only slightly above any other random camp leader
* I was surprised Pekora was a camp leader. It was cringe but not more than any other scene. The hat she gives is hilarious, especially as Reedus yells Peko as he beats up people.
* Fight choreography is really fucking good, even with being dumb.
* Too much references to previous games without any reason besides memberberries.
* The face capture is really uncanny valley on smiles.

Besides those points the plot just feels pointless. There aren't any real emotional beats or mystery. You just do things to see what crazy scene Hideo pulls next out of his ass. The first game still had something memorable, here there aren't any characters to develop.

As for woke, nothing new since the first game, besides Mexico bit at the start, that goes surprisingly fast. Though it does bother me that if Tomorrow really is Lou reborn, then Reedus getting Yeetus from actually raising her while the girls do all the work is bullshit "only women are capable of raising children" BS.

Also there is a scene of Rainy throwing a shoe from her leg to see how it lands since in Japan is a game to guess what the weather will be, and she says it was her parents that taught her the game, considering she has a superpower to always cause rain around her, it made me immediately think on this immortal line:

 

[Commander X]

Some of the more obnoxious discourse I've seen around Kojima and DS2 now is mostly about how his "horniness is much more natural than fan service gooners because he actually likes real women". Most of these people saying that were in middle school when MGS V came out and the people now in their mid-40’s that were calling Kojima a rapist over Quiet's appearance back then are more than happy to memory hole that. I remember that "QuietGate" period pretty well and the people who wanted to cancel him for good over that and it's insane how many of those people now in addition to glazing Death Stranding 2 are trying to retcon Kojima as a Wholesome Chungus Woman Enjoyer.

 

[Chapalapachapa]

didnt the quiet actress said that kojombo was a fucking creep or something along that lines?

 

[Whirus]

Post-Game is a little boring but delivering is a nice vibe when you're listening to music.

Don't sleep on the Coffin Board, I used the Truck most of the game and just discovered the Coffin Board. The Coffin Board is 2x faster than the Truck, good for Express deliveries.

I'm a little disappointed we:

Spoiler: spoiler

didn't go to another Country after Australia. Africa would've been interesting for the types of animals you could deliver. I want to see Sam carry a Giraffe on his back.

 

[Gimmick Account]

Don't sleep on the Coffin Board, I used the Truck most of the game and just discovered the Coffin Board. The Coffin Board is 2x faster than the Truck, good for Express deliveries.

Also surprisingly good for dealing with the snow area. And unsurprisingly, tar. Don't even bother with The Inventor (although I heard a zipline works there which would be even better) or trying to explore the two big craters without it.
...Particularly since both of them have fucking bullshit story gates so there's nothing there until a certain point and/or someone specifically tells you to go.

That shit happens repeatedly, with the Ghost Hunter too, which really pissed me off. All those twitter posts suggesting rumours you might want to explore are fucking lies.

I'm a little disappointed

That's something else that kinda makes me think he's lying about a third game. With the plate gate explanation, Africa makes sense. Australia doesn't, with regard to either Pangea or Pangea Ultima. "Mankind originated in Africa" is something awkwardly stressed in both this and the previous one (iirc) too. Seems like an obvious and odd thing to skip unless the real ending is meant to happen there. (That, and certain MGSV shit I refuse to let go of.)
He could finally give the audience what we really want, a game where every single character is played by Debra Wilson.

 

[RandomGibberish]

Did they already announce sales figures?

Lol, who am I kidding.

You know the drill:

• “Engagement is strong across all platforms”
• “We’ve seen millions of hours watched on Twitch and YouTube”
• “Top 10 on PS store‘s trending charts for three days straight”
• “Over 100 million social media impressions in the first week”
• “Our most successful digital launch in this fiscal quarter”
• “User sentiment is overwhelmingly positive based on early feedback”
• “Record-breaking Day 1 concurrent players (exact numbers not disclosed)”
• „One of the best launches ever for the Death Stranding franchise“

 

[Jinn in the phone]

Some of the more obnoxious discourse I've seen around Kojima and DS2 now is mostly about how his "horniness is much more natural than fan service gooners because he actually likes real women". Most of these people saying that were in middle school when MGS V came out and the people now in their mid-40’s that were calling Kojima a rapist over Quiet's appearance back then are more than happy to memory hole that. I remember that "QuietGate" period pretty well and the people who wanted to cancel him for good over that and it's insane how many of those people now in addition to glazing Death Stranding 2 are trying to retcon Kojima as a Wholesome Chungus Woman Enjoyer.

It's the bayonetta playbook. Regardless of they're swords-edge rhetoric, If libtards can't beat an enemy, they will absorb them. Anything is possible when you realize niggercattle have the memory of goldfish.

didnt the quiet actress said that kojombo was a fucking creep or something along that lines?

A triple platinum classic

 

[Chapalapachapa]

Did they already announce sales figures?

Lol, who am I kidding.

You know the drill:

• “Engagement is strong across all platforms”
• “We’ve seen millions of hours watched on Twitch and YouTube”
• “Top 10 on PS store‘s trending charts for three days straight”
• “Over 100 million social media impressions in the first week”
• “Our most successful digital launch in this fiscal quarter”
• “User sentiment is overwhelmingly positive based on early feedback”
• “Record-breaking Day 1 concurrent players (exact numbers not disclosed)”
• „One of the best launches ever for the Death Stranding franchise“

It sold 60% less on physcal than ds1

 

[Jace on ice]

I think DS1 benefited a lot from nobody knowing what the fuck kind of game it was going to be and early trailers falsely giving the impression it was some kind of stealth/horror game which led a lot of normies to buy/pre order it.

Now everyone knows the is Amazon delivery simulator.

 

[Evil Peter Griffin]

How much of this games budget was spent on feet scans for Kojimas collection?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Nearly done with that fucking mountain, but now back to Sheboon after I thought I got off easy.

The game said the "Women most affected in war" retarded sentence. It's not necessarily wrong in the past, when the losing side women get raped en masse (though it depends on if the male population isn't slaughtered in turn). But for modern military conflicts it's absolutely disgusting piece of propaganda, regurgitated by men who will never fight for their country.

Edit:
HOLY SHIT, they actually did a twist that an incredibly important piece of info was literally in reach of the protagonist the entire time and nobody fucking looked at it until the plot decided to have a character talk about it.

Also I feel like if I hear Raindrops one more time I'm going to scream.