My First 12 Hours With Death Stranding

At time of writing this post I've just finished a mini marathon session of Death Stranding that was 12 hours over the course of Saturday/Sunday and I'm going to share a few of my thoughts while it's fresh in my mind.  I'm only going to scratch the surface with what I'm saying though since 1) I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible and 2) There is A LOT going on and talking about all of it in one written post would take way longer than I'm willing to sit in front of my computer for at this time.

If you read the back of the box for Death Stranding it'll tell you it's "a new genre of game, the Strand game" and even after an extended session I'm not entirely sure what they mean by this.  If you go on Twitter you'll see a number of people complaining it's a walking simulator which also isn't fair or accurate.  What Hideo Kojima has done with Death Stranding is ask an extremely important question within gaming which is "What if we took Euro Truck Simulator 2, filled it with enemies and gave it a bonkers plot?" which is a question I'm glad he asked because the result is REALLY good.

At it's core, Death Stranding is about delivering the mail.  You are treated with a pretty dramatic opening sequence and then once it dumps a bunch of intrigue in your lap you are free to collect cargo and deliver them, mainly on foot, around various locations on the map.  As you deliver cargo you connect people to the "Chiral Network" which is the games 1st main objective.  The main premise of the game is that an apocalyptic event known as the Death Stranding took place some time in the games past and after that an expedition went out in order to reconnect the people of North America.  The woman in charge of the expedition has sort of being "kidnapped" by a militant group known as the homo-demons and it's your job as Norman Reedus to reconnect the country and get your sister back, the games second objective.

After you get people on the network, you can do jobs for them or find their lost cargo and deliver it which nets you "likes" and the more likes you get, the more tools and resources are available to you in order to make your courier life easier.  Standing between you and your deliveries though are two groups, the BTs and the MULES.  BTs are basically spooky ghosts and I have no idea what they do to you if they catch you because it's not happened yet and the MULES hang out in little pockets of the map and if you try to go through they will hunt you down, beat you up and steal your shit.  While the gameplay can be a little repetitive, the game is constantly dangling the mystery of what actually is going on in the plot in front of you and finishing a delivery for another tidbit of story is a surprisingly satisfying reward.

The multiplayer aspect is sort of similar to Dark Souls in a way but you can't invade other people and steal their cargo unfortunately.  Once you get an area on the Chiral Network you are connected to other players and you can see the structures they have placed down on the map.  These include ropes, ladders and bridges for easier traversal or things like generators and watch towers along with other things for utility.  There's a ton of other multiplayer systems going on as well though such as entrusting lost cargo from depots or finding other cargo that a more careless player has dropped so you can claim the likes of yourself but I've not really been engaging with it too much.  My gripe with the multiplayer is that it makes things a bit too easy.  Clearly the game wants you to carry ladders, ropes and the building item in order to help yourself get around but player have already put shit in the best places so you don't NEED to do any of that yourself because it's already been done for you.

When I finish it I'm going to be sure to finish it and write a spoilerific post about my thoughts on the plot and other things but for now I'll leave it there.  There is A LOT I've not mentioned but all I can say is that if you were on the fence about Death Stranding, you should absolutely try it out.  I'd not disagree with you if you said on paper it sounds a bit dull but there's something about it that just grabs you and doesn't let go, it's sort of hard to put down really.

Norman Reedus X Hideo Kojima

So a while ago, Kojima of Metal Gear fame was set to work on a new Silent Hill title with Guillermo Del Toro.  The game was also to feature actor from Walking Dead fame Norman Reedus and thanks to a demo released on PS4 known as P.T. the game was getting quite a lot of attention.  However, Kojima was given the boot from Konami and the project was quickly shut down which was quite good news from my perspective because as a Silent Hill title things were looking a bit grim.

http://identitygaming.blogspot.jp/2015/04/silent-hills-apparently-cancelled-and.html

You can read about why I was happy about the canning of Silent Hill there.  It looked decent enough as its own it was gearing up to be yet another weak entry in the now butchered Silent Hill franchise.  However one thing I did say in that post is that if that team was to get back together in the future to work on the project under a different title, then maybe I'd be a little more interested.

This is what some other websites as well as some of my personal friends have been saying, that the idea of Kojima and Reedus having talks points to the idea that maybe this stuff is happening again and that we should have some reason to be excited.  I mean, this one tween about a reunion with Reedus doesn't really mean anything on its own but even if it does point to that is it really worth getting that excited?

Survival Horror is a dead genre, games like that just aren't made anymore (unless you count the yet unreleased "Back in 1995", look it up) and modern horror games are a fucking shit show.  Horror has been reduced to either bombastic over the shoulder 3rd person games that feel more action than horror or first person stealth games that have a "scary" monster instead of some kind of facility guard.  There are certain quality titles in the genre but none of them even come CLOSE to having the same amount of horror impact as the classic survival horror titles of yesteryear.

IF it turns out this project is back on its feet, hype is the exact feeling we should not have.  No one has any reason to be overly excited about anything because they are making a horror game and that would be excited about watching someone take a shit.  That said, Hideo Kojima is a talented man who makes good games and Reedus is pretty popular for his work on the Walking Dead TV show.  What a re announcement of this title under an original IP is a glimmer of hope.  Maybe, just maybe we can have a horror game that doesn't play like shit and maybe has a semi-decent story behind it too.  Maybe we can have a horror game that ACTUALLY inflicts some scares on the player rather than just the BOO JUMPSCARE shit of today's horror titles.  Maybe Kojima will have the sense to hire some enemy designers who know how to do more than just dudes with cut faces or silly looking piles of meat.

There are a ton of reasons to look at a Kojima developed horror game and think that the genre might have a chance at a comeback.  It's doubtful but we can dream.  Hope not hype.

Silent Hills Apparently Cancelled and I'm Kind of Happy

Apparently it's all over and Silent Hills is a dead project.  A quick google search tells stories about Del Toro saying "It ain't gonna happen" and Norman Reedus confirming the canning of the project over at Konami.  This all comes along side news of Hideo Kojima, the big name behind the project, leaving Konami after the completion of Metal Gear Solid 5.  A lot of people are upset by this news but me, I'm kind of happy.

Now don't get me wrong and start raging, Silent Hills looked OK and had a lot of talent behind it and I'd be overjoyed to get a modern Silent Hill game that doesn't suck complete ass.  Hell, the first 3 Silent Hill games are some of my all time favourites but as a fan of the series I can't help but feel that the axing of this project is probably for the best.

There was a lot wrong with Silent Hills up to this point.  P.T, while very effective as it's own horror thing wasn't very "Silent Hill".  The second trailer that got released for Silent Hills which involved a person running away from monsters in what looked like a school made my heart sink pretty hard.  The whole thing looked something out of a haunted house and it looked like all the subtlety of the previous games had been removed for big set piece monsters chasing you through corridors.  If it was it's own IP then it's the kind of thing I would have been keeping an eye on but as soon as you attach "Silent Hill" to something like that I start to lose interest. 

The problem is though, Konami have come out and said that they will still be developing the Silent Hill series and this upsets me greatly.  Silent Hill is OVER and it's been over since 2003 (or 2004 depending on how you see it).  There is absolutely no need to develop any more fucking Silent Hill games, just let it die.  We are now at a sad point where there are more terrible Silent Hill games than good ones developed by people who don't have a fucking clue about anything.

Silent Hills was a little different because even if Kojima and Del Toro didn't have a fucking clue about the storyline at least it probably would have been a good game.  The problem is that the story is one of the most important aspects of Silent Hill and even if you make a decent game under the name, getting the story wrong just ruins everything.  If news comes out in the next few months that Kojima is carrying on the project with Del Toro under a different name my interest may spark.  "Inspired" by Silent Hill is great but being a part of that series sets you up for so much failure.

People should just let Silent Hill die and focus on bringing forward the next big horror IP.  We have all this awesome technology and graphical power now, I'm sure someone somewhere can make something that's just as chilling as SH1 was when that first came out.  A new IP would mean I'm not looking at it through the SH lens and nitpicking every single aspect of the story, presentation, game play, characters etc.

Lord knows gaming needs a good new horror game but Silent Hills was not it and I can't help but feel the series is better off without it.  Good luck to Kojima after he leaves Konami and I am kind of hoping the project gets restored under a new, original IP and it's just as scary an engaging as Silent Hill used to be.