u/ReadyJournalist5223

Something I’ve seen for a while is that mgs2 is often cited as predicting AI’s massive presence in today’s world as a filter for information and the digital age yada yada we all know the ending. However, mgs2 to me isn’t a story about AI. Ai plays a part in it yes but it is just one factor of how the patriots have taken control of the world at large. Kojima himself even says that a lot of people mistake mgs2 as an ai story as opposed to a technology story

Now the game you should be more concerned with is peace walker. I’m not sure if this is just because peace walker is not as popular of a game, it was on a handheld, or some other factor but its story has a lot of scary implications of what ai can do in the modern world. Rebuilding loved ones minds so that they can walk talk and act like them just so that we can used them to launch nukes is a terrifying concept. Pretty much the whole game is snake reconciling with the fact that the boss is dead even though he wants to believe the ai pod is some reincarnation of her. It’s something straight out of black mirror (even though black mirror came out after). Taking the human element out of something like launching a nuke and leaving it to cold hard facts while taking out any hesitation of pushing the button is such a dangerous precedent. It’s definitely a man versus technology narrative and it’s crazy it came out in 2011.

So I guess my point in this post is it seems like mgs2 gets a lot of the discussion when the topic is Ai when peace walker is the clear way more interesting conversation to me when discussing modern Ai technology

This is a weird one because I don’t really think it needs much introduction. Shadow of the colossus hit me like a damn freight train

This game was an absolute blast from start to finish. I hadn’t played it for years because I didn’t have great means to and when I finally did I just kept putting it off. Right now though I was in a lull so I emulated the ps2 version. Holy shit even that version is still amazing. This game is damn near perfect to me and I was just so enthralled by it the whole time. I do think some of the controls and mechanics are definitely clunky but for me, each colossus and the game as a whole is brief enough where any real big issues doesn’t last very long. Ironically for a game that could be considered pretentious, it has little pretentions. There’s no shitty side quest filler, no annoying cutscenes every 5 seconds no filler of any kind really.

In my opinion the most underrated aspect of any game that no one really talks about is pacing and this game does it perfectly. As soon you are sick of searching for a colossus bam there it is. None of them take too long to kill but none of them feel like pushovers either. The music also hits your ears like a filtered glass of water to a man stuck days in the desert.

I don’t really have much else to say other than the ending was absolutely stunning and beautiful. It’s also crazy playing this game and realizing it’s inspired just most triple A stuff that comes out since it came out. It’s kinda like watching the godfather after watching every other movie inspired by it for years later.

I recommend this to anyone easily if you can play it. I did emulate this but I ordered the ps4 version to play in HD and see if it’s even better. Let me know what you all think of this game whether you agree or maybe disagree even

As the kids say. Haha just to be clear I actually really like when Dunkey was more analytical and I think it’s a shame he isn’t as much anymore. This is just the one I disagree with the most which I think he’s actually turned around on a bit more. Another would be Batman Arkham city, death stranding, and his original vid on the last of us

First off I know I am way late to the party but I didn’t have a ps4 for the longest time and I finally got the game on PC. I’m a huge Kojima fan and so far I’ve played all his games besides policenauts and Death Stranding 2.

Going into this was interesting to me because I saw the polarizing reaction when the game came out. A lot of the big news outlets like ign were pretty harsh on the game along with the infamous Dunkey video where he absolutely trashed the game on release. After all these of years of being exposed to the game I still didn’t have much of a grasp on what it actually was until I played it.

So after all this time I picked it up for cheap and I played it. I think I had very positive first impressions, I thought the world looked very great and I was digging the weird post apocalypse sort of vibe. Once I got further in and realized what the gameplay loop was I think I understood why the game was polarizing. You are either on board for this or you think it’s boring af. I for one liked it a lot. At least for the most part. Sure some deliveries were more annoying than others but I did love the idea of basically going for a hike and trying to see how many concurrent deliveries I can do at once. That was the addicting part to me. Now I don’t think this gameplay loop is as addictive as say the tactical espionage of the phantom pain but it’s just different at the end of the day and I like that. A lot of this game did feel like let’s take the phantom pain but basically make a different genre with a similar engine (it probably would be the fix engine if Konami didn’t own that). The menus, progression, items even the way the story plays out reminded a ton of the phantom pain which is good because I love the phantom pain.

The most genius part of this game is easily the online functionality. The fact that the whole game is one giant social media experience is so fuckin cool. Being able to be like “hey I had a ton of trouble navigating this area so I’m going to build a bridge that helps me and everyone else out” is so genius. It’s one of those kojima ideas where I’m shocked no one has done it and it’s gameplay that ties into the story. It’s crazy to me that to this day I see these games with larger than life stories (god of war, the last of us etc.) yet they seem to never marry the story with the gameplay as much as Kojima does. Everything from raising your bond with Lou, building structures and discovering new areas just work in tandem so well.

Now the story is where I’m perhaps a bit more split. Ultimately I would say I like it for the most part, especially the end but I have a few gripes. I do think this is a story that would work a lot better with just a lot less back and forth. I know that’s Kojimas thing but there seemed to be this idea that people needed every little thing explained to them in this world when in reality I think of things were kept more vague it might’ve been more intriguing. I thought about Shadow of the colossus quite a bit while playing this a game with no dialogue that in a way has a similar gameplay loop with zero dialogue. Now I don’t think we need to go that far but just keeping things more brief. With things snatcher and metal gear, games about solving mysteries, i understand the over explanation but for death stranding while it is mysteries, it doesn’t feel like it’s mysteries that are begging to have an answer. Even the answers we end up getting at points don’t seem very satisfying compared to how much we have to trudge through to get there. It kills the pacing at times for me. Another gripe I have with the story is I didn’t care for a lot of the characters. Deadman, die hard man, Amelie, Higgs, cliff and I guess fragile stand out but the others I think needed a bit more oomph to them. Heartman, Lockne and a lot of the people you meet along the way I thought just didn’t really do much for me especially heartman I actually thought he was a bit annoying and just seemed to appear out of nowhere. This unfortunately extends to Sam himself. Sam ain’t no solid snake or naked snake. I don’t get a whole lot from Norman Reedus in this performance. I assume with this game and the phantom pain, Kojima wanted the more old school gaming where you project yourself on these characters as opposed to them just being other characters in the story. It made a bit tough to really root for him especially since he seems to be checked out and not care about anything until he does. At points when he’s fighting Higgs or saving BB im a little like “well don’t you not really care about any of this that much?”

The biggest issue I think this game has is pacing. Pacing is in my opinion the most overlooked aspect of any game and it’s a tough thing to get right. This game is probably a few chapters too long. Now
I don’t know exactly what to cut out but I probably could’ve gone without about 5 less. Toward the end of the game it feels like you keep getting constantly told “ok Sam this is the last mission, once you do this you’ll beat the game” only for it to be dragged out way more. I was so ready for the end by the time it got there. To me this made the gameplay more exhausting as well. At some point in the story I got sick of doing side deliveries I just dropped them entirely to focus on the story. That might just be a me thing and I have a feeling this is one of those games where people have played 100s of hours without even beating it but that’s just not me. The game was a bit too easy at times as well with no real jump in difficulty. Now I did play on normal but if I ever play this again I am definitely cranking the difficulty up because at times it feels brain dead. There are quite a few points where I saw I just have to go all the way across the map and I just dreaded it because I felt like the payoff wasn’t going to be worth it or I’d just be told “ok sam, this is it just one more”

So while I was just quite negative about a few things I did really love the ending. Sam stopping the extinction through love and being saved (idk if I quite understood how that all played out but whatever that’s okay) being saved by deadman and Lou it was all great. This guy who claims he has no connections was saved by his friends and his baby. Reconciling with Cliff, and even saving Lou (now Louise) it was a really happy hopeful ending which did shock me a bit as this seems to be a very bleak depressing game and Kojima doesn’t shy away from bad endings sometimes.

Ultimately at the end of the day I do think this game is a very flawed experience but I will always champion something like this where a creator is unleashed and is able to put together his ideas. I think perhaps there maybe needed to be a bit more of a filter on certain aspects but with Kojima I’d rather him just get his ideas out there. I loved this game in a strange way and I wouldn’t take back any time I sunk into it and I plan on going back to do some of the extra deliveries in the end. Once I do that though I don’t think I’ll be replaying the game anytime soon and I’d rather just move on to Death Stranding 2. Even with all my negativity I will take 10 death strandings before any other of the modern lifeless franchises that are spit out each year. So in conclusion… thank you death stranding for giving me a little hope

I feel someone has had to have made this joke already