Death Stranding Review Thread

woigemok said:
TLDR; Bad gameplay design but Kojima = 9/10



The low part is pretty much your overall experience in Death Stranding. Gameplay design and structure are the most important aspect that defines a video game, it's a big NO from me if the major criticism of a game in that department.

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Down 1 point after GB's review
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That's great, you having a party?
 
brap said:
Alex Navarro is a fucking retard. Dan should've reviewed it because even if he gave it a low score I'd still trust him over Alex 'shout out to my antifa super soldiers' Navarro.
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Honestly he's been my least favorite of the group ever since I discovered them. He always came off like a pretentious/pompous edge lord to me. Maybe a tad of a fart huffer.
 
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I don't care about GB, I respect any review. But I listened to Giant Bomb for hours debating and going through with giving Shadow of Mordor GOTY. I've not taken an opinion out of that outlet since then as applicable to me.
 
So for anyone who want to go as blind as possible, apparently Giant Bomb review reveals or heavily implies the origin of the baby thing.

Can anyone who read it confirm if this is true? i only watched very few no spoiler reviews.
 
Wink said:
Whom are you guaranteeing this to? Yourself? Cause that's really nice of you. Then yourself can feel good about yourself when you've played it and go like, "I knew the game wouldn't live up to the reviews".
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I'm talking about how the community as a whole responds to this over time. I just don't see it. Like everybody can't be wrong. that's all I'm saying. Don't get defensive.

Wink said:
I don't care about GB, I respect any review. But I listened to Giant Bomb for hours debating and going through with giving Shadow of Mordor GOTY. I've not taken an opinion out of that outlet since then as applicable to me.
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You respect ANY review...ok I'm sorry I even replied now.
 
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Jigsaah said:
I'm talking about how the community as a whole responds to this over time. I just don't see it. Like everybody can't be wrong. that's all I'm saying. Don't get defensive.
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Who are you referring to? The vast majority of positive 80+/100 reviews?
 
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ManaByte said:
Giant Bomb gave it 2 stars:
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Thats why we can't have nice new things and every game must be the same. Even game breaking loot boxes did not stopped them from giving out higher scores earlier... Rdr 2 had a great story but gameplay was terrible. Every mission played the same and did what every game did. You only played out waypoints and if you did anything different you would fail. Not to mention terrible epilogue...
Now dearth stranding tries new gameplay and is also slow but at least let's you do missions your way by the sounds of it.

And it's weird that review. They never anymore review games for releases and Alex only does bad games and sport games so they had to know they don't like it long before if they gave it to him for review
 
Also I remember that gb hated last guardian but I think it was incredible.
These idiots gave shadow of mordor goty and fucking tetris.... And every year give great scores to the same call of duty. And control ia not 5/5 sorry.
They were great site years ago. Isten to 2008 goty podcast. They debate gta iv vs mgs 4 with grrat enthusiasm. They would hate those games now and pick dream daddy
 
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rofif said:
Also I remember that gb hated last guardian but I think it was incredible.
These idiots gave shadow of mordor goty and fucking tetris.... And every year give great scores to the same call of duty. And control ia not 5/5 sorry.
They were great site years ago. Isten to 2008 goty podcast. They debate gta iv vs mgs 4 with grrat enthusiasm. They would hate those games now and pick dream daddy
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So now we are trying to pick holes with all the negative reviews while leaving the positive ones alone, sounds balanced. ;)
 
Mozza said:
Why bother with reviews in the first place then?, as if you are only going to trust the positive ones anything else is rendered moot, It can't be that all the negative opinions about the game are incorrect while all positive views are bang on the money.
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STOP TAMPERING AROUND WITH MY REALITY BUBBLE!
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*Reads this a hundred times to cure the cognitive dissonance created by you*
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Bryank75 said:
So, when you describe a Caravaggio... do you just say in a factual way 'seems to be some soldiers with shiny armor taking Jesus somewhere'
Or do you actually take it in and allow yourself to feel something? To connect on a deeper level...

It seems obvious to me that a great deal of care and attention was paid to creating a rugged yet beautiful topography which is in a sense a main character almost in the game, it is the greatest obstacle you face, not Higgs or the BT's or any human.

The long solitary portions of the game are to enjoy the loneliness and silence and to realize and later contrast how things can be so difficult alone compared to when we can work together. Of course everyone knows this on a surface level but to tie it to an experience , a place, sounds and a story allows you to consider its value at a deeper level I feel.

The combat is very like MGS at the end anyway, you get 3D printed concussion rifles and everything... so they are probably just frustrated they didn't have that stuff early. People can't get over guns in games it seems...
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The combat is simple unfortunately and you get weapons as early as you start the game and start facing mules. The game anyway doesn't want you to kill anyone and gives you non lethal weapons, it explains the reasoning through the story and removes the desire to kill from the player. Although in the game world that reasoning has no effect, and it's a shame because that would be a great game changer.

I don't want to spoil this so, i'm gonna let people see it by themeselves.
 
hollowcupra said:
The combat is simple unfortunately and you get weapons as early as you start the game and start facing mules. The game anyway doesn't want you to kill anyone and gives you non lethal weapons, it explains the reasoning through the story and removes the desire to kill from the player. Although in the game world that reasoning has no effect, and it's a shame because that would be a great game changer.

I don't want to spoil this so, i'm gonna let people see it by themeselves.
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But did you kill loads of enemies to see if it had an effect later?
 
Terenty said:
Watch these "professional" journos give Star Wars aka the ultimate checklist of design tropes: the game perfect scores and jizz themselves.
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No exclusive game will ever get perfect scores because there will always be a couple of reviewers that want to stand out, but as with any game once you filter out the attention seekers and overly positive reviews from the console in questions native sites, you are then left with a pretty fair representation of peoples feelings for the game good or bad, I don't think you could describe Death Stranding as a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but from the impressions thus far the game is not perfect and does have some issues, hardly the end of the world though, most people are going to do what they always do and judge the game for themselves when they play it.
 
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Mozza said:
No exclusive game will ever get perfect scores because there will always be a couple of reviewers that want to stand out, but as with any game once you filter out the attention seekers and overly positive reviews from the console in questions native sites, you are then left with a pretty fair representation of peoples feelings for the game good or bad, I don't think you could describe Death Stranding as a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but from the impressions thus far the game is not perfect and does have some issues, hardly the end of the world though, most people are going to do what they always do and judge the game for themselves when they play it.
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At least that clown from Edge has lost all credibility. That's for sure.
 
Bryank75 said:
But did you kill loads of enemies to see if it had an effect later?
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Yes. Lots of them at the end to just test it. I even tried to become a bad guy by using what i learned through the story and still didn't change anything in the game world. I really hope the review period had mechanisms disable just of the sake to keep everything working at safe levels for everyone.
 
rofif said:
Thats why we can't have nice new things and every game must be the same. Even game breaking loot boxes did not stopped them from giving out higher scores earlier... Rdr 2 had a great story but gameplay was terrible. Every mission played the same and did what every game did. You only played out waypoints and if you did anything different you would fail. Not to mention terrible epilogue...
Now dearth stranding tries new gameplay and is also slow but at least let's you do missions your way by the sounds of it.

And it's weird that review. They never anymore review games for releases and Alex only does bad games and sport games so they had to know they don't like it long before if they gave it to him for review
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Death stranding gameplay structure is basically similar to other generic open world games. Linear story and mission progression, nothing ground breaking like BOTW where you can go to any point of the world without following the same order and you can go straight to the final boss.
 
Psykodad said:
At least that clown from Edge has lost all credibility. That's for sure.
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You can look at that from another angle however, the studio imposed an embargo where you can give a review once you have completed the game, fair enough as I don't think it's fair for a reviewer to spend just a couple of hours and come to a fair verdict, however if a reviewer plays 9 hours or so into a game then I personally feel that's enough time to get a feel for the mechanics and feel of how the game plays, of course with an intensive story driven game you could argue the ending will be important, but still in this case I feel the reviewer was not enjoying the game and did not want to comply with the embargo, so the correct thing to do IMHO is rather than score it, technically lying saying he had finished it, he chose not to rate the game giving it a less than perfect score, now considering on here how many are up in arms over any negative comments this game is receiving you would think this was a blessing he did not chose to finish his review.
 
I think judging on reviews in this case is not wise given that the reviews are all over the place, from those calling it a masterpiece to those who absolutely hated it.

There seems to be no in between you either hate it or love it I frankly am looking forward to playing it, but one thing everybody seems to agree on is that somebody somewhere probably should have told Kojima NO at some point.
 
No, the guy should man up and do the job they payed him for. If Edge thinks it's a 5/10 or 4/10 game, own it and reveal that score in your magazine.
 
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Mozza said:
You can look at that from another angle however, the studio imposed an embargo where you can give a review once you have completed the game, fair enough as I don't think it's fair for a reviewer to spend just a couple of hours and come to a fair verdict, however if a reviewer plays 9 hours or so into a game then I personally feel that's enough time to get a feel for the mechanics and feel of how the game plays, of course with an intensive story driven game you could argue the ending will be important, but still in this case I feel the reviewer was not enjoying the game and did not want to comply with the embargo, so the correct thing to do IMHO is rather than score it, technically lying saying he had finished it, he chose not to rate the game giving it a less than perfect score, now considering on here how many are up in arms over any negative comments this game is receiving you would think this was a blessing he did not chose to finish his review.
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It is completely fair to have story completion as a requirement for a singleplayer game.
In fact, that should be a given and not something to be considered as "imposed", as you state it. That already says a lot about your attitude towards the game.

9 hours for a 30+ hour game is laughable to make a final judgment.
If anyone feels different, they definitely shouldn't be a professional games journalist.

Also, nobody cares about people giving low ratings unless it's unfair.
So, if 80% of the professional reviews give 80+ scores, a 3.8 or whatever the lowest score is, is too drastic of a drop. IGN's 6.8 isn't that far fetched, tbh.

The only reason people are "up in arms over any negative comment", is because said negative comments completely dismiss 82% of the reviews and accuse those reviewers of being paid, while only validating the one 6.8 and one 3.8 reviews to push their hate campaign against Kojima or PS4 exclusives.

The majority of people in here are level-headed and reserve judgment until they play the game themselves, instead of certain users who carry their pitchforks into every single DS thread for the past week.

Guess objectivity is too much to ask for on forums.
 
Psykodad said:
It is completely fair to have story completion as a requirement for a singleplayer game.
In fact, that should be a given and not something to be considered as "imposed", as you state it. That already says a lot about your attitude towards the game.

9 hours for a 30+ hour game is laughable to make a final judgment.
If anyone feels different, they definitely shouldn't be a professional games journalist.

Also, nobody cares about people giving low ratings unless it's unfair.
So, if 80% of the professional reviews give 80+ scores, a 3.8 or whatever the lowest score is, is too drastic of a drop. IGN's 6.8 isn't that far fetched, tbh.

The only reason people are "up in arms over any negative comment", is because said negative comments completely dismiss 82% of the reviews and accuse those reviewers of being paid, while only validating the one 6.8 and one 3.8 reviews to push their hate campaign against Kojima or PS4 exclusives.

The majority of people in here are level-headed and reserve judgment until they play the game themselves, instead of certain users who carry their pitchforks into every single DS thread for the past week.

Guess objectivity is too much to ask for on forums.
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I hope my impressions don't put me in the latter category.

From my experience from the game, everyone should try it. Not because it's a Kojima game, but because it's wonderfully crafted and the attention to detail is astonishing. The direction is something we 've never seen in a game before and the voice acting sets new levels. The problem from my POV with reviews and the scoring system is that people usually dismiss everything below a certain point and reviews obviously know that and that's the reason we see paragraphs detailing how bland the gameplay is, or how boring it is but it scores an 8 for example, it's because people are afraid to use the scoring scale in it's full width.

If i was a reviewer i would put a 6/10 on this game. In my opinion gameplay should be a stronger metric compared to the other categories i mentioned previously. It's not because it doesn't have shooting or killings, it's because said gameplay is not rewarding or enganging. Even the planning element is not required to do perfect orders. I have 218 orders as of now and never planned anything. I know, it's my choice to play like that, but the game doesn't reward me for doing other choices. I know it's the freedom to act on will, but why bother losing time to try new stuff if the basic stuff serve the same purpose.

That doesn't mean people won't find it a great place to spend their time and it doesn't mean that people that won't like it are only playing bland games.
 
hollowcupra said:
I hope my impressions don't put me in the latter category.

From my experience from the game, everyone should try it. Not because it's a Kojima game, but because it's wonderfully crafted and the attention to detail is astonishing. The direction is something we 've never seen in a game before and the voice acting sets new levels. The problem from my POV with reviews and the scoring system is that people usually dismiss everything below a certain point and reviews obviously know that and that's the reason we see paragraphs detailing how bland the gameplay is, or how boring it is but it scores an 8 for example, it's because people are afraid to use the scoring scale in it's full width.

If i was a reviewer i would put a 6/10 on this game. In my opinion gameplay should be a stronger metric compared to the other categories i mentioned previously. It's not because it doesn't have shooting or killings, it's because said gameplay is not rewarding or enganging. Even the planning element is not required to do perfect orders. I have 218 orders as of now and never planned anything. I know, it's my choice to play like that, but the game doesn't reward me for doing other choices. I know it's the freedom to act on will, but why bother losing time to try new stuff if the basic stuff serve the same purpose.

That doesn't mean people won't find it a great place to spend their time and it doesn't mean that people that won't like it are only playing bland games.
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I haven't read all your comments as I want to know as little as possible before I go in, but I personally value your input.
You disliking the game is perfectly fine.

I can't comment on anything gameplay related, as I haven't played the game yet. No idea whether or not I'll like it.

What strikes me though, is that just like some other people in here, you imply that the majority of positive reviews give high scores because they're somehow afraid to use a broader scale.
If that would be true, there wouldn't be 82% of 80+ scores, no matter how hard you try to reason otherwise.
There is absolutely no logical reason that supports your claim. Not even the fact that this is a Kojima game.

Seems like some people can't fathom the idea that people like the sum of all things more than just the cons of the gameplay.
 
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I'm actually glad a few big publications didn't even afraid to give an honest score to this kind of game. You can easily comprehend the score based on the written review while a lot of publications were still unable to justify the scores based on the written reviews.

Kudos to IGN, GB, Edge, and a few others for the unbiased reviews.
 
Bodatan said:
I'm actually glad a few big publications didn't even afraid to give an honest score to this kind of game. You can easily comprehend the score based on the written review while a lot of publications were still unable to justify the scores based on the written reviews.

Kudos to IGN, GB, Edge, and a few others for the unbiased reviews.
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Yeah, the reviews which are more negative than positive line up perfectly in expressive writing with how they score it. Most of the 8.5+ reviews end up saying a whole lot of negative mixed in with world enamorment and you scroll down expecting like a 7 or below yet you're met with like a 9.5 or a 9.

No one who is highly rating this game can explain their scores relative to the numerous pitfalls in not only the mechanical makeup of gameplay itself but also the immensely shallow loop.
 
Psykodad said:
Seems like some people can't fathom the idea that people like the sum of all things more than just the cons of the gameplay.
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I always wonder why it happens, not only in this game, it's just more prevelant with this game because it comes from a great creator and people discuss it, instead of just ignoring it.

But it's true it might be our own superstition that see's problem where there is none and that's why i'm saying everyone should play this game.
 
hollowcupra said:
I always wonder why it happens, not only in this game, it's just more prevelant with this game because it comes from a great creator and people discuss it, instead of just ignoring it.

But it's true it might be our own superstition that see's problem where there is none and that's why i'm saying everyone should play this game.
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That specific comment of mine wasn't necessarily directed towards you.
But it is something that you see all happening all the time.

I think it's the fact that gaming has become so broad, that there are games that aim for more entertainment value than just pure gameplay.

Gameplay being a weaker part of the game, doesn't mean a game is bad or can't be entertaining. Same goes for something like the length of a game or replay-value.

If the experience as a whole is strong enough to warrant high scores, it's ignorant to dismiss that only because you (in general) think that gameplay trumps all.
 
Psykodad said:
It is completely fair to have story completion as a requirement for a singleplayer game.
In fact, that should be a given and not something to be considered as "imposed", as you state it. That already says a lot about your attitude towards the game.

9 hours for a 30+ hour game is laughable to make a final judgment.
If anyone feels different, they definitely shouldn't be a professional games journalist.

Also, nobody cares about people giving low ratings unless it's unfair.
So, if 80% of the professional reviews give 80+ scores, a 3.8 or whatever the lowest score is, is too drastic of a drop. IGN's 6.8 isn't that far fetched, tbh.

The only reason people are "up in arms over any negative comment", is because said negative comments completely dismiss 82% of the reviews and accuse those reviewers of being paid, while only validating the one 6.8 and one 3.8 reviews to push their hate campaign against Kojima or PS4 exclusives.

The majority of people in here are level-headed and reserve judgment until they play the game themselves, instead of certain users who carry their pitchforks into every single DS thread for the past week.

Guess objectivity is too much to ask for on forums.
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But this shows no objectivity from your side, I totally agree you can't only trust one or the other, but by the same token you can't simply ignore either the positive or negative reviews either, on the whole this game looks great but still has some issues, also you have me kind of misquoted here, I do not dislike this game, but I also want to remain a little objective and counter those stating anybody that does not like this game is either unreliable or a fanboy.
 
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kurisu_1974 said:
No, the guy should man up and do the job they payed him for. If Edge thinks it's a 5/10 or 4/10 game, own it and reveal that score in your magazine.
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Perhaps the reviewer thought it unfair to review a game as he did not want to finish it, thus sticking to the rules of the embargo.
 
Mozza said:
But this shows no objectivity from your side, I totally agree you can't only trust one or the other, but by the same token you can't simply ignore either the positive or negative reviews either, on the whole this game looks great but still has some issues, also you have me kind of misquoted here, I do not dislike this game, but I also want to remain a little objective and counter those stating anybody that does not like this game is either unreliable or a fanboy.
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Did I exclude negative reviews though?

Well, maybe Edge, but that wasn't because he disliked the game, he discredited himself by the way he went about it.
 
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Psykodad said:
Did I exclude negative reviews though?

Well, maybe Edge, but that wasn't because he disliked the game, he discredited himself by the way he went about it.
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No he didn't, that's a gambler's fallacy.

The guy felt that it wasn't going to turn around and was so turned off by it that he couldn't endure playing it any further.

He pulled out when he should have.
 
DynamiteCop! said:
No he didn't, that's a gambler's fallacy.

The guy felt that it wasn't going to turn around and was so turned off by it that he couldn't endure playing it any further.

He pulled out when he should have.
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Yes, and suddenly he is going to do a review after all the backlash.
Therefor, he discredited hinself. It' s pretty simple really.

All he had to do on twitter was say he might not do a review without ranting like a spoiled child and all would be fine.
 
Psykodad said:
Yes, and suddenly he is going to do a review after all the backlash.
Therefor, he discredited hinself. It' s pretty simple really.

All he had to do on twitter was say he might not do a review without ranting like a spoiled child and all would be fine.
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Pot meet kettle, or people could just not be hyperbolic entitled idiots and cry because a guy thought a game was so terrible he didn't want to continue reviewing it.
 
woigemok said:
Good review.
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Exactly, and the reasoning by some on here that the negative reviewers have gone out of their way not to like this game is ludicrous, of course there may be a small element of this but on the whole I am sure the reviewers pretty much all wanted to like this game, as it represented a major change in direction and created a new genre, and I think it has still has succeeded in that aim, but is not perfect hence the split reviews.
 
Psykodad said:
Yes, and suddenly he is going to do a review after all the backlash.
Therefor, he discredited hinself. It' s pretty simple really.

All he had to do on twitter was say he might not do a review without ranting like a spoiled child and all would be fine.
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you sounded hurt by his action
 
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