death stranding review'd: to love supply

Snaps and buckles, backpacks and belts.

The game ends in a signature Kojima-annoying fashion; two hour cutscene including two separate credit rolls, the "crying president" scene, and a half-hour sequence where you're blue and can't move much. Arguably a lot of the digital acting is boring, and a lot of the dialogue is nihilistically bland.

The themes are somewhat good. Information is transmitted wirelessly using ultrasonic frequencies. Something something extinction; politicians give us hope but are also executioners.

The metaphysics/mechanics/fx make the themes better. Ghosts in this game fully bridge geography and transmission. The internet piggybacks on death; "The name of the bow is life but its work is death."-Heraclitus.  You play almost all of the game while carrying a child which needs to be comforted. In a climactic boss fight, you are given only broken cargo to use.

Those kinds of inspired visual/mechanical fx are paired with occasionally poignant moments, or wackycreepy departures, from the digital actors. All of this rests on a bed of walking sim gameplay.

How Death Stranding innovates on the "walking simulator":

1. The essential action is carrying cargo. Everything the character picks up is represented by luggage which takes up space and is heavy. Generally, you want to carry as much cargo as you can manage.
2. The more cargo you carry, the easier it is to stumble and fall.Stumbling and falling can damage your cargo. You want your cargo to be undamaged.  
3. Things that can make you stumble and fall: slopes, rocks, rivers, ghosts.

The essential action is to avoid stumbles (or crashes, if you're using your motorcycle). Carry enough cargo, and a rocky slope can be dangerous. So there is a real zoom-in on the importance of terrain. And there are many ways to manage terrain: powered skeletons, vehicles, ladders, climbing anchors, build-able bridges, even roads.

Gloriously, there is also military combat. I say gloriously because it is introduced relatively late into the game. Package delivery is more important and is introduced first. Most of any army is supply.

There are also dreamlike sequences where tactical warfaring becomes the focus. These are a unique and interesting departure, which self-consciously and with some critique, cater to the modern warfaring needs of today's gaming markets.

Death Stranding is innovative primarily because it refocuses a familiar world. Post-apocalypse, survivalism, supernatural forces tied to dubious technology-- but it's about packages. In many ways it is a playable version of David Birn's "The Postman".

And, alike Dark Souls, it has a very sturdy and efficient asynchronous multiplayer system, cooperative only. I hope they introduce a player versus player mode, even clumsily applied, it would seem fun.

Pro:
-Adult, melancholy and complex emotional tone and gameplay.

Con:
-Kojima-signature interminable exposition.
-Save system is clumsily presented, main ops trigger game overs.

Death Stranding is a weird PS2-era artgame. We used to carve around the bad spots of these games, bc art that was actually good and mechanics that actually innovated were rare. I say that they're still rare, good art is always in short supply.