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S3 Ep208: DEATH STRANDING
74 Plays3 years ago
Minor Spoilers: DEATH STRANDING
Join Dave and Jake as they strap on their gear, chug Monster Energy and try not to cause a Voidout in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Join Dave and Jake as they strap on their gear, chug Monster Energy and try not to cause a Voidout in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Humorous Podcast Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Take this Head on Soon I'll come around Lost another sound
00:00:28
Speaker
Waiting for my words, seeing the river Buried under the ground
00:01:01
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Hope... Dang it, I already screwed it up. All right. Hope Stone, we're the Optimistic Podcast. I also hit my teeth at the beginning.
Podcasting Techniques and Challenges
00:01:13
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soap Stone. My name is Jake and I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
00:01:21
Speaker
It's going good. That's good. Having a good relaxing Saturday. Yeah, sometimes you gotta. How about you? You know, you say knowing that like a decent portion of our Saturdays have so far intersected. I like woke up, hang out with or hung out with Landon and Dave, got some lunch and then took a nap and then woke up in and now recording the podcast. And that's been my day.
00:01:46
Speaker
I was like, Jake, we should record at your place. Like, yeah, yeah, come over. And then we never got around to it. And then I went back home. He's like, can you do it now? I'm like, Oh my God, this guy revisionist history. Um, yeah, I went into, uh, over lunch, I think a pretty detailed explanation of why I prefer the recording to happen in isolation from each other. Cause it gives you more control over the channels.
00:02:13
Speaker
But it wasn't always the case there. I'm pretty sure at one point, actually, no, I know in the early years, which I can say now that we've been going for literally years, we just had like a blue Yeti set up for like bi-directional input. We were just talking into the same microphone.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's just I had the one side, which is convenient because Jake actually had him marked on the microphone, which side was mine. They're color coded pretty much. Yeah. And I would just channel my voice energy into that side and then he'd channel his voice energy into the other side. Right. I mean, the rest is science, honestly.
Future of Podcasting: Jokes and Predictions
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, I assume the science has to pick up after voice energy because voice energy definitely seems seems like a mystical term or something like that. No one really knows how podcasts work. I don't know how Zancaster makes money. So. I don't know how it's going to go to and say advertising, but there isn't any not that I can say. So the other option is selling our data. Yeah, I hope that I hope that's what they're doing.
00:03:23
Speaker
Cause I got to see my podcast out there, please. Yeah. Solar data. Um, but yeah, it's, we, we've definitely also done the recording in person and that's, that it can work if you have like decent.
00:03:38
Speaker
isolation, once we switched to condenser mics, that was also really big because it cut down on some like the cross noise. But there was a reason that when people think about like professional podcasts, it's in a recording studio and there's a big like plexiglass wall up so they can see each other and they're wearing headphones so they can hear each other. But the recording is done separately. It's just as it turns out, that's quite expensive.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to go to that length. I predict that we will still do this for a while remotely. Yeah. At some point, you'll probably be like, hey, come over. I want to test out in person. And then based on how that goes, I might be over again or I might never see you again. Yeah, we have like.
00:04:26
Speaker
You'll come by to see whatever setup I have. And it actually is not a see-through wall. It's a completely opaque sound blocking wall. The one we'll just try to run it that way. Follow my voice. I got put in a isolation chamber. Yeah, pretty much. Sorry, sensory deprivation tank. Yeah.
00:04:48
Speaker
Still just you get the headphones. That's it. It's just my voice and darkness. Those are the two things. That's all I need. Sunflowers like I need sunlight and probably some air. That is fair. Yeah, it was fun. Obviously, your move has been completed. How did how did that go for you?
Dave's Moving Adventures
00:05:12
Speaker
I mean, it went so well compared to other moves over the years. Like it was, it was very smooth and quick. Um, I didn't really lift shit, which probably helped my opinion of it a bit. Cause my back was, I mean, it's never been great, but just now like we don't do stuff. We don't do that here.
00:05:38
Speaker
So yeah, everything got moved in and up pretty quick. Dropping off the truck. Some people were helping unload stuff. I was like, Oh, cool. And then I spent, I think like a good 20 minutes being like, all right, who hid, who hid the silverware? Right. I couldn't find it anywhere. None of the drawers, none of the boxes, like, okay, somebody, somebody hid something.
00:06:04
Speaker
And then I was talking to Rachel when she's like, yeah, they probably like hit it as like a, a challenge to make it. See if you can find the layout of your place. Okay. And then I was just like, yeah, that'd be funny.
00:06:16
Speaker
And then a couple of moments later, I'm remembering like context clues. Like I was talking to Justin and I heard the dishwasher. I'm like, that dishwash. And then I found a whole, like the whole thing's full of dishes and silverware. So it wasn't a prank. I'm just forgetful. So was it where the dishes and dishwasher clean or sorry, this is until we're clean. Yeah. So everything was like put in and ran. It did a cycle. Okay.
00:06:44
Speaker
And I knew that they were there, but then forgot. Ah, OK. Gotcha. And I only recently unloaded everything.
00:06:51
Speaker
Gotcha. I was going to say, we didn't do that when we moved. We didn't take all of our silverware and dishes and like, all right, wash it one more time for good measure. We're just like, great. Putting this in my mouth. I usually do like a case by case basis, do like a little assessment with my eyes. Does it look gross? Ocular pat down. Exactly. Occasionally, you got to do like a smell check, too. If your ocular pat down doesn't quite pass, you're like, well, let me just smell if it smells weird.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, works for dishes, works for clothes, pretty much anything in life. Job interviews, you're not sure if the candidate's the one you want. That's why I'm using the eyebrows. Job interviews. Ocular pat down. If they smell weird. Yeah, they're still a little bit sus. Lean over, smell their suit.
00:07:40
Speaker
The louder the sniff is, the more comfortable they typically feel. Yeah. So do that early doors. People are basically animals, so it works. I mean, you and me, baby. Ain't nothing but mammals. Oh, that's yeah. Yeah. That's right. It's been a long time since I've seen the Discovery Channel, though. I don't know what they do anymore. Shark Week, I assume. I don't know.
00:08:06
Speaker
I think they sued our company once many years back. Yeah. I do remember that. But speaking of suing our company, death stranding.
00:08:23
Speaker
Man, the segues are so fucking good. Yeah. Unstoppable. It's an acquired skill. I know at least off podcasts, we've definitely talked about it a bit over the years for like following Kojima reductions, me getting my headset and the plates. Oh yeah. Maybe which I don't even have anymore. You should still tell people that story, I think, because that's a good one.
Exploring Death Stranding's Reception
00:08:48
Speaker
You can, you can follow, you can complete your summary if you want, but we should come back to that.
00:08:53
Speaker
But we've followed dust straining a good bit. But when it came out, I was the one who picked it up, checked it out immediately on PS4, played through a good portion of it and then kind of just fell off and stopped. And I think you were waiting to check it out. Yeah, I wanted either a price drop or PC release. It wasn't it wasn't immediately
00:09:18
Speaker
on the books for me. Um, like we can talk about some of the critical reception at launch, but I was definitely in the, I was on the fence. Um, it wasn't like, Hey, this is gameplay. That's going to be really reminiscent of MGS five. It was definitely not revenge. So those were the two metal gear series games I had played. Um, and I wasn't sure, but.
00:09:44
Speaker
Death Stranding was really doing. Hey, fair. Nobody was like it was very much teaser, almost like second row level teaser. And then when they released more cinematic trailers, you're like, okay, it's coloring the universe a little bit. Don't know what the fuck's going on. And then when they had a gameplay trailer, it seemed very delivering Amazon packages. Yeah. And that's kind of what the meme was. And that was really it.
00:10:13
Speaker
The funny pause there and circle back to the story. I will never come back to it otherwise. So initially, Jake likes finding cool shit and I'll occasionally copy him on purchases. So he found this set of headphones called Vmota crossfade.
00:10:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they looked really cool. Their marketing was cool. They were definitely a little bit pricey. But one of the things that sold me is they had custom face plates. Jake, if you want to tilt your head for the audience. Yeah. Oh, look at that. You see on the side. So basically, it's a hexagonal type shape that covers the headset for the earmuffs. But you can design it to whatever you want. You can make it custom. So you can like a logo. And yeah, they're fucking made of metal, which is. Yeah.
00:11:02
Speaker
badass. So Jake got one and I got one and I was like, what should I get for mine? What should I get? And then I looked at the Kojima Productions logo, which is like a cool astronaut face with like a skull. It's done like a side profile. I'm like, Oh yeah, I like that.
00:11:17
Speaker
So I sent it in and they're like, yeah, we can do that. And then the guy said, Oh, are you looking forward to dust stranding? Hey, me too. Now, like, this is like some guy who just works in that department. He understood. He understood from like what I was sending in, why, what it was for. So it was cool to have that moment with a complete stranger via email. Yeah. They do a lot of vetting to make sure it's not like, Hey, did you just, is this just the Nintendo logo? Cause like.
00:11:45
Speaker
You're trying to get our company shut down, you know, right?
Deep Dive into Death Stranding's Mechanics
00:11:48
Speaker
Like, um, I think I had like Dave's S-Mock, you know, like, uh, God is the machine was mine.
00:11:55
Speaker
with the 40K Adeptus Mechanicus skull. That was my faceplate. I still freaking love it. It's a little bit edgier than I think I want to be 100% of the time, but it's exactly. That's not true. It's exactly. You cannot exceed how edgy you want to be. 90% of the time. It's still pretty good. But yeah, I did really like that. It's kind of funny because
00:12:25
Speaker
They're, they're pretty old at this point. I think like what, 2016 been like six years, I think around that. Yeah. I'm going to agree and not fact check that. Cause that would take time. That's fair. Yeah. And we have other things to cover, but, um, Death Stranding was also one that, you know, I waited on even when it came out for PC.
00:12:47
Speaker
I can't remember if I picked it up or if someone else bought it for me. I think I picked it up, but it wasn't at the PC available launch. I was still playing other games. And once I actually bought it, I didn't immediately go around to playing it until we approached the episode. I finally gave it a fair shake. And a fair shake, he gave it indeed. He has been playing it for the past week or so.
00:13:18
Speaker
I was going to say I haven't even seen Jake outside, but like I actually did see Jake outside today. Yeah. Actually more often than we would have seen each other previously. That's true.
00:13:31
Speaker
But yeah, I know I recommended it many years ago and it definitely had some weird reception at launch. What was your bias going in? And then at least the top level before we delve in, what would have been your thoughts? Sure. So like I said, like my my bias, some of the reason I maybe held off a little bit on the game was because of the critical reception at launch. And some of that is like
00:14:00
Speaker
We both watched Dunkey. Obviously, I think there's a race in the Discord to be the first person to post one of his videos whenever that happens.
00:14:09
Speaker
I don't agree with him on everything, but he usually makes people think about the games that he's talking about. And Death Stranding was one of those. He's like railing against the game for so much of the review. And then he gets to the end and he's like, it's pretty good. And I guess the thing I was uncertain about was the people who seemed enthusiastic about the game.
00:14:35
Speaker
were mentioning things that I couldn't easily quantify into. Yeah, but I would play a game because of that. If that makes any sense, someone would be like, it's a very calming experience, you know, transporting all these packages and it's a very Zen type thing. And I'm like, I've got like only so many hours after work to like play games. And there's all these other things I could be doing. What's going to make me jump into a solo solitary experience?
00:15:04
Speaker
that is meant to take my time as opposed to a more concentrated multiplayer experience or something I could comfortably be in discord for. And I'd never really got an answer to that. And that's probably why it took me forever. It's fair. It's not a good hook on its own. But as somebody who was trying to kind of, I guess, sell the game in a degree of like, hey, here's why I'm enjoying playing it.
00:15:35
Speaker
It kind of comes down to what experience you're having with it. But it's not like at any point it'd be like, this part of the gameplay is awesome. I hope they have this in future games. Or I had such a memorable experience doing X that I could share. I would like maybe spoil something and it definitely wouldn't be like the story is so good and engaging. Here's why I like it. It's very much.
00:16:00
Speaker
Kojima stuff in general is very, the world is cool and interesting. It's, it's enigmatic. I think is the way to put it. That's a good word for you. You're like, Ooh, I'm intrigued by all this mystery and cool design. Um, and then I feel a lot of people assume rightly or wrongly that a lot of what's in the world building or like the dialogue is meant to have a deeper message.
00:16:26
Speaker
To be fair in his games. I think he does try and angle it that way but Sometimes it's it's a little heavy-handed or sometimes it's like what and if you look back at something like Last of Us 2 It's like you that we got we got that Revenge is bad. Yes, we got that very early on and then you just kept the beating of the fucking stick and kept having the game go on and
00:16:57
Speaker
Um, or I feel like Kojima's approach is usually a little more nebulous and like, why would I assume that that means that, or how does that actually connect to the story? Now I'm just rambling about his storytelling. Yeah. I mean, it's fair. Like this is, this is Kojima unfettered, right? Like this is his first Kojima productions game.
00:17:19
Speaker
This is without any of the oversight of Konami, which is like Konami. Yeah. The obligatory. And like. I've actually. I've been consuming some other media for like other games or like reading up on like Star Citizen and games like that and like constraints can actually be incredibly helpful for producing a game, right? Like Death Stranding was a long time coming.
00:17:49
Speaker
And so far I haven't, haven't beaten the game. Um, I think I'm about midway through because one of the people said we're halfway there in dialogue, but I don't know if that is right. Um, but, uh, like for MGS five, absolutely. It's a super ambitious game. Um, the constraints got put on it too aggressively. Like they're, Hey, we have to absolutely ship. And so.
00:18:19
Speaker
We never like chapter three, I think it was or really like the tail end of the game. And so it sort of kind of falls apart for the end. It doesn't really mean anything or try to tell you anything towards the end. And I'm glad that didn't happen with Death Stranding. Or so so far, it hasn't seemed to happen. I don't think the story just stops. I don't think it just like falls off a cliff. I hope not. But he's had so much creative freedom to just
00:18:46
Speaker
Like no one's raining him in. If he like just loses his mind on psychedelics, all of that makes it into the game. That's the impression I've gotten so far, at least while playing.
00:18:58
Speaker
Um, and it's a trip. It's a, it's a fun trip at least. Even if things are very convoluted. Yeah. A lot of people get up in the universe as far as like BTs and all the rules of like, well, this is timefall rain. It's going to destroy your packages because it's rain. And we couldn't have said like, oh, they're cardboard packages. I would have been like,
00:19:22
Speaker
That makes sense. Cardboard gets destroyed by water, as we all know from the classic rock, paper, scissors, right? But water being the fourth one there and cardboard weirdly, which is not paper. Technically. But yeah, it's like gameplay wise, like presentation wise. It's 100 percent Kojima. I was actually even getting like with the menus and some of the stuff I was like, this feels kind of like
00:19:51
Speaker
the menus in MGS, that sort of like holographic. Even some of the sound clips of moving around in the menus in the UI, you're like, ah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I started off a lot more cynical about the game, I think. And part of that was because it has a long open. It's like, we got to lay some groundwork for you. And I'm like,
00:20:17
Speaker
Okay, and you know put down the controller or in this case the keyboard Because I was just playing keyboard and mouse which to their credit the controls are like really solid for keyboard mouse. Yeah, it worked fine. Yeah The only thing it's a little bit weird is if you're carrying packages in your hands, I think they on controller I assume You have to hold the triggers
00:20:40
Speaker
to hold the packages. And on the mouse, it's like hold left click and right click to hold something in your left and right hand. And that's a little weird. That's a little not intuitive for a mouse. I mean, I assume it's probably that's what translates to in the controller. I don't really remember doing that too much.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, but why would you? It does feel like there is a lot of management even on yourself as far as carrying those packages, whether it's like the dispersion of weight or just trying to hold on to everything. So you don't like trip and fall on a rock and then lose everything or killer package damage. I have to pick them all up again. So I just feel like trying to utilize a lot of at least the controller. So probably in the keyboard scheme as well. More mouse.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, they didn't overcomplicate it too much. It seemed pretty intuitive, which is honestly props because a lot of games that come out for consoles first and then have a delayed release then come out to PC. They struggle on it. Dark Souls struggled on it for like forever and they had simultaneous releases. So, you know, props props to him here.
00:21:50
Speaker
If you're not sure what to play it on I recommend PC works fine. I don't know if all that I keep seeing like Okay, this is bleeding into my next point. I don't want to jump ahead too fast. But like There's a whole lot of half-life recent references and the PC version like
00:22:12
Speaker
Go pick up this companion cube and bring it back to the base. Half-life references or like, Hey, we sure keep using that half-life symbol. I realize it's a Greek symbol. I can't remember it. Lambda. I think it's Lambda. Um, I'm pretty sure it's Lambda. Anyway, I also don't remember my, I remember the Greek Omega cause that's like the easiest one for me to remember. It is Lambda.
00:22:38
Speaker
Okay. I had to check it. But yeah, like the people send you messages, emails, things like that, with like that Lambda symbol. And they literally are like, hey, I heard you're like a Half-Life fan and all this stuff. And you can get like Gordon Freeman's glasses. And I don't like that, actually. Like it's.
00:23:01
Speaker
Ruining the in world immersion. Yeah, verisimilitude is the word I keep using and coming back to, but basically, are you making your universe believable within itself? And the game kind of doesn't care about that. No, not really at all.
00:23:19
Speaker
I won't say it's not consistent to not have like the most recent experience with it, but it does seem to very much as far as the storytelling and the world kind of jump around.
Community and Technology in Death Stranding
00:23:31
Speaker
And like you learn things by like, oh, hey, we'll tell you like Johnny on the spot. Hey, is this thing about to happen? Let me explain this to you before it happens. Oh, it happened. We just justified why it's going to happen. You're OK.
00:23:44
Speaker
that type of thing. I think the opening sequence is indicative of that, but they do do it for other things as well. Yeah. There's an NPC you're talking to near the beginning and you're driving on a truck to incinerate a body before it causes what's called a void out, which is essentially a
00:24:07
Speaker
I guess it's like a nuclear explosion based off what they show up like on the map. But basically a person dying and then being left there until they like necrose or whatever is a terrible thing in this universe. So much so that like killing people is really, really bad. Like really, really, really bad.
00:24:30
Speaker
And the guys just straight up telling you like all of the exposition about the world and the beaches and the BTs and the BBs and like all of these other, like these are just acronyms, right? Um, but I was kind of bothered by it at the time because I was like, I, there's gotta be a better way to inform me about what these are.
00:24:53
Speaker
in a less condensed sort of like, hey, you're in the tutorial way. But I don't know. I mean, there always is like ways to do that over time. But I think it comes down to the assumption of is your character in universe? Do they know about this stuff? Or are they just finding out about this stuff? Right. They're just finding out about it's a lot easier to be like,
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, hey, you don't know how the world works parentheses new player. Here's how it works. Let me explain some things to you. Oh, you've been like in a vault for the past few years. Let me clue you in on some shit. That's an easier way to do it because you have the justification in game versus what you assume is preexisting. And this person, the character you play as has been a part of this world for a very long time and has had an involved role. And then it's like.
00:25:41
Speaker
Did you know that chocolate bars sometimes contain nachos? Get the fuck out. No. It's stuff like that or doing it maybe through dialogue or audio logs.
00:25:55
Speaker
versus the jam-packed in the beginning. Because correct me if I'm wrong, you're at a point, at least in the game, where you've encountered some enemies, some human enemies. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You're talking about the needles. Yes. Yeah. Have you used any lethal weapons on them?
00:26:16
Speaker
So only if you consider a vehicle a lethal weapon, but I did kill one of them by running him over after he was unconscious on the ground because I forgot the game I was playing. Do they actually die? Yes. Does it cause a void out? Not immediately. It forces you to dispose of the body. You have to take it to an incinerator.
00:26:40
Speaker
I guess it's been so long since I've killed somebody in-game because I don't remember that being a prominent feature. So maybe I just encountered it once early and then never again. Basically everything in the game is telling you not to do it. They keep giving you non-lethal weapons. So just to give a little background, the mules are just like basically bandits, essentially. They're people in the world who
00:27:02
Speaker
There's a bunch of people who run around delivering packages. That's just the way it is. You're going to have to accept that. I'm not going to explain all like the lore of the world because it doesn't make sense. It's just what happened. This is it.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, they're called porters and pretty much everybody lives in like a fallout shelter to some degree or another and they're all over the place. And porters are the people running packages and necessary supplies around. These guys lose their mind and they're like, hey, we're now to a man. Every single one of them is obsessed with packages.
00:27:35
Speaker
If you're running around and you don't have any packages with you, they actually don't care. They'll leave you alone. But if you have any packages on you, they'll run at you with like electro prods, try to like knock the packages off your back and knock you out, steal your stuff and then drag you away from the camp.
00:27:52
Speaker
Are you familiar with sand raiders and the who? Yes, they're very much like Tusken Raiders. Sorry, Tusken Raiders. Well, yeah, I mean, sand raiders. I mean, they're in like a sand planet as well. Yeah, tattooing. Anyways, so the game's like, hey, don't kill them. You have like hand-to-hand combat. Maybe you could swing a package at them, although the package will probably break on contact. I do that a lot of times because
00:28:20
Speaker
They have their own packages and I don't care about their belongings, so I'll just pick them up and start knocking them out. But if they're unconscious on the ground and you run them over, you probably shouldn't do that because it could kill them. That's what happened to me. And Die Hardman, which is a person we should probably come back to,
00:28:42
Speaker
calls me on radio and is like, Sam, there's a body near you. Uh, it's like of utmost priority that we dispose of it before it causes a void out. It's like, uh, this is one of your responsibilities and doubly. So if you were involved and I'm like, yeah, yeah, this one's on me. So had to go, uh, take a side side path off to the middle of nowhere to dispose of it.
00:29:11
Speaker
Hey, Sam, just call and check and see how it's going. Hey, Sam, unrelated. I don't know how it's going, but did you murder someone? Yeah, it's literally that. As far as the moment to moment gameplay.
00:29:26
Speaker
At least early on, like you said, you're carrying packages. And one of the challenges there is weight distribution, how fast you can move, carrying a bunch of shit. As you progress, some things make it a little bit easier. But as far as traversal, you'll come in contact with ladders, some of which might be existing. You might be able to carry a ladder with you to kind of place it to maybe cover a gap of some water.
00:29:55
Speaker
that you wouldn't really be able to swim through with the packages or help you ascend a height. And then they have ropes for descent, a little bit easier, like rocker terrain.
00:30:08
Speaker
So for where you're at in the game, um, and for moment to moment gameplay, did you like two questions? Do you like the progression of how it starts out with like the challenges they put in front of you and the solutions they provide? And then did you actually enjoy the actual gameplay of that portion?
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so I do like the progression. I think so that it follows a pretty, so at least with some exceptions, it kind of standard follows the standard gameplay difficulty progression system. Shouldn't surprise me too much. You know, Kojima has been making games forever. Um, but the areas you begin in are like, Hey, there's a stream.
00:30:53
Speaker
That's like a mild inconvenience. There you go. That's basically the obstacle. Like otherwise, more or less a straightaway path, or you can kind of like run around a mountain range or climb it if you felt like it. But like there's no hard blockers or anything like that. And the tools that you have are rudimentary, but they either solve or greatly assist with like all of those problems. You can mitigate everything really easily. So there's like difficulty and mitigation are probably the two scales where
00:31:22
Speaker
As you progress through the game, they start to increase the difficulty. Now the places are further away. Now there's larger streams, or a big non-range.
00:31:32
Speaker
streams and mountain ranges, it's kind of just stick around for a long time or like really rocky kind of like volcanic terrain. And you're like, well, ladders and climbing ropes aren't really helping me out as much so much anymore. So they increase the mitigation to give you more technology, more tools, vehicles, things like that to help mitigate that. And I really enjoy that.
00:31:59
Speaker
If not for like one caveat that's big, which is this is one of those games where.
00:32:09
Speaker
There's an incentive if you're kind of like completionist or you feel like you want to get everything to really max out all of these settlements, like all these structures and people deliver a bunch of packages, get everything done in an area you can before you move on. And my gosh, if you go against that instinct and you just push through your tech is going to get so much better, so much faster, like.
00:32:38
Speaker
Um, we didn't talk about how much we want to spoil here, but I think at least up to the mid mid game point would be fine with me. Cause that's where I'm at. I don't want to spoil for you specifically. You're still checking it out, but like not having running around on foot versus having a reverse trike, massive difference in gameplay between those two things.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, because you can get from point A to point B quickly and maybe you encounter some type of obstacle of something trying to kill you. Oh, I can drive around that. Oh, I can drive faster than that is a really nice option versus.
00:33:18
Speaker
It's just me on foot. I guess I'll either try and quickly avoid it, you know, chugging along slowly or be very sneaky and try and meander around it. None of which are always ideal. I mean, maybe you like the type of gameplay, but having those other options unlocked really makes it infinitely easier.
00:33:39
Speaker
I almost wish that instead of just forcing as far as new area, new tech, it kind of went off of ranking. So as you are doing these missions, it'd be like, oh, you completed something really quickly. Oh, the package was in such good quality. And you get different points in different areas, increases your overall Porter tier. So if it could maybe link that to the tech that you get, would encourage you to be a good person at the game.
00:34:06
Speaker
And then be rewarded for that with better tech to make you a better person at the game. Yeah, I actually I think I would personally be in Usually I just I like I'm not sure if I know the solution. I think you basically have the solution there I agree with that approach because the approach you're describing incentivizes working more early and if people are just rushing through the story as fast as they can and
00:34:32
Speaker
and they're not actually delivering packages more than they have to, then their tech's gonna fall behind. The game's gonna get harder, and eventually maybe it's just like, hey, you need to slow down and actually help us out before you continue across America.
00:34:49
Speaker
And I think that would be great because as it is, there's been it does feel bad. There's other games that do this as well when you have progression that's tied to the story, where if you spend more time in the early game or in the mid game, you're right before a floodgate mechanic where it's like, as soon as you unlock this, everything would have been so much easier.
00:35:15
Speaker
And I think like in the past I talked about graveyard keeper. I'm not going to go into details on it, but just one of the few steam games I gave a negative review and I put 40 hours into it. And that was the main reason I gave it a negative review is because you didn't know if you were up against the floodgate. Should I do more of what I can do right now or should I just try to like rush ahead? And rushing ahead is good in both games.
00:35:40
Speaker
But like no game should. It depends. I hate saying it depends, but it always does depend. It's a diaper. Yeah. Are you going to shake yourself or piss yourself? That's what it comes in. But like, do you want your player to have the experience of this is kind of a slow, more Zen type game where you want them to take their time, appreciate the world and the environment and the characters and like what's going on? Or do you want them to?
00:36:08
Speaker
connect America to Verizon or Comcast or whatever the fuck as fast as possible. And for any Kojima game, it's not meant to be quick, typically.
00:36:21
Speaker
But again, the tech stuff is huge. And one part we haven't talked about yet is, if you're playing this online, similar to Dark Souls, there's my tie-in. It's structures. Oh, it's exactly like Elden Ring. OK, good. OK.
00:36:40
Speaker
So the structures that you make, the ladders that you place, or the ladders that you find, are going to be from other people if you find them. Or somebody could find yours. It does a very slow sync over time. So if you relaunch the game the next day, you might see other structures or things are added by other players. And you can give them likes. And then they essentially get those likes as points to help their porter score, et cetera. But I remember once I got access to bridge technology,
00:37:09
Speaker
Oh, never need to do like a shitty ladder in a hopeful place or maybe two ladders together on like a trepidatious rock in the middle. I could just literally bridge the fucking gap and drive over it. Now such a huge achievement for like, oh, am I doing something in this area? I'll always use this bridge that I built. But then other people could build bridges to help.
00:37:31
Speaker
Me out right and they could use my bridge and that for me when it happened early game was the moment where it kind of clicked as far as I'm enjoying what the game seems to be going for as far as the interconnectivity of literally reconnecting the world and we're helping each other out indirectly.
00:37:50
Speaker
So in the same way that I appreciated Dark Souls 3 and Fight Clubs of how people were working together in a way online that it wasn't explicitly spelled out like, hey, do this. It was just an understanding of community. I really like that.
00:38:06
Speaker
There's an old term that I haven't thought about in a very long time, but it is its assets at its very core Care Bear gameplay. Like there is no, as far as I've encountered so far, no antagonistic multiplayer option you can do to screw somebody over.
00:38:28
Speaker
If someone were to try to grief your world with a construction There's literally like a hold to disassemble button and the game tells you hey this will remove it from your world But only your world like it's still in the multiplayer pool So people can't really hamper you that way but they can assist you greatly and one of the
00:38:52
Speaker
One of the mechanics I almost completely overlooked until I literally like just googled it because I was like I feel like this means something.
00:39:00
Speaker
I was delivering all these packages, you know, not progressing further in the story, but increasing my rank with all of the local settlements and things. And my, um, I think it's like system link score kept going up and it's like, Hey, you can make links with these other porters at this number. All right. You leveled up again. All right. Now you can have 15 links, 20 links, 25 links. And I'm like,
00:39:22
Speaker
What are links? So that's what I searched. And you can see like a recent interactions list where it's like, hey, these are the people you've basically, your world is shared with theirs. There's stuff showing up in your world to some degree. And here's how many likes they have total.
00:39:41
Speaker
We haven't even talked about likes, but this is Facebook the game. You put likes on everything. People like your things. It's the progression system, actually. It just gives you poorer points, basically. But you see all the people. You see how many likes they have. And what you can do is for how many ever available links, you can strengthen your bond, essentially, with all these people. And whoever you establish a link with,
00:40:09
Speaker
their structures are more likely to show up in your world. So what I did is I had like 30 links available or something at the time. And I just found everybody who had over 200,000 likes. And I was like, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And as a consequence, once I got to a refresh or whatever, there's a bunch of convenient bridges like all over the place and like power generators and like timefall shelters and all of this. And I'm like, this is a good investment.
00:40:40
Speaker
Jake spent time just giving people the thumbs up to restart his game and essentially have the game on an easier mode because he didn't have to go and build all that stuff. And it is worth saying that all that stuff that Jake's talking about, like the bridges, timefall shelters, power generators,
00:40:58
Speaker
They all take resources. Yes. Some of what you get from like leveling up as a porter or checking out settlements, you can collect resources from there or, you know, just physically going out and getting them. And it takes it takes time. It is a time investment to do it. So like when I was building a road, it took a lot of time because I had to build like the road in sections. Now, thankfully, this was like laid out as like, here's a path that the road will be on.
00:41:28
Speaker
But it was really huge for doing deliveries later because I had to worry about like rocks and shit. I'm like, oh, just take this fucking straight way. Yep. And then you go on to 30 and then you go further down. But all of that, like it takes a lot of time. So like you do appreciate when other people are making that. So in the same way, did you actually make stuff for the purpose of like, oh, I hope other people use it? Oh, yeah. Occasionally the things I place that were like purely selfish were literally like my battery just ran out in the wilderness.
00:41:58
Speaker
This is prime territory for a power generator. Just slap that down. But I don't know. I know this is literally what Kojima is going for. This is the best part of the game, is when I came back across something that I had placed and I saw that there was more likes on it. You always get one like if someone uses your thing, if they cross a ladder or use a path or something like that.
00:42:24
Speaker
But they can also just like mash the like button. And as you level up, your likes are worth more. I don't know. It's like capitalism or something. And eventually it caps out at like a thousand. So if you're like, this was super great. You can just mash that button rapidly and it'll be the equivalent of like a thousand people taking the path.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yes, I I did really enjoy when I saw something it was like hey Other people are using this this was beneficial to them. It made their gameplay a little bit easier and You're talking about the roads. I was heavily invested in the roads like I as soon as I figured out like how much road building there was to make I was like I
00:43:07
Speaker
All right. How many resources do I have across the map and all these different settlements? Cause I'm taking all of it, all of it into me, put it in a truck, get it in the road. Um, and now every time I log in, I get like thousands of likes just because people have used the roads. Take a note, Penda. And that's, that that's, that's the biggest takeaway more than the gameplay or the story or anything like that. That's the most impactful to me so far.
00:43:37
Speaker
All right, so I'm gonna ignore one of the story for a bit, because you gotta just check it out to believe it, or watch a 30 hour long video. It exists, it's interesting. It is. Still very cool, but not worth getting into as far as a listening episode. So I wanna talk about some of the things that you do not enjoy from the game, and part of that critical feedback that reviewers are giving it.
00:44:04
Speaker
What would make somebody not want to play this game? You shouldn't play this game if you are concerned about wasting your time, I guess, or if that's I'll rephrase that to like if when you're playing a game.
00:44:24
Speaker
You are like, could I be doing this more efficiently? Or like, I don't know. It's the type of game where if you're not worried about, oh crap, I only have one hour left. I want to like make progress. Like you don't really want to play the game under those conditions because it's much better as that old classic when we were kids in the summer and you could play games as much as you want at the pace that you want.
00:44:51
Speaker
That's almost like essential because rushing through the game.
00:44:56
Speaker
causes you to tack up a lot, but it also completely, I mean, if you're only moving forward, you'll never really get the full impact of people using your constructions. And you probably aren't putting the effort into the constructions. A lot of them are more helpful than necessary, right? Like the roads. Incredibly helpful. Holy crap. It would be so obnoxious to like pedal all that stuff over by foot, but you could like, it's doable.
00:45:24
Speaker
Um, so if you're trying to like brute force point A to B through a game, it's not a good game for that. Also that if you're rushing through the story, it becomes even more confusing, which that's a lot to say. Um, but true.
00:45:42
Speaker
It's very much more of a paced game and a I would argue doesn't quite respect your time type of game. Oh, absolutely. I still feel like you can get into it. But yeah, I do think that is worth mentioning that it is very. It is a time consuming borderline tedious, I would say a points game. Yeah, the the difficulty is in time wasting or time cost.
00:46:08
Speaker
right? Like in a different game difficulty goes up because the enemies do more damage to you and you don't have enough armor or you don't have enough health or whatever and so that's where you now have to get better or you have to grind or you have to like commit resources and this game the difficulty in quotes is how
00:46:31
Speaker
frustrating or time consuming it is to accomplish a task most of the time. There are some actual like boss fights and things like that, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but Dave literally scrunched his face. So that's the initial impression. But like when you're building resources, like when you're building things out in the world, you are reducing that that difficulty and that burden or that
00:47:02
Speaker
That mountain, you're basically wearing it down. You're making it more manageable for yourself and other people. And there's going to be a lot of people who are like, that is a lot of time that I'm not, you know, shooting somebody in a hallway. So that's a valid take, you know, like that's not a game for everybody.
00:47:25
Speaker
I almost want to make the comparison that you kind of working to slowly like erode the mountain. It's kind of like erosion on a beach, like the ocean eroding the coastline a little bit, reforming the structure of the sand. The flatter or steeper points, depending on the tide. Because the beach, the beach. Yeah. That's back to the story, though. That's where that. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I don't know, though. I feel like.
00:47:56
Speaker
If you want to get into it for this story, again, it's interesting. But one negative point I want to have is Kojima for a lot of things seems to be very up his own ass as far as you're not going to get how high concept this is. And like some of that was actually in like the marketing and like him doing press stuff where he thought that people only wanted to play like Rudy Tutti shooting games and we couldn't understand anything else. But
00:48:25
Speaker
I don't think it's as crazy as he says. I just think it's interesting. But again, not worth all the hubbub in that regard. And then also like the gameplay itself. Well, I did enjoy a lot of it as far as checking stuff out and making things easier and going through the thing. It's not perfect by any means. Like it's not the most polished thing.
00:48:50
Speaker
And if you look at any YouTube video that's bashing it, they have several examples of this is buggy, this is glitchy, this is shit. I was watching Jake play the other day, and a thing just didn't load. He was going into an underground bunker to display something. And it's just on Steam, so we weren't chatting, but I was just spying on his game. And he just messaged me, is this supposed to be here? I was like, I think it should be here.
00:49:15
Speaker
So like that was a shelter texture. Yeah, like that should have been there. It should have been caught. I'm sure there are some differences on like a PC release versus PS4, which got missed in testing, but like. I don't know if you're going to give it this much marketing and everything else and suck its dick through all the press, and you also had this reputation of being a very prolific. Game director like.
00:49:44
Speaker
You gotta do better than that. I think so. It definitely, it took away some points for me when I didn't hear anything super crazy, but I definitely did notice some issues or like this interaction seems to not be ideal. I'm not crazy about it. Cause like vehicle movement was one for me too. Like off terrain.
00:50:07
Speaker
Yes, definitely like buggy to the point of like the jump button just launches you like just just let the vehicle like launch in this direction. And like that stuff really shows like when your whole thing is like delivering packages and if your packages fall and stuff will get damaged or they fall in water, you have to go get them. So if you're spending the time doing that and it's already it can be a little bit convoluted or tedious as far as your challenges.
00:50:35
Speaker
And then the gameplay itself just fucks up and gives you more of those challenges. It becomes very frustrating and glaring in comparison. It's being shot through a wall in a shooter or something like that. That's never going to feel fair. Let's make sure that we're playing on the same rule set. And that's the only way people can really buy in to the consequences. It's like, hey, these questions will be on the test. And the next week, they're like, we've added 17 questions that we didn't talk about in any of our lessons.
00:51:05
Speaker
But if you read if you read ahead in the chapters, you would have known this type of shit. It's like, what the fuck? Uh-huh. It needs to be the expectations need to match what it's actually providing. Otherwise, that disparity will cause grief. And I've been thinking about like you hit a word, which I think it was much more core to what I was trying to describe. And I failed to describe to my
00:51:31
Speaker
own estimate. And the enemy in this game is tedium. And effort is to mitigate tedium. That was it. That was the synopsis. I just had to state it, use the word tedious. And I was like, that's it. That's what you're fighting against. And people may not want to play a game where they are up against tedium. But this is that game.
Kojima's Storytelling and Celebrity Cameos
00:51:59
Speaker
I still think it's worth is like. I'm always going to have mixed feelings on this game as a whole, because again, it is really cool. I definitely did enjoy exploring the game, getting to know like the world and the characters. Like the voice acting is.
00:52:17
Speaker
For most people, really good. And I like what's happening, but then like some of the dialogue feels off of a camera. Why is that? OK, seems a little bit off. But like the gameplay is actually interesting for me and like the music kicks on. I'm like, oh, we're having a vibe. But then I'll trip and like three packages will go in a river after I climbed up a mountain. And I'm like, I fucking hate this. Yeah.
00:52:44
Speaker
There's also, if we're talking about things that I wasn't, we're not completely sold on for me. Um, I really don't think they should have.
00:52:55
Speaker
brought in like Hollywood actors for this, Hollywood in general. There's like, there's so many of them and their performances are great. Mads Mikkelsen, great performance. Sam Reedus, that's not his name. Roman Reedus. Yes. Great performance. And his amazing fetus. We had to say it once. Yeah. Or magic both. There's so many memes about it.
00:53:18
Speaker
But then I was like, the shark for me and the subsequent jumping was when I was interacting with a shelter and a person showed up and she was like a cosplayer or something like that. And I was like, great, cool, whatever. And then like her boyfriend shows up and it's literally Conan O'Brien, like Conan O'Brien. And you're like, OK, well, I mean.
00:53:41
Speaker
Maybe they're not playing into the cliche. No, he's telling jokes. He's literally telling jokes. And Sam Porter Bridges is not responding to the jokes at all. And Conan O'Brien is like, oh, tough crowd thing. You know, like he's playing Conan O'Brien in Death Stranding. Right.
00:54:04
Speaker
And it's so much Kojima to not care about that. But I do care about that, right? Like, I'm still going for the Verisimilitude. I'm interested in the stories that are being told with the fictional characters there. And then you're like, by the way, late night talk show. You're like, wait a minute. But I was starting to get in there. I was starting to be part of it. I'm personally not a huge fan.
00:54:30
Speaker
That feels like more of an Easter egg. I didn't encounter Conan. I know he's in the game because I did watch something I got from his show. I went back one, where they talked about him being in it. But as far as like Mads Mikkelsen, one. Love him, great. Very handsome guy, very talented actor. His character throughout like the whole game is a serious one.
00:54:53
Speaker
And I think it, it, it fits with what it was. Like, I don't think it's bad to have him there. Even if he was like a Hollywood actor or even Norman Reedus, like the characters that they're play fit for the game, you know? Right.
00:55:09
Speaker
I think it's because like Norman Reedus is playing Sam Porter-Ridges, and Mads Mikkelsen is playing, I think his nameplate showed up in the chapter I was on, Combat Veteran, is what he was introduced as, which I don't think that's his in-game name, but maybe it is, maybe first name combat, last name veteran, who's to say? But they're playing characters within the universe.
00:55:34
Speaker
And that's absolutely fine. That's what I want because these people are actors. And part of acting is not playing yourself unless you're literally Nicolas Cage in his upcoming movie where he plays Nicolas Cage. And that's good for me because I don't know if I wanted to just like, I could look up an interview with someone talking about their life as an actor and that would be interesting.
00:56:01
Speaker
I kind of want to see their chops, you know, I want to see them play these fictional characters and represent it within the context of that fictional universe. So that's where Kojima and I disagree a little bit.
00:56:15
Speaker
I will say that he's consistent with this though, because I do recall there was that machine in MGS5 where you save Kojima and he asks you what took so long. And so I know this isn't a new thing. I'm sure you're coming from.
00:56:38
Speaker
But at the same time, it if it's like an Easter egg type thing, like out of the way, I don't mind it as much if it's infrequent. Mm hmm. We're near automata's DLC. I don't know if I played it. Nobody did. I've seen some footage of it. But you know, those doors that you can't ever get behind. I think so. I think it's tied to that. Well, basically, you're going to fight like the CEO of the company that made their experience.
00:57:08
Speaker
Uh, maybe, but you're basically like fighting somebody in the company and it's, it's tongue in cheek and it's like funny and silly. Obviously not a part of the game universe. Um, but I don't think it took away from it. Maybe it's a little more passable as DLC. Cause you literally have to go out of your way for it. Right.
00:57:30
Speaker
Oh no. I looked it up. It is this, it is the CEO of Square Enix. Oh, there you go. Kind of surprised they allowed him to do that, but that's cool. I mean, that's fine. And I'm fine with Easter eggs. Um, and to be fair, these are, these are the types of games that are more comfortable breaking the fourth wall. Like Sam bridges will like point at you. So there was some monster energy. We made it. We made it a long time without mentioning it.
00:57:59
Speaker
Sure.
Humor and Quirky Mechanics in Death Stranding
00:58:01
Speaker
And my gosh, it is the most egregious product placement like ever. You're just like, yeah, yeah, drink Monster Energy for a stamina boost. You mean like a can, a serving size? No. Three cans. Three cans is the appropriate amount to max out your energy. And I don't know what they're trying to say with that, but
00:58:23
Speaker
I found that hilarious, and at one point in the game I actually got an upgrade that changed the Monster Energy thing for another beverage. And they kind of look like beer cans, actually. I think there's draft in the name, so I guess the implication is they're beer, but they have the same effect. I don't know how that works out. I don't think beer and Monster Energy have the same effect. Yeah, they're both uppers, I think.
00:58:46
Speaker
But if you drink two of them, there's the animation for both. And if you drink the third one, rather than drinking it, he shakes the can up first. I'm like, what are you doing? This is a carbonated thing. And then he pulls the tab and sprays the camera, the player.
00:59:05
Speaker
down with it, and then just drinks the last couple sips and throws the can away. Some for me, some for you. And it was kind of funny, particularly because I was already used to him sort of breaking the fourth wall in the room. But that's Kojima's take. That's just the way these games are. I mean, I appreciated that more than the piss mechanic.
00:59:35
Speaker
Did you drink a bunch of monster energy or refill your stamina? Oh yeah, your bladder's full. You gotta pee. You gotta stand here and hold these triggers to whip out your dick and pee. I don't know if I can't turn the camera. Look at your dick though.
00:59:52
Speaker
I don't know if I've actually peed outside of the, uh, the private room. I did that like a little bit and then I was like, this is giving me a resource. I don't care. The private resource is an interesting term. Well, I mean, you can actually have piss weapons anyways. That's the number two grenade. Yeah. It's, um.
01:00:13
Speaker
It's interesting if you do it in in the room, which is like a little respite area for you to like manage some stuff, chill out, take a break from missions. You can do that like essentially as a cutscene where you go in the shower, vacate anything in your body. But if you do it outside, like it is a manual thing and you do have to just slowly pee.
01:00:35
Speaker
it's not like a quick read a P and also you can upgrade your
01:00:49
Speaker
I've never gotten a message that I had to, but I also haven't chugged Monster. He's got Monster in a canteen, and if you sit in water, or if you're in contact with water, it refills so you can drink more Monster. The funny thing here is, taking a step back, is Monster
01:01:13
Speaker
Were they aware of how this was going to be used in gameplay? Because giving energy, I'm sure they were on board for that. But it's like, yeah, and then you refill your canteen with water and it has the same effect as monster energy. You know, like, well, maybe they wouldn't have been on board with that part, right? Like, if you just take a monster can, you fill it up with water. It's basically the same thing.
01:01:38
Speaker
are you telling me i only ever needed to buy one can of monster and i've been wasting all this money yes apparently yeah let me let me go into a hot spring with monkeys and refill my my energy my life getting liquid so good they're so good the alternative to sleep is to go into a hot spring apparently i don't know if that works in real life i want to go in the jacuzzi
01:02:04
Speaker
I'm just imagining like the eight hour time lapse and it's like, uh, wake up. You're all, all pruny and rested. I've become a California raisin. If you're listening to this 30 years in the future, just Google that. It's a really old, um,
01:02:31
Speaker
product or mascot for product. The game has a bunch of unique things like that, which I would call it Kojimaisms as far as some of the animations and stuff that Norman Reedus does or the fucking baby being involved at all, all that stuff and the world and the plot. All cool enough, interesting enough.
01:02:56
Speaker
It goes a little bit far again. This is what I'm talking about as far as you should care about the plot. It's so super deep. And now my take is not exactly. It could probably told in a better way, more succinct. I still enjoyed what I played of it. I don't think the gameplay is awful. I don't feel like it can be polished. It's interesting enough. But at the same time, if you're like, I don't want to.
01:03:22
Speaker
Porter stuff. I get that. It's not the most engaging gameplay. But it's definitely interesting. There's not been a game like this. I know this has been like the first strand type game type game. Yeah. I don't know if anybody else is really going to go on in on this style. And if they do, I'd be curious to see how it goes. But I still think it's worth checking out. Maybe on a sale.
01:03:49
Speaker
Oh yeah, definitely get it on a sale. Um, it's also like primarily a single player game. So pick those up on sale anyways, unless you like, if you're the type of person who already was rushing to buy Death Stranding, you've already beaten Death Stranding. This is years past it. If you've waited this long, wait for a sale.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, but I share your overall sentiments. I think it's been enjoyable so far. I've played it more than I needed to, to talk about this. And I was approaching the point where I probably could have beaten the game if I actually did rush through, but I got distracted on the management task. I got distracted building the bridges. I log in and I'm like, heck yeah, when the light count goes up.
01:04:31
Speaker
So, I guess they won me over a little bit in that respect. You mentioned Kojima's take on seriousness. I think I'm in a similar boat. He said that we would all feel shameful for judging us based off of how quiet was portrayed in MGS5.
01:04:54
Speaker
I don't particularly feel shameful. It was, you know, just a Kojima character. Right. So hey, I'm going to have this really attractive female character, but I'm going to give her some like debilitating flaw or like alter her in a way like, oh, she don't have a normal body. Something's broke or oh, she can't speak. She's quiet.
01:05:18
Speaker
And the whole justification for the shower scene is not misogynistic in any way. Again, I would like to be known as... I like tits as much as the next person. Boobs are a great thing. But I feel like you should not design your female characters around like...
01:05:36
Speaker
They have boobs. We've got to show them the boobs. Otherwise, how will they know they're a female? Uh huh. Right. I don't know. Make them an interesting fucking character and just be like, oh, P.S. has a vagina. There are plenty of characters that just are female and then are well written. Yeah.
01:05:52
Speaker
And to be fair, some of those characters seem to exist in death training so far. I haven't had anyone nearly as egregious as quiet for like, Hey, fame service. So very brief aside, have you encountered the character mama? Yes. Uh, not like in person, but the, okay. Tell it not telegram. I'll get to learn more about her, but I think as weird as a character she is, I think she's interesting. Mm-hmm.
01:06:21
Speaker
I think that's literally my next objective is like, go visit mama. Mama. Yeah, the characters have incredibly weird names. We already mentioned some of them. And I know we're basically at time, but it all fits into like how weird the story is. It's just, it's really funny to see like, here's a person who's being very serious. And then it zooms in and it's like, die hard man, portrayed by actor, actor's name, you know, like whoever.
01:06:53
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's a name. Yeah. It's at a point you're like, I'm just along for the ride. I want to see where it goes. Yes. Or you're like, this is not for me. I don't care where it goes very much. If you're playing a Kojima game, we're all along for the ride. And, um, that's, that's at the very least true. I don't think that he, um,
01:07:21
Speaker
sacrifice any part of his vision for this game, or if he did, I'm really curious what that part was. Because it's off the walls crazy. But the gameplay is still good, just like MGS5. Really enjoyable, like the management stuff, like the building. And props to making something different. I don't think anyone could argue that this is another AAA title in an existing genre.
01:07:48
Speaker
without innovation. It's a right angle to the void, essentially. We have no idea where all this came from.
Final Thoughts and Speculations
01:07:57
Speaker
Probably LSD. I mean, just wait till ordering two comes out. Oh, my gosh.
01:08:03
Speaker
So Kojima, Kojima involved in that one, because if you combined, uh, combined Miyazaki and Kojima, I don't know what would happen. It's going to be some very weird fetishes are going to become prominent, uh, online. I'll say that much. Every single enemy is a point of some type. It was just like, uh-oh. How does it, how does it damage me? Oh, it, oh, it steps on me. Oh, okay. Right. If the shoe fits. Ha ha.
01:08:30
Speaker
Anyways, if you have shoes that need to fit, Dave's shaking now. I don't like where this is going. Do you have any words of wisdom for the walkers of the path out there on this nice evening, day, morning, whenever you're listening, listener?
01:08:50
Speaker
Real talk. I don't get any set up for these. I don't get any like heads up like, Hey, because we had like a segment at the end where we had like some advice and then Jake's like, Hey, you have the 10 seconds while I'm doing the sentence to figure that shit out. Uh-huh. I did talk a little bit though to buy you just like a pinch. I know you did, but I was, I was just, I was fuming at the point of like, I got to think of something. Fuck. Fuck. I don't even know if I prompt every time or not. No, not usually. Yeah. So I will say,
01:09:22
Speaker
Actually, I don't have anything. That's cool. All right. Well, if you guys have any words of wisdom for us, we need them. We need them. We're playing games like Death Stranding. Like, throw us a bow and help us out. Send them in to soapstonepodcast.gmail.com or you join the discussion on Facebook. Make sure to like the post at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:09:54
Speaker
you