One of may favourite gaming memories this generation is actually from FAR: Lone Sails. A lone wanderer trekking across a desolate landscape... Death Stranding is the AAA representation of this kind of aesthetic, with outstanding production values. It's certainly a change from all the hyperactive eye-rollers most AAA companies have been spamming us with.
I'm all for it. It still has that bad Kojima stuff, cringey / overlong story sequences, impenetrable jargon bombardment and exposition dumps, but the good Kojima stuff too: truly unique in"feel", varied gameplay and a genuine no-compromises commitment to a vision, not to mention obsessive detail and incredible visuals.
Also probably the only "walking simulator" that actually has simulation aspects to it, lol.
Nice to see the Activision event didn't sway your score.
A fair review, all in all. Not interested in multiplayer these days though, so I would have like a little more info on how the game plays mechanically in the campaign. That said, they've played exactly the same for about the last 12 years (except maybe that sci-fi one, can't remember the name) so I can forgive the assumption that we'd just know anyway.
For some reason, I'm just not feeling this one. I don't know if it's the cartoony look or what, but it just doesn't have the immediate aesthetic appeal that Fallout does, even if it seems more polished. It's probably a decent game but, dunno, just something not grabbing me.
@cboye18: How dare you like games with genuine tactical depth that stay true their original vision?! What we want is to be lead to floating objective markers so we can shoot other, glowing red markers repeatedly, dammit!
@mogan: You're right there, but stuff like XP Boosts as it says there in the final paragraph, surely that can't be right? How far does it go? I'm not sure as I'm not really up on all that, but if weapons and "important" stuff that can provide an advantage is purchasable, then that's not right at all.
I think it should all be included as part of the Xbox Live subscription, a portion of subscription payments should go towards the developers, who in turn are able to plan their online stuff server maintenance for one) based around what they earn through the subscription payments.
@sealionact: That's a good point to be fair, though I don't think films being released on Netflix / home video is the same as "content roadmaps" as we have for games. If you buy that Blu-ray for example, you've got the whole movie, as intended. With games though, there is often actual, important story content, being released seperately as dlc, even though you've bought the game, which is now referred to as "the base game" or "vanilla" and thus an incomplete experience.
With film releases, they would never compromise the film itself, in order for you to shell out for the actual finished version, they are usually more of extras or fan/cinephile bait for those with more interest in the content than most.
Multiplayer is another matter, though it's quite clear that gameplay should never, ever be pay to win in any way at all. No new content, including skins and animations (can't believe that's a thing) should be made for a game that is already released, imo. New content should be in a new game, then there is no divide between the player base, no kids getting bullied for having "default" skins (another ridiculous trend) and the day one version of the game will never be considered obsolete, as the online component won't have altered too much.
But I've long been against all that stuff, even expansion packs I was against back in the day, especially The Sims (and look at the unholy mess that has become, dlc for dlc lol).
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