Death Stranding – PS4 – Game Diary – 12th November 2019

Provisionally feels like iDeath Sranding takes a while to get going. As a bloke who doesn’t like to talk over cut scenes while recording I feel like I got nearly 3 hours in a hardly said anything.

Pro-Tip: Charge Your DualShock 4 – Death Stranding rumbles your puppies almost constantly.

Meandered to Episode 3 then decided I wanted to record it so I started again.

Some of the cooperative elements reminded me initially of Children of Tomorrow.

Reedus I can take or leave – not sure about the 4th wall breaking nods and winks in the Private Quarters – seems inconsistent with the rest of the game world.

I am for whatever reason loving the sounds of running through the world, junk-jangles and all.

Some Time Later…

So I played fully 8 or 9 hours – got the “end” of Episode 1 where you can leave the opening “Hinterlands” area – and decided I had to go back and start again but this time recording for YouTube.

That I was willing to retrace so many very arduous steps is a sure sign this game had it’s hooks in me. Also I thought I could get to the same place much faster knowing the lay of the land as it were – looking at the playlist now it looks like I got there in about 4 hours but of course there was noodling and exploration and “outpost relationship management” that I undertook off camera.

26th November 2019

Having found and done a mission for The Engineer who’s one of the first “Preppers” you meet having sailed into Episode 3, we’re rewarded with the “Magic Trousers” which are basically robo-legs that allow much longer runs, increased carrying capacity and possibly double-jumps unless I just hadn’t noticed before.

28th November 2019

I got a bit carried away (yes ok drunk) and powered ahead a little (yes ok about 3 hours) and had to go back again to highlight for video such aspects as:

• clearing out a MULE camp with fists
• building our first bit of road which was amazing
• completing the mission that gets you the bolo gun
• clearing out a MULE camp with the bolo gun

The completion of the first stretch of road was pretty cool – kind of like those “cresting a hill and seeing a new settlement” moments, indeed crescendo’s – that Kojima quite deftly manages to curate into what is essentially an open world game.

The fact that completing the road also confers a massive amount of Bridge Link experience and pretty much doubles your current level just adds to the huge rush of achievement and reward. The message is clear:

BE HELPFUL!

1st December 2019

The “be helpful” thing now added a huge new level of fetch-quest-ery to the game. Suddenly it wasn’t enough to run boxes of microscopes and magazines between ghost-people – I had to be harvesting huge amounts of resources to fund the next section of road.

With this in mind MULE camps were no longer to be avoided – they were targets – those MULE post boxes were rich resource deposits – and they were also often useful truck repositories.

The Vehicles/Road combination also seemed to change the game significantly. Distances between things has shrunk significantly.

4th December 2019

It occurs to me that when I see sections of road in the Death Stranding world that are partially or nearly built I am aware of a creeping urgent need to be the one who finishes it – yes I am feeling what I can only describe as “Competitive Helpfulness” – I want to be the helpfulest Sam on the map.

I’m not sure if this is what Kojima had intended.

11th December 2019

I was struck while running errands for the Junk Collector guy through the ruins of South Knot City that as desolate and ruined, rusted and broken and blasted as this world is, it’s also absolutely stunningly beautiful.

20th December 2019

It’s interesting to hear George Miller discuss the creative process and the human condition in relation to Death Straning. It did help me realise a bit more that initial rush of “other people have been here and have endeavoured to help not just me but everyone else. His point seems to be something along the lines of:

Kojima – not just the tip.

I do appreciate that HK is pushing boundaries – like how much will people put up with and non-sequncial narative – and that game in no way feels hindered by outside influence (Monster notwithstanding) or even strong editorial oversight, and as such Death Stranding retains an artistic purity and integrity that is not just rare in video games but in art.

4th January 2020

Having had a little bit of a break over the Xmas & NY period, and having spent more of that break playing Death Stranding than I certainly should have, I have discovered that as we roll past the 80 hour mark that this game’s loop seems to suit me perfectly.

It may not be My Best Me that it suits but there we go.

I can run up to the end of a chapter, drop a save then spend another 5-10 hours dashing back through and around a newly opened area maxing out my relationship with the “locals”, filling the map with roads and ziplines and generally just farting around till I’m OP enough that I can smash through any end of Episode challenge with ease.

It’s how I played The Witcher 3, it’s how I played Mad Max, Days Gone, Far Cry 5, Assassins Creed: Origins and Odyssey and it’s ultimately why I finish so few games each year.

I just cannot imagine charging through a game to its end point without being fully prepared – I clearly have an issue.

12th January 2020

I’ve been experimenting a bit – with pizza delivery as you do – I wanted to find out why I was seeing

“cargo for delivery damaged by stacking”

error – for some reason in my head I imagined it was because I had other items in the backpack and they were jumbling around injuriously.

Turns out when it says the pizza must be flat it means that the pizza must be flat – and stuffed or auto-sorted into pack means it will be stashed vertically – and vertical isn’t flat – who knew?

Make sure the pizza sits on top of the pack – and maybe have a layer of other items on top just to keep the worst of the elements off.