For the first time one of the greatest developers in history, Hideo Kojima introduces a game away from the walls of Konami, and that game is Death Stranding. I cannot hide that I was one of the most excited about her, especially as a fan of the Kojima games, with Metal Gear at the head. So now we go with a new game, a new world and new characters, and most of all, it is a game that tries to introduce a completely new style of play.
Death Stranding
The game, as it sounds from its name, beats with strangeness, and this is not surprising, the game's story is based on science fiction, and although Hideo Kojima used to include him a lot in his past games, in this game he unleashed his heart completely. The science fiction found here may exceed the taste of some, especially those who do not like this kind of story. Certainly, cinematic directing is perhaps the best for Kojima at this point, as well as the Motion Capture and everything related to photography.
The game has a complex and complex storyline, prominent characters, and no wonder their roles have been represented by some of the biggest movie stars. The performance in general was good, and some of the characters offered roles in voice acting deserving of being nominated for the best of the year. The story overall has some excellent elements, but the main problem for me was in the presentation of the story. You will find yourself bewildered most of the time of the game, and I am not talking about that confusion that makes you an admirer of mystery, but I am talking about that confusion that makes you lose the necessary emotional connection with some of the game's characters.
Parcel delivery
When we talk about the kernel of the gaming system here, this may be the most courageous decision by Kojima, and perhaps because it was rejected by many publishers if it was presented as an idea. You are not a spy legend, nor a veteran fighter, you are here just a parcel delivery clerk. In the game you will take orders to deliver parcels to various places, trying to achieve the main goal of the game, which is to connect American cities to each other. Carrying packages has many details that cannot be explained all here, but the game gives you a lot of options gradually, which will facilitate your task, and there is also a system for developing the character that helps it do more tasks better such as maintaining weight and balance while on the move.
There are several challenges that you will face while transporting parcels, such as rough terrain, heavy cargo, or some conditions such as not being wet or damaged, or perhaps you must deliver them at a specific time. There are also the BTs, which are the main enemies in the game, and you have to avoid or confront them, and then there are enemies that are outlaws, also you can confront or avoid them. There are exceptions to this rule, as you will encounter multiple bosses in the game, but their combat is highly predictable and contains nothing special. Personally, I played the game at Normal level and had no difficulty in most of the missions.
The real main problem in this game, is that most of what you will do while playing is the delivery of packages, and this matter although it is receptive in the beginning, but over time it will make you hate playing times, and it turns from fun to work, especially with points The following that I will mention. Every time you go out to deliver a package, you have to prepare your tools that you will need, such as special accessories, such as shoes, ladder and rope, then weapons and others. These tools are destroyed and you have to rebuild them, then recycle the old ones. And many of the things that make this matter more tiring than fun, nothing exciting or new will confront you on the way, are the same difficulties and challenges that you saw in the first and last delivery mission, with some exceptions here and there. And this goes on for a long time, the main missions only to complete the story phase will need you about 40 hours.
I'm not alone
The game offers an open world of reasonable size, but it is very empty, there are several cities you will visit, all of them are empty and you will not see any creature mentioned in front of you, only those who you will talk to via communication platforms only. Wandering in cities is of no use to it, not even wandering in the game world, even if you reach a city before you get a delivery order, you cannot do anything there. The only thing you can do is attack the outlaws and seize the resources they stole. The game actually fancies you in the open world, but it's actually a linear game most of the time. The side missions will take you to some new areas near the main mission location, or maybe just take you back to previous places you visited.
But you are not alone in this world, although you do not see anyone around you, but you will find their effects. They are the other players who play the game around the world. In DeathStarning you will be able to gather resources to build some of the things that will help you. For example, building a mailbox, building a bridge over a river, or building a paved road that makes it easy for a vehicle to walk over it. If you choose to play online you will find some things built by other players, or maybe you are building something for others, or contributing to some things that require large resources. Similar to Dark Souls games, you can set alert messages for other players. Kojima definitely developed the idea of players' contributions over the network and made it more interactive, and perhaps this is one of the most positive aspects of the game.
Adventure did not come to fruition
In fact, I really appreciate Kojima's great courage when he decided to put out a full game centered around parcel delivery. It's so nice to see a different idea in the gaming world, I've never seen a cinematic action game take this course in my life. But in reality, it wasn't very pleasant. We saw the idea of connecting in other games, and it was a kind of mission that we are waiting for the end of until we go ahead with the game and continue enjoying the rest of the game. But imagine taking that boring kind of mission and making a whole game out of it, this is Death Stranding, as if it were a very long series of important side missions. This is really a shame, because the game provided a distinctive cinematic, and a high production value, whether in terms of graphics or acoustics. And the story, although it will not appeal to everyone because of its very fictional character, it did have good elements but was hurt by the unbalanced presentation options.
It cannot be denied that this game is a brave adventure, but it was launched with great enthusiasm that made it lose the way often, especially in its basic system, and as we know change is a double-edged sword, and here it seems that the result tilted to the painful side.
Positives
- Outstanding cinematography, high production value, elaborate game mechanics, outstanding online interaction options
Negatives
- The gameplay elements are boring and repetitive, there is no strong incentive to explore the open world, the storytelling style is unbalanced.