The Discovery of Beaches and the Concept of Death

[Fetian]

Death Stranding liveblog!

[Fetian]

All I remember about this game is previous things I talked about in Smash Bros

[Fetian]

Catchup post:

mek — 09/29/2021 9:40 PM
I've just been introduced to the baby in Death Stranding

It's pretty weird

I intentionally know almost nothing about this game but I believe you eventually carry it around in like a future babybjorn

It? Senses invisible monsters? Maybe? And you are hooked up to its fluids? Or something?

FAgdpc8VcAIEmQ9.jpg

 
The whosit on orange man's chest has the baby in it, as you can see he is currently attached to its fluids

When he hooked it up he started crying and said 'it always makes me feel like shit'

And then the baby did a flip

This game came of PT being cancelled

Assumptions are Silent Hills was going to involve Norman Reedus (in grey, there) carrying around a ghost baby, and that concept evolved into this

Orange man is legit just monologuing the setting at me

Despite that I still don't really know what's going on but I'm not paying as much attention to it as I could be

I was waiting for confirmation on this but I just had it confirmed that the baby is called a BB

Here's what I'm gathering so far

This is a zombie game but the zombies make you old

The zombies are invisible unless you're a pisces

I am also getting the impression that people are paid in social media likes

The baby is mine

That is, I now own the baby, not I contributed genetic material to the baby's creation

That remains to be seen

I'm also naked now for some reason

Sam is a "repatriate," meaning that he can return to life from the place known as the Seam when killed. In the Seam, follow the "Strand" to guide Sam's soul to his body to bring him back.

I went into my character's mouth and the baby was in there and then I went into the baby's mouth and Mads Mikkelsen was in there

There seems to be a mechanic where you can leave tiny ladders around for other players and they can thank you with likes

I am so baffled by what's currently happening that I can't articulate it

The game just censored Norman Reedus taking a shit with an advertisement for a Norman Reedus show on AMC

 
mek — 09/30/2021 11:17 AM
I'ma fire up more Death Stranding

Gameplay has me a little worried, it's on the verge of frustrating right now and as difficulty increases it may lose me

Guillermo Del Toro and his character are a fucking Delight, though, I love him

(Del Toro, Jesse Corti, Justin Leeper (video games are wild))

More plot I have gathered:

Society went fully autonomous for the service industry (specifically deliveries made entirely by drones)
People didn't like this so they reverted back to human carriers
Then the Stranding happened and isolated most everyone
People went crazy from lack of human contact
Now oxytocin is the drug of choice and
There are people ("mules") who are addicted to delivering packages who will steal your cargo and run off with it
(They don't actually deliver the packages, they hoard them)

This is so fucking muddled

I get what Kojima is going for but god it could use a lot of polish

I think "we tried drones for a while and people hated it" is there so that people don't ask why we're not just using drones to deliver stuff over long-distances after the Stranding, but I don't think that's a question anyone would actually be wondering with how everything is presented

Maybe there's more to it though, I guess I'll find out

The Stranding is something about how we did a science bad and now dead people can come back to life into those invisible zombies that make you old

Meanwhile mechanically the game keeps encouraging me to "get out of the rain" when it happens, and "look for a cave to wait it out in" but, there aren't any, caves???

I'm plopped down into a hilly field, there's fucking nothing to use for cover anywhere

It's very frustrating

Also frustrating there's no discrete audio controls, it's just everything louder or quieter

So no boosting the dialogue or lowering the music or boom boom noises

Also also it suffers from the AAA thing of explaining everything at extreme length and several times, just to make sure the player doesn't miss anything

Often multiple times on the same screen

I have completed, offhand, maybe ten missions, and the game just reminded me how to use a basic function of the game, which I had literally just used less than a minute ago

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In a big obnoxious popup

erikavonkaiser — 09/30/2021 11:42 AM
Yeah, I feel stuff like that is easily solved by a toggle option where you can opt-in or out

mek — 09/30/2021 11:43 AM
Or like, if a player has used the function they probably don't need to know how it works

This is all stuff I can review myself in the Tips section of the menu, too

So if I like, accidentally hit it and am like 'what the fuck is this' I can look up the help item

It also additionally reviews tips during the loading screens and (genuinely approve of this, not a critique) makes me tell it to continue the game when it loading is finished rather than just continuing it itself and preventing me from reading anything on the screen

"Always liked the quiet", Norman Reedus says, barely audible under the ambient forest noise

mek — 09/30/2021 12:48 PM
Okay so like

The rain is bad

Because it also makes you old

So if your cargo gets rained on in takes damage because it's getting older

And I've got like a slicker that I put on when it's raining so I don't get old

And my entire job is delivering packages, which get damaged in the rain

why... do I not have some kind of protective tarp or something that I can put over my packages...???

They're just like, out there in the open, on my back and arms and legs

I would like a pup tent I can carry with me

I say that but I'm already annoyed by the inventory management inherent in this game

I do think the balance mechanic is kind of neat

If I just run around willy nilly with my cargo all piled up any which way I'll topple over

Which is annoying but it's an interesting mechanic and thing to have to keep track of

erikavonkaiser — 09/30/2021 1:00 PM
I heard the inventory management praised but inventory management is definitely a like,

You love it or hate it and that changes with each game

mek — 09/30/2021 1:01 PM
Yeah

As someone who hates inventory management, this one's okay

I resent having to think about my carry weight at all ever, but that's, you know, the central gameplay here

You choose where you load your cargo onto yourself -- your back, your arms, your legs, some specialised slots -- so can get fiddly about that, but there's an 'optimise cargo' button that will balance it all for you

'text unlocked: The Discovery of Beaches and the Concept of Death'

Sounds heavy

Mads Mikkelsen is teaching me about the moon

mek — 10/03/2021 10:23 PM
This woman in Death Stranding keeps trying to get me to eat a bug

[Fetian]

I do not currently have playstation plus or whatever it's called now so I'm not sure that I have online features enabled, but the game hasn't nagged me about it at all yet so possibly! I gather that if you play in offline mode then the game just remembers the state of all the online stuff from the last time you played, though since this is a new save and not a continuation of a previous save I'm also not sure that matters, though I'm also not super inclined to care either way

[Fetian]

Honestly tired of playing games about gruff, depressed men who have a Reputation for being Really Good at their job. More games about Just Some Guy please, I want to get a reputation for being The Best because of my actions, not what the character has already done before I even got a chance to play

[Fetian]

I was waiting for confirmation on this but I just had it confirmed that the baby is called a BB

Oh I think it's because it's a "Bridge Baby"

[Fetian]

"Things were different when I was a kid. America was a country!"

[Fetian]

The visuals for this game are genuinely great

[Fetian]

Norman Reedus ain't got a bellybutton

Just like Kyle XY

[Fetian]

I mean his character, of course, I'm sure Norman Reedus the actor has a bellybutton