The Giant Beastcast: Episode 232

Let the Death Stranding discussion begin.

DAN backpedaling on RDR2 comment back then makes sense now

oh boy

Woke up at 7AM on my day off for this one.

Death Stranding? More like Can't Strand ya!

Early drop.

We will never again live in a world in which Death Stranding is not a real game that has come out. God save us. If we deserve to be saved, that is.

Oh, Dan. Sweet, sweet, summer child.

I am extremly hungover. I needed a podcast like this. Thank you.

Yes! Funnel that Death Stranding discord directly into my earholes.

"Name a bad Kojima game."

-Dan Ryckert, 2019

Finally a discussion about the genius visionary Hideo Kojima’s latest masterpiece. Surely it will meet everyone’s sky-high expectations!

I could tell what he was doing the second he said it. So I know exactly how this episode is gonna go down.

@doombot13: MGS V dont @ me

I love Dan. He's so blunt lol

The whiplash in this podcast of going from negative talk about a game that does something new, to positive talk about call of duty is really funny to me

“It is as wide as a lake and as deep as a puddle.” - Alex

lol

@rht992: I’m passing out drunk playing this. Let’s fuckin go

classic dan "games should only be fun" ryckert

For someone who doesn't really want to know any specifics about Death Stranding before playing it, should I skip passed the initial discussion? Is it major spoilers?

Popcorn.gif

I can’t believe Dan has had his dreams crushed two years in a row

People were sure Vinny would love Disco Elysium but he seems to be as turned off by it as Alex and Abby lol. It's a tonally harsh game so I understand.

The podcast I've been waiting for all week!

So Dan hates it. Suprise suprise!

I’m pretty convinced that if Metal Gear would have come out this year and magically had not existed prior, Dan would have hated it or at least not liked it. It’s a weird fluke that something spoke to him about the MGS series and he then later forced himself to play through all the other games despite admittedly not liking the gameplay, and it’s fascinating to see him struggle with Death Stranding when it has all the same Kojima DNA as his past games that he loves.

The game sounds like it is divisive (shocking I know). But Dan sounds fucking nuts considering MGS is very rarely "fun". It is clever at times and unique and interesting with some gameplay moments, but overall gameplay moments are kind of varying between weird, cinematic and, in older cases, just bad. This sounds like it is just an expansion of that, to me.

This is just that Dan can't stretch beyond "army guy does stuff that is cool" which is what it sounds like.

Full disclosure, I have ZERO interest in this game, but OF COURSE Dan hates it. For all of his love of Kojima and MGS it feels like it is all nostalgia and not rooted in any kind of valid criticism.

@humanity: Yes. I was thinking about MGS3 CONSTANTLY when he was complaining about the bad systems. This is, IIRC, his favorite MGS game.

I got about seven minutes in but I just don’t want to know any more details yet, I’ll listen to the impressions more when the game’s out though. thanks for including the time stamp!

@vinny: You shouldn't refrigerate your bread: Here's Why You Should NEVER Refrigerate Your Bread

STRAP IN, KIDS

Love going around the room like AA. Keep coming back, it works if you work it.

@mb2814: Fuck. *removes bread from fridge*

@sethmode: or even more specifically MGS4 which is barely a game in some respects. I like MGS a lot and I would argue that the gameplay is often fun in them, especially MGS V - that said it is gameplay that Dan has never liked, with themes he didn’t understand to the point where I think he made up most of the story of Metal Gear in his head to suit his own needs. And not to get up my own butt about psycho-analyzing a guy I don’t know and what he likes and doesn’t like but from the outside listening in, hearing Dan loathe this game in comparison to MGS and Seeing these very typical Kojima gameplay tropes he suddenly can’t overlook when he has praised or ignored them in the past is giving me whiplash.

All that aside the community building aspect of this game seems a lot like “my kinda thing.” Seems really cool to be able to team up with random strangers and build a highway or create an alternate path around dangerous territory. As a person that hates run based, procedural generation and instead loves the idea of constantly building on something this all sounds really awesome.

Also the GameSpot/Kotaku reviews have me really curious about the individual character stories.

1:27:24 What the hell was that sound?

@humanity: Great post! I agree about MGS4 too...and I am admittedly commenting as I listen to this, but like, Dan doesn't do himself any favors? I also like MGS, but like, honestly? Abby has the most directly accurate assessment of Kojima and his story telling. Literally there is a point where Dan is talking about how a long cutscene is just long and giving him nothing and like...it is is his whole thing! It is just so wild to hear. I appreciate Kojima and his experimentation, and I get that this game won't be for everyone (or me) but he has ALWAYS been Kojima, so hearing Dan meltdown about it just strikes me continually as...not hypocrisy but like, just, nostalgia propping one thing up despite it not being that different than the other.

Aww, congratulations on Kirby!

Getting a No Mans Sky launch vibe from how this game looks. I played a lot of NMS in it's launch state, and it was a slog, but I deffo did play a lot of it....so...maybe I'll like Death Stranding.

I've not played veery much of NMS since they "fixed it up". Maybe I should.

I think the complete opposite. The fact that Dan's opinion of the game is not influenced by his reverence for MGS/Kojima is actually refreshing to me.

And I think a few people here are also missing the overall point that Dan was making - he didn't enjoy playing the game. He really enjoyed playing the MGS games. In your opinion the gameplay is very rarely fun in MGS, Dan did not think that. He did not enjoy the gameplay in Death Stranding, which seems pretty different to MGS.

@robaota: Dont get me wrong: I don't want Dan to love it because it is Kojima. My larger point was more just that MGS had ALL of the same problems that he has with this, just without the nostalgia.

The Gambler.

Dan's reaction... The sad truth is that Metal Gear has mostly been an on rails kind of series wherein you do what the game wants you to do without much deviation. (The end of MGS2 throws this right in your face) Death stranding seems like the same type of game. I think Kojima has stayed the same over the years. If anything he has gotten more severe in his overbearing style of game design. I think Dan is the one who changed and Dan is now angry to find out that his "auteur" of gaming has always been this way.

Too bad they didn't get on with Disco Elysium, it's an easy game of the year for me. It also kinda ruined playing Outer Worlds. Everything in that game feels so mundane and safe compared to the choices I'm making in Disco.

30 Mins in and I am enjoying the Death Stranding talk. Love that Abbey calling Kojima’s story shitty because he just can’t tell stories well.

Really disappointed with Disco Elysium talk. What can I do to change their outlook on that hame? It’s easily GOTY caliber of a game

Alright, what will Dan think of DS. Personally I don't care so much about this game, as it seems kinda slow, like RDR2/

Fuck yes! This is the kind of discussion Kojima's shit deserves. Vinny's rant at about the 40 minute mark is so cathartic. I wish Abby played more of it because I need her to crap all over Kojima's shitty portrayals of women.

Edit: And I don't want to whine about Disco Elysium too much, but I never found it too cynical. I think it perfectly captures the Zeitgeist of 2019 by being ironically bleak but also being full of hope. Like posting "big mood" under the picture of a dead raccoon that's been painted over by road workers and then upvoting a news article about Greta Thunberg shitting on the UN. I don't know. I'm not good with metaphors. The game has so much heart. More than any other game I have played this year. And About the racism and sexism: Roleplaying is also about the choices you don't make. And the game punishes you so hard if you actually go down those routes. Rightly so.

Much respect to Abby for taking a measured approach to her criticism, I thought it was fairly balanced and instead of going all in on Ripping the game to shreds (I thought she would to be honest), she pulled back and said and recognized that the game isn’t for her.

Kojimas storytelling definitely ain’t for everyone, definitely don’t worship the man like some do, but I still appreciate what he does and I’ll put up with the monotony of what sounds like this game just to see just what he did with this one

Yeah, I feel pretty good about deciding Death Stranding wasn't for me when that TGS stuff came out. Remembering how much I hated MGSV was also a big factor.

I will say this though: Acting like "Oh, Kojima's been like this all along and if you like Metal Gear and not this your just rooted in nostalgia!" is a bad, bad take. There is a definitive tone shift between 1-Peacewalker and 5/DS, and for me personally, that's where it loses me. The non-stop dour, seriousness is a real turn-off and it's not a thing he did before.

And acting like the systems in MGS3 are nearly as bad as what it sounds like DS has is disingenuous at best.

what i’m getting here is this game is extremely anime.

e: seeing that critically this game has totally split the room. interesting!

It's less weird to me that Superfan Dan excoriated Death Stranding than it is that he ever liked Metal Gear. By his own admission he willfully misunderstood the game and gameplay. Which, ya know, I guess he's allowed to do, but at a certain point refusing to engage with game on its own terms becomes self-sabotage.

The Disco Elysium stuff is weird to me. The tone of that game is what you make it. I find it to be whimsical and sharply funny in its absurdity, but by the sounds of it everyone on staff finds it oppressive and depressing?

The quest with the bookshop owner and the basement is a great example of why its such a wonderful game, but I suppose if you go into it with an attitude that it's grim and horrible and play it that way, that's also what you will get out of it.