So... I started playing Death Stranding... and yeah I get the Kojima hype. :)

I have to say the initial density of cutscenes is *WAYYY* too high though and I disliked that part. It starts of OK until Central Knot City: you start off with an initial cutscene, gameplay to find a cave, a cutscene in the cave and gameplay to Central Knot City. So far it is all fine. But then we are hit over the head with lots of cutscenes interspersed with extremely low interactivity: a Skyrim cart-ride where you only can move your camera to decide where to look, a cutscene, minimal interactivity at the beach, long, long cutscene, a short walk inside the city, extremely long cutscene sequence and then finally gameplay again. This sequence was too much.

But the gameplay itself - this is another story. I very much like that. Kojima made walking into a gameplay system and that is extremely cool. I like that the triggers allow you to grip the backpack straps on either left or right side to try to regain balance. I like that I lost my footing in a river and lost cargo. I like that I quickly started to scan the ground for rocks a even slighter elevation changes. I started to stop at even small drops to make certain they don't fuck with my balance. That is awesome. And then they mix in the BTs that are scaring the fucking shit out of me.

Yeah, that is great, I like it. Don't know if that gameplay holds up for the whole game and how much new mechanics will come in (vehicles are on the menu as far as I am aware). This is a good game and it shows how you innovate: by taking something that other games took for granted and streamlined as much as possible (movement) and turned that into the actual gameplay. This is amazing.

My thoughts exactly- but I guess they will post-process that if you can hear too much life experience, cigarettes and whiskey in their voices to pass as 20 year old Marcus and Dom.

Sounds like this is your first Kojima game

Lmao. Nintendo is trying to sue over patents on gameplay systems they filed after Palworld released. One of those gameplay system they tried to patent is throwing a ball out to initiate combat with a character in the world. Another is riding on a monster character (which was in other games before Pokemon). The last is on 2 monsters battling one another and 1 being caught.

Indeed it is. I never was interested in Metal Gear Solid.

Yeah, starting with MGS1, Kojima has tried to make his games into movies. By the time MGS4 rolled around in 2008, the game had like nearly 10 hours of cutscenes lol. Which is about equal to the actual game itself.

Then he went batshit crazy with MGS5. I'm not exaggerating when I say that at the end of every single mission you complete throughout the game and are evacuated in the chopper, the games credits roll. If you had a shot for every time you saw the name "Hideo Kojima" come up on screen throughout your playthrough, you would've died of alcohol poisoning a quarter of the way through the game

I love how insanely over the top and nonsensical the plotlines get, but it's pretty clear he wants to be a movie director lol.