Evan Urquhart

My favorite thing is using a ton of ladders to just brute force a mountainous delivery, making it trivial.

Well, I finished Death Stranding. I guess I'll give some thoughts.

The game is extremely uneven. There's good, there's bad, and there's so-bad-it's-kinda-good. The gameplay is very solid, as expected- if it hadn't been I wouldn't have stuck with it so long.

The core fetch quests have a soothingly repetitive quality, w/ variety and difficulty to keep them interesting (mostly- a few later runs became too easy). There are also pure shooter sections and BT escapes/fights, which are ok. (If you like shooters you'll probably like those.)

Now, to the story. I'm probably going to spoil some stuff, because I don't care. If you're wondering "Is Death Stranding pro-life?" The answer is yes. Politically that's probably the most consistent element, tbh.

Your "BB" (the weird fetus in a jar from the trailer) is needed equipment, and also represents the original sin of your whole operation. Sam coming to care for BB as a baby is fundamental to his character arc, freeing BB from the jar so it can grow up is the last thing you do.

I'd probably have found the extreme pro-life message more annoying, though, if I'd cared for the characters at all. Sam is a boring cardboard hero, I never got over the weirdo-freakout aspect of BB and saw it as more than a messed up, kinda cool game element.

The other characters are not much better- wooden, cardboard, stereotypical, with occasional aspects of weirdness that's kinda cool but doesn't really cohere. It would have really benefited from better dialogue writing. Just laughable. Sometimes terrible in a fun way, but still.