Death Stranding Director's Cut - Kojima's post-apocalyptic deliveryman simulator

[rusty_shackleford]

Damn, the burn. XD

He basically called Europeans a bunch of hipsters that like crappy 2deep4u walking sims.

 

[J_C]

Damn, the burn. XD

He basically called Europeans a bunch of hipsters that like crappy 2deep4u walking sims.

I'm pretty sure he called Americans dumb.

 

[Alienman]

It's a weird statement, because there is ton of shooting in the game. The game also provide a ton of different weapons for you, from assault rifles to rocket launchers. And bosses require shooting to kill, a lot of it actually. For there to be any weight behind the statement the game would not have any shooting at all.

 

[aweigh]

aMeRiCaNs PlAy FiRsT PeRsOn ShOoTeRs

- Kojimer

 

[Talby]

The size of the maps being so small compared to the distance you're meant to be travelling (east to west coast US) is really weird. You walk for 20 minutes and you've somehow gone from New York to Montana. It should have been set in Japan, then all the rocky terrain and compressed map size would make more sense. But that would mean the characters would have to be Japanese, and Kojima couldn't hire a bunch of American actors he saw in movies to play them.

Also what the fuck was Kojima thinking with the names of characters. You play as a guy called Sam Porter Bridges, who is a porter who works for a company called Bridges. Also his mom is named Bridget and his boss is called DIE HARDman. At least with MGS, the silly names made some kind of sense because they were code names, and their real names were normal (Solid Snake is David, Raiden is Jack, Big Boss is John)

 

[Curratum]

The size of the maps being so small compared to the distance you're meant to be travelling (east to west coast US) is really weird. You walk for 20 minutes and you've somehow gone from New York to Montana. It should have been set in Japan, then all the rocky terrain and compressed map size would make more sense. But that would mean the characters would have to be Japanese, and Kojima couldn't hire a bunch of American actors he saw in movies to play them.

Also what the fuck was Kojima thinking with the names of characters. You play as a guy called Sam Porter Bridges, who is a porter who works for a company called Bridges. Also his mom is named Bridget and his boss is called DIE HARDman. At least with MGS, the silly names made some kind of sense because they were code names, and their real names were normal (Solid Snake is David, Raiden is Jack, Big Boss is John)

Diehardman has a name and the reason he is called Diehardman is explained later on, same with Deadman.

 

[Alienman]

I think the company is named Bridges after the president, so it kinda makes sense that way. And like Curratum says all the names have an explanation. Still a bit weird, can't remember the reason why some of the characters have codenames.

 

[Egosphere]

Now while it's fun to shit on this game and Kojima putting on airs, I have to say that, some dumb choices aside, KojiPro really is a crack team of technicians. And, while I don't like all the design work, they are on the cutting edge of graphic design in games. Compare the look of tech in this to The Outer Worlds. Yoji Shinkawa is like Syd Mead compared to Obsidian's team of Robb Liefelds, and I believe much of MGS' appeal was due to that man. This is an area where Kojima's Hollywood pretenses pay off, as the art direction is playing at almost the same level as something like Ridley Scott's The Martian and Prometheus (whose opening scenes probably served as inspiration for the landscapes in the game), Spike Jonze's Her, or Joseph Kosinki's Oblivion, although it lacks their restraint. In comparison, your typical video game has all the visual sophistication of an Image comic from the 90s.

Also, a lot of the promotional material I've seen is Fincher-esque in it's austere hipness. I picture Koji pouring over every fashion mag and hip filmmaking publication he can get his hands on. I suspect he very much wishes he were one of the cool, beautiful, people, and a taste maker (which he kind of is, but in a smaller niche than he would like)

It's something they acquired as they went along. Art direction of MGS was always stellar, but technical execution was pretty standard for the ps1-ps2 eras. MGS3 lagged SH3 in facial animation quality, for example, despite having lots of cutscenes with close-up shots of characters' faces.

 

[bertram_tung]

The size of the maps being so small compared to the distance you're meant to be travelling (east to west coast US) is really weird. You walk for 20 minutes and you've somehow gone from New York to Montana.

Is that for real? I haven't played this shit but that's hilarious if true.

 

[Curratum]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

 

[bertram_tung]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

 

[Bigg Boss]

Blyat stranding

Now he needs to do it off the side of those giant towers at Chernobyl. With all the boxes and everything.

Video games are abstract. Gee whiz.

You don't walk that whole thing. There are gaps. One part you have to get to on boat. Without beating it yet there are 6 or 7 zones maybe more if you count the small ones. Each zone is fairly large to where you think you are almost to your destination and you zoom out and see it's not like normal video game distance, this is like if you walked out back behind your house and went in the field and kept walking and walked 15 miles to the lake and then walked back home.

----

The only thing that would make the game perfect as it is designed is removing the zones and jamming it all in one open world, but then the graphics wouldn't be as good as they are. Breath of the Wild climbing would be pretty much GOTY. Assuming they took out some of the walls at the top of the mountains. You don't start getting a lot of guns until you hit the halfway mark. I just started capping people and it felt wrong. They have little ghost markers floating above their head. The idea is you are supposed to go burn them at the incinerators. I'm not sure what my incentive is to do that since BT's are all over the place anyway.

To clarify by felt wrong I mean you are disincentivized from doing it for so long it's like "Should I just knock him out and not fuck with it?"

If Kojima doubled down on the mountain climbing aspect he would have something a little meatier. Something harder to scoff at. Someone post Cliffhanger on his Twitter.

With 200 pounds of shit on his back.

 

[J_C]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

 

[Curratum]

Obviously understanding landmass scaling for gameplay purposes is difficult.

 

[ArchAngel]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

No, you cross in 2 minutes exactly what you seen on that screen. To cross from one side of the forest to another (in Cloakwood) you need to go through 5 areas and travel for hours between each). Each map in Baldur's Gate only represents a small part where shit happens.

 

[J_C]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

No, you cross in 2 minutes exactly what you seen on that screen. To cross from one side of the forest to another (in Cloakwood) you need to go through 5 areas and travel for hours between each). Each map in Baldur's Gate only represents a small part where shit happens.

Yeah, I know, and you can't cover even that small area of a forest in 2 minutes IRL. Which is obviously abstraction, just like with Death Stranding and with most videogames.

 

[ArchAngel]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

No, you cross in 2 minutes exactly what you seen on that screen. To cross from one side of the forest to another (in Cloakwood) you need to go through 5 areas and travel for hours between each). Each map in Baldur's Gate only represents a small part where shit happens.

Yeah, I know, and you can't cover even that small area of a forest in 2 minutes IRL. Which is obviously abstraction, just like with Death Stranding and with most videogames.

You can by running which is what characters in BG do. Unless you are not capable of running for 2 minutes without a break.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

My sister stayed by me for the weekend and she brought her PS4. She not using mine, because it's mine. So I watched her play Death Stranding a little bit. It was very mind numbing. Watched one of the cutscenes a little while she was play. The little actual playing there was and it was where the main dude was arguing something that he is not strand and that he is porter bridge and not strand. What the literal fuck.

 

[Sentinel]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

Yeah this "it doesn't take me 6 months to cross the map? omg LOL epic fail" seems like grasping at straws. As if had Kojima done that people wouldn't be in an even higher flying rage against the game.

 

[J_C]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

No, you cross in 2 minutes exactly what you seen on that screen. To cross from one side of the forest to another (in Cloakwood) you need to go through 5 areas and travel for hours between each). Each map in Baldur's Gate only represents a small part where shit happens.

Yeah, I know, and you can't cover even that small area of a forest in 2 minutes IRL. Which is obviously abstraction, just like with Death Stranding and with most videogames.

You can by running which is what characters in BG do. Unless you are not capable of running for 2 minutes without a break.

Look, I'm pretty sure that you know that even one area of Cloakwood would be a pretty huge ground to cover if it existed IRL. And you can't manage that in 2 minues, whether you are running, or by driving a car.

 

[ArchAngel]

20 minutes from NY to Montana is an exaggeration, of course. The eastern slice of the map is roughly 20 minutes to cross, the central part which includes areas up to and just beyond the Rockies, I think, is maybe 30-40 to cross, so yeah, while the whole thing is ridiculously scaled down, you can't do that stretch in 20 minutes on foot.

Is the map actually supposed to be all of the US? And you traverse coast to coast on foot? The Majority of people can't even do that one time in 500 hours let alone multiple times in 50-60 hours. Hideo is a retard.

Edit: Wow you aren't exagerrating

Haha, Hideo is such a retard. Not like in Baldur's Gate you could go from one side of the forest to the other side in 2 minutes. Show me a person who can cross an entire forest in 2 minutes. Or travel from one side of the city on foot in GTA, when in real life it would take days.

No, you cross in 2 minutes exactly what you seen on that screen. To cross from one side of the forest to another (in Cloakwood) you need to go through 5 areas and travel for hours between each). Each map in Baldur's Gate only represents a small part where shit happens.

Yeah, I know, and you can't cover even that small area of a forest in 2 minutes IRL. Which is obviously abstraction, just like with Death Stranding and with most videogames.

You can by running which is what characters in BG do. Unless you are not capable of running for 2 minutes without a break.

Look, I'm pretty sure that you know that even one area of Cloakwood would be a pretty huge ground to cover if it existed IRL. And you can't manage that in 2 minues, whether you are running, or by driving a car.

Compare those maps with city of BG maps. They are exact representation of that area, they are not more or less. And running by 20 trees in a not so dense forest should not take long.
Edit: fixed some typos.

 

[Alienman]

Of course there will be limitations on scale, but the map is super small. It gets even smaller when the highway and the zip-line system is built up, which for I guess it is for most people. I think he might have overestimated the scale of the map he was making... Making it this small defeats the purpose of it all.

It's also only long, not wide, which makes it even smaller since you will take the same road each time.

 

[Talby]

Kojima insisted on the camera lingering on Norman Reedus' naked ass for an extra 5 seconds when he showers. It's really important for the story.

 

[dbx]

There's abstraction and then there"s retarded abstraction.
Cramming real life geography into a continuous super small open world map is a retarded abstraction.
Splitting it in maps that represents small areas connected by loading screens with real travel times is far better and gives a better sense of the scale of the endeavour. And add random encounters.

 

[Bigg Boss]

20 minutes my ass to Montana. I just got to fucking Montana area and I have been hauling ass in this game.

This is why they broke it into zones. So you know there are parts in between. They wipe out the entire middle part of the map.