Before I played Death Stranding, I had an impression that Kojima was the George Lucas of Videogames: A person with amazing ideas, but that needed a lot of people to help him get his vision into fruition by saying 'no', directing in his stead, and keeping him in check.
But now that I finished this game, this changed.
Now I am certain that he is the George Lucas of Videogames.
The story itself is actually fine, for the first time since Metal Gear Solid 1 there was a plot that could be followed, and some twists that were actually set up instead of the wild insane ride that was MG 4 (I still have a trauma of that game), you are Sam Bridges, you deliver packages to convince people to gather up America again. The gameplay is actually pretty nice, delivering packages through the country, using many tools at your disposal to traverse territory giving you the satisfaction of a job well done, and when you finish your Zipline network backed by a whole set of roads, there is that delicious shiver of satisfaction that few games nowadays deliver. Combat is simple and straightforward, with an actual reason to not kill everyone you see in your path, with pros and cons of going rambo.
The problem is the directing itself and the minutiae of each one of these points that don't mesh well when joined, making the game feel like a puzzle of nice pieces that don't fit. I played the Director's edition using a controller, and the game prioritized grabbing empty boxes near Sam instead of drawing a gun, because the 'grab the package' 'hold yourself to not fall' and the 'draw weapon' were the one and the same button, resulting in a fistful of lead up Sam's face. There are tons of smaller mechanics that don't add anything, and turn up to be a pain, such as constantly having to brace yourself, even if you are already inside the building you're supposed to reach (or in the middle of a firefight, with a light load AND exoskeleton). Driving a vehicle outside a road is bad? Ok, I agree, except the handling isn't bad, its atrocious, with the trucks having no traction whatsoever, sliding rocky hills as if their tires were made of glass and snow, and the bike literally bumping onto nothing because of a slight uneven ground leveling being interpreted as a rock.
And the directing of the story is nothing short of amateurish. Kojima doesn't know the basics such as pacing, or climax, usage of symbolism or bonding. Characters waste time repeating over and over and over the same thing (I loathed Die-Hardman by the end of the game, calling him 'Die-parrotman'), with dialogue that brushes George Lucas level "I'm your princess beach!" and interactions are mostly exposition, or worse, e-mail. In a game about being in constant movement, you check how characters are doing through reading e-mail. Chapters will be focused solely on a single character and most, if not all meaningful interaction will be done there, and then its over, instead of gradually talking to them, knowing them, and influencing them. The worse thing about this is that Kojima had the perfect mold for this kind of story development: Metal Gear Solid, where you have a team of experts that slowly open up to the main character as things develop. Why couldn't the same be done here!? Instead of having to stop to talk to the codec, why not listen to them, and interact with them, as you are climbing a hill through a call? After all isn't the theme of the game is 'being connected'? Have questions about the BB? Call deadman instead of reading a report. Problems with your equipment? Call Mama. Instead, the game thinks it knows when to call you, insisting over and over about things you already know and wasting your time with redundancies, like the same screen no matter how many times you recycle things or a whole status screen about a single lost delivery you found right outside and decided to return it.
Speaking of which, Kojima behaves like a newbie chef that discovered the mighty power of Garlic. He will put tons of it in everything, even in ice cream, especially ice cream. Symbolism loses any and all nuance, being exposed and repeated on your face over and over. Did you know that Sam will be the BRIDGE to UNITE AMERICA? Because his name is BRIDGES, and his chosen surname is PORTER, PORTER BRIDGES, GET IT? And what infuriates me is that Kojima has the tools he needs to make a great story, brushing with greatness but being caught up in self-servicing vices and ruined. I realized the whole deal about heartman in the first five seconds of his interaction with Sam from all the clues gathered, but Kojima assumed that I was a moron, because he proceeded to explain everything in half hour of dialogue that could be just three lines. Norman Reedus feels wasted here, relegated only to grunt and be awkward, while Mads Mikkelsen absolutely steals the show whenever he shows up with simple, methodical and superb acting.
In the end, I think that this game's biggest 'sin' is Kojima himself, if he went the honest path and revealed from the getgo that this game was about deliveries and relationships in a post-apocalyptic world instead of making people wild with cryptic videos, the hype backlash would have been minimal. And if he actually had found a good director, this game would have been great. In the end, I enjoyed it, but the repetition and bloated story made me not want to repeat the ordeal.
This Game changed my opinion of Kojima.
Before I played Death Stranding, I had an impression that Kojima was the George Lucas of Videogames: A person with amazing ideas, but that needed a lot of people to help him get his vision into fruition by saying 'no', directing in his stead, and keeping him in check.
But now that I finished this game, this changed.
Now I am certain that he is the George Lucas of Videogames.
The story itself is actually fine, for the first time since Metal Gear Solid 1 there was a plot that could be followed, and some twists that were actually set up instead of the wild insane ride that was MG 4 (I still have a trauma of that game), you are Sam Bridges, you deliver packages to convince people to gather up America again. The gameplay is actually pretty nice, delivering packages through the country, using many tools at your disposal to traverse territory giving you the satisfaction of a job well done, and when you finish your Zipline network backed by a whole set of roads, there is that delicious shiver of satisfaction that few games nowadays deliver. Combat is simple and straightforward, with an actual reason to not kill everyone you see in your path, with pros and cons of going rambo.
The problem is the directing itself and the minutiae of each one of these points that don't mesh well when joined, making the game feel like a puzzle of nice pieces that don't fit. I played the Director's edition using a controller, and the game prioritized grabbing empty boxes near Sam instead of drawing a gun, because the 'grab the package' 'hold yourself to not fall' and the 'draw weapon' were the one and the same button, resulting in a fistful of lead up Sam's face. There are tons of smaller mechanics that don't add anything, and turn up to be a pain, such as constantly having to brace yourself, even if you are already inside the building you're supposed to reach (or in the middle of a firefight, with a light load AND exoskeleton). Driving a vehicle outside a road is bad? Ok, I agree, except the handling isn't bad, its atrocious, with the trucks having no traction whatsoever, sliding rocky hills as if their tires were made of glass and snow, and the bike literally bumping onto nothing because of a slight uneven ground leveling being interpreted as a rock.
And the directing of the story is nothing short of amateurish. Kojima doesn't know the basics such as pacing, or climax, usage of symbolism or bonding. Characters waste time repeating over and over and over the same thing (I loathed Die-Hardman by the end of the game, calling him 'Die-parrotman'), with dialogue that brushes George Lucas level "I'm your princess beach!" and interactions are mostly exposition, or worse, e-mail. In a game about being in constant movement, you check how characters are doing through reading e-mail. Chapters will be focused solely on a single character and most, if not all meaningful interaction will be done there, and then its over, instead of gradually talking to them, knowing them, and influencing them. The worse thing about this is that Kojima had the perfect mold for this kind of story development: Metal Gear Solid, where you have a team of experts that slowly open up to the main character as things develop. Why couldn't the same be done here!? Instead of having to stop to talk to the codec, why not listen to them, and interact with them, as you are climbing a hill through a call? After all isn't the theme of the game is 'being connected'? Have questions about the BB? Call deadman instead of reading a report. Problems with your equipment? Call Mama. Instead, the game thinks it knows when to call you, insisting over and over about things you already know and wasting your time with redundancies, like the same screen no matter how many times you recycle things or a whole status screen about a single lost delivery you found right outside and decided to return it.
Speaking of which, Kojima behaves like a newbie chef that discovered the mighty power of Garlic. He will put tons of it in everything, even in ice cream, especially ice cream. Symbolism loses any and all nuance, being exposed and repeated on your face over and over. Did you know that Sam will be the BRIDGE to UNITE AMERICA? Because his name is BRIDGES, and his chosen surname is PORTER, PORTER BRIDGES, GET IT? And what infuriates me is that Kojima has the tools he needs to make a great story, brushing with greatness but being caught up in self-servicing vices and ruined. I realized the whole deal about heartman in the first five seconds of his interaction with Sam from all the clues gathered, but Kojima assumed that I was a moron, because he proceeded to explain everything in half hour of dialogue that could be just three lines. Norman Reedus feels wasted here, relegated only to grunt and be awkward, while Mads Mikkelsen absolutely steals the show whenever he shows up with simple, methodical and superb acting.
In the end, I think that this game's biggest 'sin' is Kojima himself, if he went the honest path and revealed from the getgo that this game was about deliveries and relationships in a post-apocalyptic world instead of making people wild with cryptic videos, the hype backlash would have been minimal. And if he actually had found a good director, this game would have been great. In the end, I enjoyed it, but the repetition and bloated story made me not want to repeat the ordeal.