Sunday, April 6, 2025
Underrated-UNR
Saturday, April 5, 2025
What if Lockdown was voiced by Norman Reedus?-UNR
Five years of doubt. Was Death Stranding worth it?-UNR
It took me five years to finally lay my hands on Death Stranding — until I got the game for free on the Epic Store, forgot about it for a while, and then remembered it just two weeks ago. And finally, it happened — ironically, right before the release of the sequel.
The main issue.
My doubts were strong. There was too great a difference between the early game teasers and the video walkthroughs on YouTube.
The teasers promised an intriguing sci-fi thriller with interesting characters and setting — but the YouTube videos showed a boring, slow, fuzzy beginning of something completely different.
I should have kept watching for a few more hours to get to some real action — and that’s the main issue of the game: a great imbalance between the story and the gameplay.
The east region is basically a training ground. You get your first encounters with MULEs, BTs, basic structures, landscapes and all that.
The central region is the main one — and there you just get stuck traversing the country from one end to another, which gives you nothing valuable for your efforts.
You can spend many hours exploring the world, building roads and useful structures — and all you get for that are useless likes. You can’t convert them into resources or use them for training Sam to make him stronger or tougher. Sam’s porter rank doesn’t mean a thing.
I really don’t understand this “social” part of the game. What was I supposed to feel? The satisfaction of… err… connecting people in their bunkers? Sounds pretty fun…
The optimal strategy.
So basically, you can — and should — skip all the side activities and stick only to the story drivers. That’ll save you a lot of time — and you won’t forget the goal of Sam’s adventure.
Still, the central region takes way too much time for boring wandering around the map. But after that, the game stops pretending to be a never-ending pizza delivery boy simulator and turns into a third-person action game. A bit clumsy one — but it drastically contrasts with everything you’ve been doing before: countless boss fights, cutscenes, flashbacks, exhausting explainers, weird emotional bursts…
Poor controls and UI design.
All this is aggravated by overloaded controls. Why are there so many buttons for controlling Sam’s two hands?
- A button for picking up chiral crystals and cryptobiotes.
- A button to put cargo on his back.
- A button to balance with the right hand.
- A button to balance with the left hand.
Then there are two buttons for interacting with structures.
Plus, you have the usual buttons for aiming and shooting — which are also used for positioning and building — and a dedicated button for melee combat!
Have the developers ever heard of the K.I.S.S. principle? Or maybe the kanso concept?
It’s the same with the overcomplicated UI. Too many screens, too hard to get to the action buttons. I won’t even mention working with the map. The UI ergonomics are very poor — at least on PC.
Inconsistent story and lack of atmosphere.
Aside from all the gameplay elements, the story itself turns out to be inconsistent — which seems to be caused by poor screenwriting.
The main idea of Death Stranding is pretty complex, and a good screenplay is vital for delivering a solid story in an open world full of side activities. That’s clearly not done well here.
Neither is engaging the player in all this.
I didn’t feel any connection to Bridget/Amelie, who just frustrated me all the time. I didn’t get the twist of Clifford’s attitude toward Sam after their last iterative battle.
And, after all, I didn’t feel connected to Sam’s feelings. I wasn’t involved emotionally. The game lacks the right atmosphere that could help the player feel connected to the characters.
The songs by Low Roar simply don’t fit Norman Reedus — he’s way too masculine for that boyish depressive moaning. The whole musical background of the game just feels wrong.
But what’s good about Death Stranding?
I’d put the technical aspects in the first place.
The physics are implemented very well. Sam moves naturally, and gravity and the elements are real badasses. The performance optimization is exemplary. You can tell the team worked really hard polishing the game.
The second good thing is the cast.
I always enjoy watching Norman Reedus, I loved Deadman, I absolutely adored Léa Seydoux as Fragile. My respect to Mads Mikkelsen, as always. Tommie Earl Jenkins’ acting was pretty convincing.
The third is sound design.
A veeeery good job has been done. Everything sounds convenient and solid. Bravo.
The fourth is the cinematography.
Both in gameplay and in cutscenes. Real enjoyment, nothing more to say.
The fifth is Norman Reedus breaking the forth wall at the private rooms. That feels great and funny.
All in all.
And the sixth is the very fact that this game exists.
It’s good. Not great — but good. I’m not disappointed, though I was left with too many questions.
Maybe Death Stranding 2 will be a good homework — and many of the original’s flaws will be fixed. I really hope so. We’ll see soon enough.
Thanks for reading. And yeah, I guess it was worth it — in its own weird way.
Friday, April 4, 2025
hello, porters. i am a client. i need a copy of death stranding director's cut delivered to me at 'impoverished knot city'.-UNR
delivery type: video game. or pretend to be my wife or something so we can steam family share the game
client: broke gamer who usually pirates games but played the first two chapters and found it absolutely fascinating, but it's so lonely in offline mode. i want to connect with other players
payment: i will name all my structures after you
comment: sorry, i'm just shooting my shot here. my rent shot up recently and i'm about to make a big move, so it'll be weeks if not months before i can drop forty bucks on a game. i'm trying to be patient but i'm literally having dreams with BTs and BBs in them. i need to find out what the hell the beach is. why does timefall do what it does. why is norman reedus partially or fully naked half the time.