Ace people are queer. And that last sentence does not invalidate that document. Again, there is NOTHING in the game that actually refutes the rest of that.Phoenixmgs said:
Death Stranding reviews
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
- Start date
I've just taken a deep dive into stats this semester so I can tell you with certainty that Metacritic is useless when it comes to gauging enjoyment. The average score just tells you the average rating among people who opted to vote on meta critic for that game. The key here is that your sample of users/critics sibmitting scores isnt the same across games. There is nothing to compare it to. You are getting the reactions of a different audience everytime.ObsidianJones said:
As you suggested, Its stupid to try and quantify something as subjective as the quality of art but that's what metacritic tries to do and it does so poorly. Outlets that submit reviews aren't consistent and even among the outlets writers change. The strength of critics lies in consistency which is totally absent on the site.
Casual audiences use the meaningless metric to form purchasing decisions . My point is that I understand his frustration with the metacritic scores and it is justified.
His explination on the other hand much less so. I dunno I just can't find it in me to be annoyed with something like that. It's completely baseless and far from reality but im sure the weight of this game is crushing. If it fails he is done as a AAA game dev. So what if he thinks Americans have less refined tastes in gaming? Dude is probably panicking and looking for a way to keep his credibility. It's lame and a cop out but I just can't bring myself to get peeved over such a stupid statement.
Your reaction is fair. I've probably just been inoculated to bullshit like this growing up with a father who made statements like this regularly.
A twice translated interview is just not going to convey the exact intended sentiment. Even worst case scenario that Kojima believes American gamers aren't as into his game as much other countries' gamers because they like shooters more. And...? I wouldn't be surprised if sales figures back up that stereotype honestly. Generalizing is what human brain does, we all do it. Plus, it's like peanuts compared to the current Blizzard thing.ObsidianJones said:
I don't really get the point in wasting time on such things, life is too short. And, it kinda delves into 'picking apart everything someone says' territory, and everyone comes off bad when you do that.
Queer growing up for me just meant gay, now it means everything apparently.Aiddon said:
If someone came up to you and said what-have-you, then finished with "but I ain't got shit to back that up"; would walk away feeling what they said was valid or invalid? I'm pretty sure most anyone would heavily lean to it being bullshit. Thus, just reading that entry on it's own (as I haven't played the game at all), the end line totally invalidates the document. If you are looking for the "author's message/intent", that last line is basically it. Plus, it's an in-game character, it's not like a Kojima interview, and that entry may have not even been written by Kojima. Again, I haven't played the game, but I'm very very much doubting anyone is a going to walk away after playing the game thinking the queers caused the "death stranding".
Oddly enough, I agree with a lot of what you say... and it makes me value Metacritic even more. I'll never use it. This actually has probably been the most I've ever been on the website. But the idea of even more of a variety of opinions about a plethora of subjective things makes more sense to me than an Objective Singular Voice trying to speak on that very same plethora.Dansen said:
I should not talk about sports games because I hate sports. I'm not the guy you want to talk on a twitch shooter like the Cod Series, but I might be the guy you want to speak about if you're interested in games like Fallout or the Outer Worlds, and so on. But I am the type of guy who will click on at least ten reviews to get an idea. You should see how many videos I watch on games I can even pick up on sale.
For every Switch Game that I'm interested in, I look at Switch Watch, SwitchUp, RGT 85, ACG (I pray that he has something on it), Nintendo Life, Wulff Den, Spawn Wave, BeatEmUps, and SwitchPlanet. I will watch at least five reviews from any of those channels for one game... And THEN I sometimes look at the mainstream video channels while reading reviews...
I understand finite and consistent sampling size in terms of measuring scientific data. That needs to be repeatable and clearly defined. But Science is Objective. Whether I'm going to laugh at Borderlands 3's toilet humor is subjective. As are all Critiques. Anyone who just looks at the Metacritic number and not realize the average doesn't give the whole story is short changing themselves.
Metacritic is supposed to be a tool. A repository to find all the reviews you can and looking through a good deal of those pages to get a feel for the overall sentiment on said subject matter. That number is only supposed to state that the majority of reviewers had positive things to say, and it's up to you as the consumer to find out exactly what those things are and see if they will sit with your sensibilities. Those misusing it have only themselves to blame.
I'll fully admit to this response being a visceral one. I'm not a fan of his, but I respect him. I respected him for standing what he believed in and breaking ties with a secure paychecck. I respect him and his body of work to be able to leverage it to a new studio and the creation of his dream project. I might not like it, but I will respect the game of Death Stranding.
But Kojima went out of his way to make a game that challenged conventions and then he is shocked that it wasn't wholeheartedly embraced by the masses? How does that track? I mean personally, I go out of my way to try to be respectful to everyone here, end situations before they get out of hand and state my thoughts in an above-the-board manner. And there are still people here who probably can't stand me. Hell, most of the posters here probably don't even think about me.
That's fine. It's to be expected. I would be a proper knob if I said "You know, posters nowadays skew a little more to the jaded type of communication, so that's why I'm not more popular here". The sentiment that Kojima expressed sounds way too close to that to me.
Hate to break it to ya, but that IS what the game is saying. It's basically equating queerness (including asexuality, which is queer because it does not conform to heterosexual orientation norms) to social distance and isolation. This is why there's nothing in the game that refutes that document; it's because the game finds it to be equally valid or validates it entirely. Not a good luck, so you can stop digging that hole for yourselfPhoenixmgs said:
At best it smacks of Japan's semi-propaganda of getting people to fuck and have kids because the birthrates (in Japan) are so extremely low. And seemingly concluding people who are asexual or not intested in sex as not being able to form connections and thus being part of what's wrong with the world. The text even clearly said this happened before the apocalypse occured. Maybe it's from a character who's point of view were supposed to disagree with, but if not it's just very, very dumb.Kwak said:
Yeah, Kojima used the current trend of many (espescially) younger people not having sex anymore and the declining birth rate as a precursor to the Death Stranding. Not just the diary entry but Amelie mentions it as well how connections were severed and people lost instinctual drive to reproduce and how people weren't meant to live alone(ie totally disengaged frome one another other than online bickering). Again, it's something proficient in Japan but it plays in Europe and the U.S. as well(or any developed country for that matter). Marriage rates plummeted, birth rates are below replenishment levels, loneliness 'epidemics' leading to sharp increase of mental illness and a general feeling of a society on it's way out. Like with MGS2 Kojima captures the Zeitgeist like very few creatives do, let alone game designers. That he puts this theme in the fabric of a story about how there is hope forming connections even in 'stranding' instead of the dystopian worldview you'd expect gives it a more visionary approach as even 'hope' is very relative in Death Stranding terms. Still, it resists the temptation to go all the way which makes this such a deeply melancholical game. Death Stranding is a meditation on the finity of life itself and the importance of connections before it's gone for good. Which I think is really the point Kojima tried to make with this game.Kwak said:
like i said, i don't know i haven't paid much attention to the other games you listed which is why i only talked about Daemon X Machina and it's popularitySilvanus said:
because you told me "That isn't true at all"Silvanus said:
when i had made the comment
but how is my comments not true? generally if it's a new IP, you really only ever hear about it receiving high sales and generating buzz because of the word of mouth when the games come out.
nobody gave a shit about Untitled Goose Game 12 months ago for example, it's really only been since the game has actually come out that people have played it loved it and thus the meme spreading across the internet started.
ask me about other alot indie titles and i would have no clue which game you were talking about unless it gained lots of popularity through word of mouth OR because it was a sequel to an indie that's already popular like say Runner 3.
and it's the same with large publisher based titles, like God of War is widely popular and has had many sequels which is why so many people know about it. you're average Joe Schmoe wouldn't know wtf what Death Stranding was if it wasn't for Kojima's involvement because he's a widely known dev and pretty much Death Strandings entire marketing campaign has revolved around "BUY THIS GAME! KOJIMA'S INVOLVED, oh and some other cool stuff happens BUT KOJIMA'S INVOLVED so BUY OUR GAME GUYS!" not because of any cool game mechanic or even story just "KOJIMA MADE IT SO BUY IT!"
all in all just not really sure why you think my particular statement was so untrue?
You believe all those games became famous just through word-of-mouth? That publisher involvement didn't give them the publicity they needed to get into the public consciousness?Yoshi178 said:
Is is a coincidence that games from major publishers have such an easier time garnering publicity and sales than indies, then?
That's right. Indies. Which by definition lack the involvement of major publishers. That's my point-- those would need to rely on word-of-mouth or much smaller campaigns, and have a harder time garnering publicity as a result.Yoshi178 said:
It's not the same, though, is it? You've just brought up one example-- God of War-- garnering publicity as a sequel... but I brought up six from this year alone which were not sequels, and garnered huge publicity.Yoshi178 said:
And no, I can promise you it wasn't word-of-mouth alone, because they were famous before they ever came out, because of the publishers. They had immense platforms and media exposure before even being released.
After Mighty Number 9 and No Man's Sky let downs, you make it sound like if putting Kojima's name on the marketing diminishes the game's merits. Or worse, you're insinuating that all the marketing focused in absolutely nothing but "Kojima new game coming soon", and that's is absolutely untrue.Yoshi178 said:
Playing the game some more I wonder how much of PT influenced Death Stranding. Obviously there is the cast(Reedus, Del Toro, Junji Ito as a holographic NPC) but DS has some clear otherwordly elements as well from the ghostly apparitions attached to umbilical cords(BTs almost same abbrevation) to multidimensional realities to Beaches that serve a similar function as Silent Hill(ie a sort of karma debt represented as a physical place).
If Death Stranding is a world in the far future destroyed by BTs their first appearance in the modern day would make a tremendous horror game that has almost the perfect set-up to explore the origin and cause of Silent Hill. Wouldn't be surprised if that was the original vision behind PT. Silent Hills is also plural similarly as Beaches in Death Stranding.
If Death Stranding is a world in the far future destroyed by BTs their first appearance in the modern day would make a tremendous horror game that has almost the perfect set-up to explore the origin and cause of Silent Hill. Wouldn't be surprised if that was the original vision behind PT. Silent Hills is also plural similarly as Beaches in Death Stranding.
It?s funny how we live in an age where 11,000 scientists can agree we?re heading towards a catastrophic event involving untold human suffering [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ds0lrw/untold_human_suffering_11000_scientists_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf] due to climate change; a big part of which is caused by both direct and indirect effects of human population growth (a fact intrinsically tied to Japan?s waning interest in forming sexual relationships along with their generally insane work=life culture), yet the driving message the game wants to send is pretty much the exact opposite.Casual Shinji said:
Oh hell, maybe Kojima?s just that far ahead of the game and already accounted for everything we?re about to go through, and this is just to prepare us for what?s after that. Much like MGS2 tried to do with the interwebs.
Except this is the problem: Kojima is wrong. Or at least he's looking at the problem the wrong way and relying on obsolete information. Marriage rates plummeting has more to do with people realizing they don't need to be forced into it in order to validate their lives i.e. the "collapse of the nuclear family." The birth rate plummeting has more to do with hostility to immigration than people mucking around on the internet. And mental illness is not an epidemic, we've just gotten better in diagnosing it. So Kojima...has not read the room at ALLstroopwafel said:
Finished it today.
Bottom line is, it's a very, very good game in most ways, definitely my personal game of the year, but even more notably, it's a very good display of both Hideo Kojima's strengths and limitations as a writer and as a game designer.
I'm about to shower this game with praise in the next paragraph but I would like to use this one to address my issues with it. Like many people I was pretty unhappy with Metal Gear Solid V, unlike MGS V, Death Stranding is certainly a fully realized game and a fully realized narrative. They do, however, share a few problems. The most major of which is that almost all character interactions, excepting a few bossfights, happen in cutscenes and most characters might as well not exist outside of them. There's two missions where you're carrying an actual, alive person from one place to another and those are memorable exactly because they are the only time you ever interact with someone outside of cutscenes. Of course unlike in MGS V, loneliness is built into the DNA of Death Stranding so it never sticks out the way there not actually being any war happening in Phantom Pain's warzones did but it still sometimes creates a disconnect between cinematics and gameplay. Kojima has always had a tendency towards redundant dialogue, there were moments when you had two text documents, three E-Mails and another two cutscenes more or less getting the same point across. This shouldn't have gotten through the editor, is what I'm saying. And last, and this might be a philosophical question, part of me can't help but wonder if Death Stranding wouldn't have been better if it hadn't been quite so bent on avoiding action game tropes. I can't, in good consciousness, call this a failure of the game because it's obviously very intentional, to the point it had a character almost literally turning to the camera and mocking the player for expecting more action. And I get it. I really do. Rope, not stick. It's actually quite admirable how the game takes the framework of a third person open world action game and then explores the question of how you can remove most of the violence from it and still have a game left. And it succeeds. Death Stranding is a mechanically enjoyable game. Maybe it's ignorance on my part, but I feel like mechanically speaking, this game sure wouldn't have been any worse, had it had a firefight once in a while. Thematically, sure, I get why it hardly has any but... you know, whenever it did have an action setpiece I couldn't help but feel that I wouldn't mind if more of the game was like those.
So much for the criticism, here's the praise:
Death Stranding is, in many ways, a brilliant game and stands as a considerable mechanical and artistic accomplishment. Mechanically it is impressively succesful in not only coming up with a core gameplay that doesn't involve any combat but also tying it to the games overall themes. Death Stranding is about building connections, emotional connections, sure, but also literally connecting places on the map. You hike to various places, cities, distribution centers, settlements, cross rivers and canyons, climb mountains and pass by, or through, bandit and terrorist camps and haunted grounds. And then you make it easier for yourself. You build bridges, place ladders, you can literally build a highway and, later on, a network of futuristic zip lines. And before you'll know it you can reach an isolated shelter you've taken a good 15 minutes to reach when you first connected it to the network in a few seconds. Footpaths start to take shape on well travelled paths. You start of in a hostile environment and you're helping civilization reclaim it. This might be the big, central idea of the game. The world might be in the middle of a calamity but humanity will find a way and carve out a path for itself. And talking about themes and narrative, Death Stranding delivers. In spades. DS has Kojima firing from all cylinders. Social commentary, political commentary, philosophy, environmentalism, mythology, science-fiction, Kojima weaves all of these together into a sprawling narrative that couldn't be more relevant or more resonant. Kojima is not a subtle writer by any stretch, nor is he the prophet people who still look up to him for figuring out where the internet was going back in the early 00s sometimes make him out to be, but Jesus Christ does he manage to tap into contemporary cultural anxieties. Death Stranding gets alienation, Death Stranding gets the double edged nature of the digital age, Death Stranding gets the dangers of reckless individualism. Behind all the Twin Peaksian mysticism there's a man who has taken a good look at the current state of the world and is deeply, profoundly worried. Death Stranding presents a very abstract vision of post apocalyptic America with its otherworldly, Scandinavian inspired landscapes but the wasteland it shows us is one we're all living in. Death Stranding isn't so much holding a mirror to our society as chasing it through a hall of mirrors, reflecting it back and sometimes distorting it from all angles.
Bottom line is, it's a very, very good game in most ways, definitely my personal game of the year, but even more notably, it's a very good display of both Hideo Kojima's strengths and limitations as a writer and as a game designer.
I'm about to shower this game with praise in the next paragraph but I would like to use this one to address my issues with it. Like many people I was pretty unhappy with Metal Gear Solid V, unlike MGS V, Death Stranding is certainly a fully realized game and a fully realized narrative. They do, however, share a few problems. The most major of which is that almost all character interactions, excepting a few bossfights, happen in cutscenes and most characters might as well not exist outside of them. There's two missions where you're carrying an actual, alive person from one place to another and those are memorable exactly because they are the only time you ever interact with someone outside of cutscenes. Of course unlike in MGS V, loneliness is built into the DNA of Death Stranding so it never sticks out the way there not actually being any war happening in Phantom Pain's warzones did but it still sometimes creates a disconnect between cinematics and gameplay. Kojima has always had a tendency towards redundant dialogue, there were moments when you had two text documents, three E-Mails and another two cutscenes more or less getting the same point across. This shouldn't have gotten through the editor, is what I'm saying. And last, and this might be a philosophical question, part of me can't help but wonder if Death Stranding wouldn't have been better if it hadn't been quite so bent on avoiding action game tropes. I can't, in good consciousness, call this a failure of the game because it's obviously very intentional, to the point it had a character almost literally turning to the camera and mocking the player for expecting more action. And I get it. I really do. Rope, not stick. It's actually quite admirable how the game takes the framework of a third person open world action game and then explores the question of how you can remove most of the violence from it and still have a game left. And it succeeds. Death Stranding is a mechanically enjoyable game. Maybe it's ignorance on my part, but I feel like mechanically speaking, this game sure wouldn't have been any worse, had it had a firefight once in a while. Thematically, sure, I get why it hardly has any but... you know, whenever it did have an action setpiece I couldn't help but feel that I wouldn't mind if more of the game was like those.
So much for the criticism, here's the praise:
Death Stranding is, in many ways, a brilliant game and stands as a considerable mechanical and artistic accomplishment. Mechanically it is impressively succesful in not only coming up with a core gameplay that doesn't involve any combat but also tying it to the games overall themes. Death Stranding is about building connections, emotional connections, sure, but also literally connecting places on the map. You hike to various places, cities, distribution centers, settlements, cross rivers and canyons, climb mountains and pass by, or through, bandit and terrorist camps and haunted grounds. And then you make it easier for yourself. You build bridges, place ladders, you can literally build a highway and, later on, a network of futuristic zip lines. And before you'll know it you can reach an isolated shelter you've taken a good 15 minutes to reach when you first connected it to the network in a few seconds. Footpaths start to take shape on well travelled paths. You start of in a hostile environment and you're helping civilization reclaim it. This might be the big, central idea of the game. The world might be in the middle of a calamity but humanity will find a way and carve out a path for itself. And talking about themes and narrative, Death Stranding delivers. In spades. DS has Kojima firing from all cylinders. Social commentary, political commentary, philosophy, environmentalism, mythology, science-fiction, Kojima weaves all of these together into a sprawling narrative that couldn't be more relevant or more resonant. Kojima is not a subtle writer by any stretch, nor is he the prophet people who still look up to him for figuring out where the internet was going back in the early 00s sometimes make him out to be, but Jesus Christ does he manage to tap into contemporary cultural anxieties. Death Stranding gets alienation, Death Stranding gets the double edged nature of the digital age, Death Stranding gets the dangers of reckless individualism. Behind all the Twin Peaksian mysticism there's a man who has taken a good look at the current state of the world and is deeply, profoundly worried. Death Stranding presents a very abstract vision of post apocalyptic America with its otherworldly, Scandinavian inspired landscapes but the wasteland it shows us is one we're all living in. Death Stranding isn't so much holding a mirror to our society as chasing it through a hall of mirrors, reflecting it back and sometimes distorting it from all angles.
There was one section in particular relatively late in the game, as it was slowly but surely getting close to its climax, that made me immediately think of Silent Hill. I'm not gonna spoil it in case you haven't gotten there yet but something about it felt like it could, with some minor changes, very easily have been a setpiece in a Silent Hill game. Anyway, the game in general felt very much like Silent Hill, but instead of confronting an individual with their sins it confronts an entire culture with its sins. From remnants of small American towns popping up through primordial tar, to ghostly apparitions longing for a connection to the world of the living to an old soldier being trapped in nightmarish repetitions of long lost battles... man, it's so good!stroopwafel said:
Even if I'm really not into Kojima I'm glad there's elbow room for an artist's game in the AAA industry.
That's a bit like sticking your head in the sand. Loss of social structures and pair bonding has made people extremely individualistic and insular which led to isolation and separation of large groups of people which in it's turn led to loneliness epidemics and mental health crisis. You're really underestimating the problem. Just b/c there are people who are happy with fringe lifestyles and sexualities doesn't mean Kojima misses the bigger picture of a culture in decline. That half the people in the U.S. are euthanizing themselves with opioids has nothing to do with 'better diagnosing' but everything with a complete loss of hope. People are social animals most people who end up 'stranded' become depressed, anxious and isolated which is also exactly what large parts of the civilized world has become.Aiddon said:
Kojima observes this with a sharp and keen eye but at the same time also acknowledges that people want it this way which makes his philosophy particularly honest and insightful of the modern times. It's a keenly aware observation within an already esoteric meta-narrative.
1) Kojima was right last time (MGS2) and that sounded rather fantastical at the time as well. I'm guessing climate change kills us faster than we would kill ourselves (due to not reproducing).Aiddon said:
2) According to very very recent information [https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/evj98k/millennials-will-get-sick-and-die-faster-than-the-previous-generation] posted in our very own off-topic board [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.1057534-BCBS-report-on-millennial-health], mental illness seems to be a HUGE issue very soon on the road ahead.
3) IMO, Society is at a rather poor place right now due to Kojima's prediction concerning the Internet and digital age (MGS2) where everyone basically strictly uses confirmation bias to confirm their own beliefs so you have rather large groups believing completely wrong things like flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers along with the current political climate, especially in America.
All that Kojima is doing is regurgitating themes Hideaki Anno did twenty years ago with Evangelion. That's seriously all the game is; it's Evangelion except with a grizzled, middle-aged man instead of a middle-school boy and no giant robots (so what's the goddamned point?). Except, unlike Evangelion, this game doesn't have the excuse of being made in the 90s with the Lost Decade of Japan (and even Evangelion brought up the idea that the older generation was filled with bloodsucking vampires who exploited the youth). The "loss of pair bonding and social structures" isn't because of internal issues with people, but external Political (as in actual bureaucratic factors. Marginalized people in particular aren't isolated because of wasting time on Twitter, they're isolated because of social prejudice. That's why Death Stranding's metaphors and themes don't work or at least are EXTREMELY limited. Ya wanna see ACTUAL relevant commentary, look at Persona 5 or Yakuza.stroopwafel said: