Death Stranding 2: On The Beach First Impressions

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Wow, first day as porters for Drawbridge. This is so exciting.
Yeah,

look, I'm just excited to get out there and make some deliveries. Yeah.
You know what I'm excited to do? Make a difference. Yeah.

Yeah, actually, that's true too, because we're not just making deliveries, aren't we? We're making a difference. We're reconnecting

people who are off the chiral network or haven't ever been a part of the chiral network before. That's right.

So I guess we're going to head out into the wilderness and we've got this fabrication machine that allows us to make anything. So I think we should just gear up.

Yeah, I guess let me step to the terminal because I know I'm going to need some container repair spray. So let me just

there we go. All right.
I plotted my route

prior to this point. So I've seen that there are a lot of mountains and a lot of sort of

uneven terrain. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to fabricate an extra set of boots, actually.
excellent that's really great

I know that there's gonna be some

some areas that I'm not gonna be able to jump down or jump across so I'm gonna get two ladders and I'll snap those onto my back here two collapsible ladders

so that's me

don't forget by the way you can connect ladders oh yeah you don't have to just use one length of ladder you can make a long ladder yeah you can make a double length ladder so maybe I'll get four I'll get four ladders do you mind if I just go again yeah um I'm definitely gonna need we're taking turns Oh, I thought we were.

No, of course. Yeah.
So

if you have something you want to fabricate, fabricate. All right.
I'm going to get 15 pairs of panties. 15 pairs of panties in increasingly large size.

This way. Yeah.
Because I've been thinking about this. I tend to ship my pants a lot when I'm like out on the wilderness.
You're like, I don't want to stop. You don't know where the BTs are.

So I'm going to, the reason I got ascending sizes is that way I can layer them. So I start with my size and then I can, I didn't want them to get tighter and tighter.

So now I got all 15 pairs of panties on. So when I'm shitting my pants, you just pull

the one from inside

out and then it's just not a problem anymore. Okay, I see why this hasn't worked for me in the past.
No, yeah. Let me just cut the line here.

Yeah, go for it. And I'm print out 15 pairs of pre-shit panties.

That just kind of keeps me occupied, you

Why does this machine have that as an option? It can do anything, dude. It can do anything.
Okay, fair, fair. I'm going to fabricate a porno magazine.
Okay.

Whoa, dude. I don't need to know that.
For the articles. Yeah, whatever you want to do on your own time, that's up to you.
It gets lonely out there.

I think I'm going to break up the log jam here. Print out a second fabricator.
Oh, that's huge, actually.

That's actually a really good idea. That's an excellent idea.
And you know what?

I have a pretty good idea.

Based on that, I think I'm going to print out another version of me. So I'm just going to print.
So I'm going to press print here. And

there it is.

Why is it? Oh, God. Okay.
Maybe I should.

Sort of like.

I don't. I don't.
I think maybe this was a mistake. It's kind of, I don't.
The only way we could fix this is if there's one more of each of us to fight it, probably, right?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, let me, let me print it. Let me just go ahead and turn that on the version of me here real quick.

Maybe we should just close the door on this facility and leave these guys in here. Burn it.

Well, the clones trapped us in here.

We comfort Lou and wear a hat that says, why me? as we give our first impressions on Death Stranding 2 on the beach this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.
I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Abadaka.

Who was that? What the fuck? I'm this guy this week.

The whole time.

That's right.

Get ready. Buckle up.

I'm starting. I wonder if,

should we have connected?

Hello, everyone. This is Matt Abadaka.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere of Video Game Podcast, where it is Death Stranding 2 launch week, and we are here with our first impressions.

That's right. Our long national nightmare is over.
Death Stranding 2 is finally with us. And additionally,

our producer, Rochelle Chen, Ranch, is back. Hi, Ranch.
Hi, Ranch. Welcome home.
You were in Taiwan for a bit. It's great to have you back in the studio.
How was your trip? It was okay.

You rode the high-speed train there. And that was one thing I was like,

you, I mean, I feel like you were taunting me when you were in the group text that you were doing. I did send it to the group chat on purpose because I knew you would appreciate the high-speed rail.

That's awesome. How was that? It was extremely fast.

Usually

the city where my grandparents lived in is like a four-hour drive from Taipei back in the day, and it took 36 minutes. Oh my God.

Let's fucking

go. That's what happened.
America fucking sucks. It's such fucking bullshit.

It's such a bad country. It's so bad.
It's like the fact that

it would make the most sense in the world. Everything else, they want to be the fucking best at.
And it's all the wrong shit. We need to figure out trains.

Well, we also used to have as a national point of pride, like building the best infrastructure and having like, you know, like the best space program and all that shit.

It's like, now, now, all that is going to be disassembled and transferred to the private sector so people can enrich themselves. Um, yeah, it's, it's so fucking grim.

It's, it's like what you're doing in Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2, like rebuilding America, like, that just needs to happen now.

We don't deserve it. Just deploy bridges now and build the UCA.
Let's just, we can start business from here. But isn't the UCA a private corporation? Well, I mean,

there are elements of that. So I don't know.
Maybe we are doing

whatever the best company is. Yeah.

Let them do that. Let Apple build the roads.
I was going to say McDonald's.

Is the UCA in Death Stranding 1

a private company? Because Drawbridge is privatized, but I thought that's a new element in Death Stranding 2, not to get too far ahead of it. Yeah, that is definitely private.

If I recall, which was shocking that I did not retain a lot of the main parts of the lore

in the beginning of that. But I did watch the

story so far thing that they give you at the beginning, which is

barely helpful.

Wow, I kind of liked it.

We should pause on this. We shouldn't get fully into it.

We got to have stuff to talk about when we're talking about our thing. That's right.
But thank you, Ranch, for returning. I'm so happy to be back.
She expanded the chiral network in a

friendly cat. Yeah, yeah.

You have to turn in your Cupid device.

Imagine listening to this and not having any idea what Death Stranding is.

Because

we are so entrenched in the lore, even the stuff we don't remember. Yes.
That now it's just part of our language and our vocabulary.

My cell phone ringtones, my text tone and my ringtone have been death stranding like calm notification things for six years.

And so those sounds are just a part of my daily life.

Those are just in my

anytime I'm just a crying baby.

My phone's ringing. I'm scared.

It's like,

but it's just, I say that, I guess, to just highlight that the game, like we did three episodes about it in the past. Yeah.

Legendarily, it is the title that we have dedicated the most amount of personal air time to is Death Stranding 1. It's still, I think, in the top five of my most hours played on my PlayStation.

Oh, wow. Interesting.
It's still up there. Elden Ring has, like, I think surpassed and doubled it because of how much you have to play the game.

But it's still an all-timer. I played it.
I played, I mean, I played a shitload of Death Stranding and then, of course, Death Stranding Director's Cut, which we talked about with Kirk Hamilton.

That's right,

who was just listening talk about Death Stranding too. And I'm very excited to sound like a much dumber version of him.

But

it's good. We like it.
It's good.

McDonald's.

So it's a, but, but, like,

I have over 100 hours

in Death Stranding.

I played the shit out of it, really enjoyed it, and it is definitely one of my favorite games of that generation.

You're obviously a huge fan of it. Yeah, yeah.

I don't remember what my actual time topped out at, but I platinumed the game, which was

enjoyable.

It was fun to do. Why don't we hold the Death Stranding talk for the Death Stranding?

Yeah, we're just riled up.

It just came out. We were all just playing it as much as we could over the past couple of days.

It's not left my mind since starting it, and it's it's just great. I'm just happy, I'm just happy that there's a

new good video game out. It seems it's nice.
We're due, it's been a pretty good year for games. It has been really good, it's been really great.
God, I was when am I gonna get back to Claire Obscure?

I'm so upset I didn't finish that game. You're in the middle of a game

at this point now, feels like it's two years old at this point. Rebirth.
Yeah, what the hell are you doing?

I'm abandoning it.

Rebirth's going back in the womb.

Oh, shit. You said that before, and it's equally hard to hear.

It's nasty. I'm going to have Sephiroth come set you straight.
That's what I want.

What a cool death that'd be, pale by Sephiroth.

He's not going to kill you. He's just going to be, he's going to scold you.
That's going to be worse.

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We got all sorts of Death Stranding 2 to get into, but first, the question we always ask in the structure of the show, in this first portion, is what are you playing? What are you playing?

Hi, it's me, the Resident Evil Virgin.

And I'm here to ask ask my friends what they're playing. And they already spoiled it because they're talking about death stranding, too.
But maybe

they still got room to play other games. I don't know.
Let's ask them. Yeah, sorry for disorienting you there by going a little bit out of order, Resident Evil Merchant.

I know you're on standby waiting to hear us talk about video games, and then we immediately start talking about a different video game, which is not what we're going to be talking about for what are you playing.

I get real upset when things happen out of order. Yeah, you and I, I think a lot of our people who comment on the podcast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You must hate that pivotal scene from A Few Good Men.

But

I don't know. The whole courtroom's out of order? I think that's a different movie.
Is that a different movie? Yeah. And also, I'm not out of order, you're out of order.

I mean, like,

sequential. Is that also in A Few Good Men? Like, I fucking hate pulp fiction.

Fuck that movie. I thought A Few Good Men was you want the truth, you can't handle that.
That's what it is. Yeah, I think this whole system is, that's, I feel like, a different thing.

And actually, that's one that I know more from The Simpsons reference. That's what I know it from, too.
So, that's why you can see how I got confused. I only know it from the Simpsons.

I'm so confused about what you guys are confused about. But there isn't a few good men reference in The Simpsons, which is like, you want the sideshow, Bob.

You want the truth, you can't handle the truth. No tooth handler, uh, you.
Bob, I despise your truth-handling abilities, or deride, rather.

The Simpsons is good. I was saying, because uh, the Resident Evil merchant was saying that he was like, When things are out of order,

And I was trying to evoke that scene, but obviously I pulled the wrong one. So, you know, it's just a wash.
The whole show is a wash now at this point. No, no, it's okay.
You can salvage it.

Man upon the what are you playing?

I'm still playing Hollow Knight. I'm glad Ranch is back.

Ranch is back. Ranch is back, by the way.

I'm back. We're so fucking back.

Ranch is back. Ranch is so back.

That's what I want to hear at the salad bar.

Well, because when it's not there, then you go.

Where is it?

Where is it?

Just because we were just talking about it,

the line is from the film and Justice for All, Norman Jewison film I've never seen starring Al Pacino, 1979. I should watch it.

You know what? So should I. So I can get the reference right now.

Why does he yell? He yells, you're all out of order. You're out of order.
You're out of order. This whole trial is out of order.
Oh, is the actual line. Well, you know, he's always yelling.
Yeah.

He's going to yell something good. I think it's like a movie that I don't know.
Maybe, maybe it's, maybe it's awesome.

I've never seen it, but like, for me, it's one of those movies where it's known for like that scene, like Five Easy Pieces, a Jack Nicholson movie, which is like fine, but it's like the one, it has the one great scene that everyone's quoting that kind of is elevated beyond the movie itself.

Five Easy Pieces, that sounds like the first half of a 10 piece.

that back end starting to get full a little tougher

why was that so funny to you because i saw nick enjoying it as i was saying it

he was there for the whole thing

Shit eating grid immediately. Yeah, he's like, I'm a max picking.
He's going to do something.

Let him cook.

So I'm still playing Hollow Knight. And

I,

last week, after the show, after saying that I had been playing it, I went home and I played it more.

And I sent a picture to the group chat and was like, I just, or I, or a text to the group chat, I just beat this boss and was excited about that. And then a minute later, oh, fuck, no, I didn't.

Because there was a second phase that seemed like it was, it seemed like it was done.

It's like the guardian ape and Sekiro. There's a prolonged period between phases where you feel like you've actually completed it.
I like collected an item. I was like, I'm done with this.

And then he was like, surprise, bitch. And then he came back.
And then I lost immediately because I had like one health thing left. And then had to do the whole thing over again.

But then did it pretty quickly again after that. Because that's the thing about games like this is that I feel like I can get frustrated and want to.

snap my new Nintendo Switch 2 in half. Yeah.
I'm having a hard time with something like that. But I just, I can see how I'm supposed to do it.
And this is the same with any like

a Souls boss or like a just like a Metroidvania boss. Like there's like

just pattern recognition and

you just have to just learn their move sets, the bosses move sets and stuff. So

I've completed quite a few of those. I'm now in the

I'm in Kingdom's Edge ranch.

And I just got to say, this game's fucking hard. It is very hard.

And I think it's especially hard right now because I think for where I am, I'm like considered, if you can consider it, there's no levels in the game, but I'm like underleveled for where I am because I have six

health things. What? Yes.
And I should have probably like eight or nine, but I only have six. You were shocked by that.
I'm playing it on hard, basically.

You got to grind a little more.

I had to, well, I have to, what I think I need to do is just like go back to the opening areas and now then traverse places that I hadn't been before because I now have new abilities, like a double jump and a dash and a super dash, basically.

So I think I'm going to spend some time going back. And then I, so now I then see why people are like, this game is 100 hours long.
Because I think I have like 30 hours in it or something.

And I think I still have like a third of the game in terms of areas left to go. Sure.
Which is

that's a lot. It's just a lot of stuff.
And then the bosses are really hard.

I did meet the

dung defender, who's a boss that you can fight. And the thing about the dung defender is he's really funny.
He's kind of like a big, dopey guy. And like, they don't talk.

Like, I guess they do speak, but they don't, like,

it's not like in English. It's in like their little bug language.
And so there's this guy, and he kind of sounds like, kind of sounds like the Swedish chef, kind of, he's just like, oh, get.

And so you're finding, you're like, where's this guy coming from? And then you go find him. And then he's just like, this is this big singing guy, and you have to fight him, and you get like a

charm after you beat him.

And the charm makes you stinky.

That's fun. It makes you stinky, but it gives, it does damage

to

enemies and stuff. So you want that equipped if you're having a hard time with like a boss or something.

You're like, oh, like, I'm just getting, if I'm just even passing over the boss, it's getting like very minimal, but some damage. You got a little low-grade AOE that's just kind of always on.

That reminds me of the garlic, another smelly thing in Vampire Survivor. Yes, but it makes you stinky, and it's like a big, like brown cloud of stink around you.
So it's like a pretty good

doo-doo charm.

And then there are some vendors, I don't know if this happens in all vendors, but I went to a vendor wearing the charm, the guy that you can sell stuff to, and he was like, get that stinky charm out of here.

I'm not doing business with you.

He makes you go take it off somewhere. I love details like that.
They don't have to put that in the game. They They don't have to.
With a little extra bit of polish.

I have

two complaints, two frustration points, I think. When you die, sometimes you save at benches, and those are your save points for when you die.
So it'll

behoove you to save at every bench that you see, especially if you're getting closer to a boss. Right.

But sometimes the distance between...

where the bench is and where the boss area is is too much, even if you do unlock the little shortcuts that you can find along the way. And sometimes they're treacherous.

So it's not like just like a straight shot, or like sometimes it's like there's spikes, or there's like a bunch of like tough enemies along the way.

And so you're like, am I even gonna make it to the fucking boss area?

Right, it's not like a classic Dark Souls run by like run back where you just can kind of like, you know, bypass a bunch of skeletons or whatever the fuck and get right into it.

So like that, that can be tough. And then the other thing is

I, when I lose,

when I lose a lot of geos, which is like souls, you can get them back, and you can get them back easily, but

you have to like you have to fight your shadow, which is in like a whole thing. And or you could go to this guy who you give a stinky egg.
There's a lot of stinky stuff in the game.

You give a rant. See why you like it.

What the fuck?

I don't stink you stink.

You want to stinks? You stink.

Fuck.

He's right, you know.

Sometimes it's like you guys are talking in a different language, but using words that I know.

Nobody stinks. It would be shocking if anybody in this room stunk.

Right? I think we're a pretty good smelling crew. Yeah, good smelling crew.
Not going around whiffing everybody, but

you'd notice if someone smells noticeably bad. It's a small room in here.

You can give this guy a stinky egg, and he then summons the thing that has your geos to you, and it's like an easy way to get it, but that thing is so far away in the beginning area.

Oh, so this is my overall biggest complaint. I wish every biome had all the different stuff.

So you don't have to go back to where the stuff is to like, because like some, this one vendor that sells, that you can sell stuff to is in one place. Oh.

He's just in one. And it takes a long time.
It takes, sometimes it can take a long time to get out of an area or,

you know, there's like a fast travel system and stuff too. And you can like

travel to and into and, you know, fro. But it's just like, I wish they, I wish every area had like, this is where the shop is and that type of thing.

Yeah, I mean, like, like I've, I've, I've, I've only ever gotten a few hours into Hollow Knight, a few false starts.

But just speaking generally from what you describe, what you describe, like, I understand from a design standpoint, making something inconvenient, sometimes that can be good if it adds challenge or adds you know a depth or color to the world or whatever but sometimes it's just like oh you're just adding just taking away more of my time to do this task i will say it just adds tedium it does add depth though because like when you have to go back to like the starting area yeah to go do a specific thing there's always like a little bit of like new dialogue when you see like the guy that's always there you always gotta check in with him see what's going on uh they'll have like new items in the shop there or whatever and so i i i love it i think this is like a this is like an all-time game like it's like it's it's i like i love the little i love the knight i love i love him yeah i want a little like tattoo of him he's like

he's so great his character design is so good he's just a little just a little guy and he's got these like little wings and he's got a little like

little horns up i love him i love him he's like a he's just my favorite little guy you love a little guy i really do but like he's like number one right now he's so good frog from Crowno Chair can sit down.

Frog can fucking

be my best friend forever. You know when you finish.

But yeah, so

I'm hoping to finish it. It's now my in-between Death Stranding 2 game.
And my wife tells me that I'm too...

I'm too into it because the thing she hears me playing it,

the thing she hears from me when I'm playing it is, oh, fuck.

Too much.

But that's what I've been playing. Wow.
Nice. Heather, what are you playing?

Well, I've got two games that I've been playing in the little corners of life that I've squeezed out around Death Stranding 2. One is that I've continued playing Welcome to Her on the Switch 2.

I don't know why I'm doing it,

but... I know it's there, and it's so easy to just drop in, do a quiz, learn about a chipset, and then leave.

it's it's this, it satisfies the same thing that like reading a news article satisfies for me. It's like, oh, what am I going to learn about the Switch 2 today?

So now I'm in the final area, I'm inside the system, and I'm learning about the chips.

And I'm, I'm, I don't know, I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying being a tiny little girl running around inside the Switch 2.

Did you try to pick someone that would seem like it was like you, or do you just pick like a random girl? I picked a random girl. Yeah, I picked a girl.
I know Nick's answer, but I just want to know.

Nick didn't have to choose exactly.

But

I'd also like to talk about, and I know I said I would only talk about Fortnite once a month. Unfortunately, something has happened in Fortnite that is worth talking about, which is that

they issued a side mode called Blitz Royale. And it was not supposed to be like a massive mode for them.
Like it's not

their main

money pool comes from the Battle Royale games, whether Build or Zero Build.

But they issued this side mode called Blitz Royale, where you are in a much smaller island with a much smaller pool of people. So the games are significantly faster.

It's like 30 people instead of 100 people. You drop with high-powered weapons and boons that are from all the seasons of Fortnite, like all of the different seasons of Fortnite.
Whoa.

Everybody on the island drops with the same mythic weapon and the same boon. So everybody has the same significant starting advantage.
But the massive advantages after that are randomized.

Like you go up to a crate and you might find a boon from season chapter five, season five or something.

You can become the goo. You can become like, I haven't seen the goo, but you might.

I just remember that one. That's when we were playing it for the show.
Here's what is surprising about the mode is that it now has double the players of standard battle royale.

It has been a major success and has drawn all of the player base over to this smaller, faster,

like snappier mode where the games go faster. You have more of the weapons that you enjoy using.
You don't spend as much time running around looking for other players.

There's technically less to do, but more combat to engage in. And then the game is over.

Because there are so many people playing it, the

loading island is faster. So you're going through game after game after game.
It feels like reels. You know, it feels like TikTok or Instagram.

It feels like you're scrolling Fortnite instead of like dropping in and dedicating a full half hour to a match, which is generally how long a battle royale will last is about 30 minutes, like 25, 30 minutes.

Right.

It is

drugs.

Yeah, that seems

pretty good. It has stripped down all of the stuff about Fortnite that I find mildly frustrating,

which includes you don't run fast enough, which is my complaint in every game.

The speed at which you want a video game to run is untenable.

But in Blitz Royale, because you have access to all of these movement boons, you're running around like Sonic while playing Fortnite. Whoa.
It is like super high jumping.

It's like invisibility dashes. It's fantastic and a little bit more chaotic, but generally speaking, a lot more fun.

And you feel a lot less shitty when, like, if you're playing for 25 minutes on a regular Battle Royale game and you walk around a corner and somebody one-shots you in the head, you feel like ass.

Right. Because it's like, I have just lost so much time.
With Blitz, if you lose, you just load in again.

And I think there's a possibility that this will become that if they keep it around, I think it's going to become the dominant form of Fortnite. Wow.
Is the smaller matches, faster gameplay?

And again, it was accidental. Like it wasn't what they were expecting.

That's kind of, that's kind of, I mean, that, that, that, that's kind of surprising to me that this was not like their big, like, like, oh, we know this is going to be the mode that's going to attract everybody.

I mean, it's like

it certainly has gotten some, you know, advertising. Like it wasn't like it was like released under the radar, but at no point during like any of the

pre-press for the new season was it like, and we're going to introduce a new mode, but it's Royale. You're going to love it.
It was just like a thing that was released.

It's not like Lego Fortnite or like

guitar band or whatever. Yeah.
Yeah. But isn't that kind of the origin of Fortnite's popularity? Like like wasn't the main mode of Fortnite not Battle Royale originally? It was save the world.

So it's it's kind of like this is just an iterative process where they keep finding a new thing that hooks people even more so than the previous version. Yeah,

it's extremely addictive and

has, I mean, drawn all of the people that I play with, either on the Discord or in my private life, into the mode. Like, that's just where people are playing now.

Is the mode here to stay, and do you have a sense of like, we're just really into it now, but we know we're going to go back to Battle Royale or like, no, this is like a superior version of the game.

Well, I don't, I don't know either of those answers got it i know that um they're they're each week they're doing a different theme with blitz royale so that's an additional like alacrity of gameplay it's like

last week was like all of the god boons and this week it's all the airbender stuff like all of the avatar the airbender stuff yeah so like each week they're dropping new i think the plan was to pull the

to pull the mode after a certain amount of time yeah i don't know if they're gonna still do that. Yeah.
And I haven't done, like, I'm not doing games journalism about it.

Like, I, it's just been kind of a shock, kind of a rumble.

I, uh, you know, I don't play Fortnite and I don't play those kind of multiplayer games really, but like, it's, it, what it kind of reminds me of is

three different games, but the same sort of thing of just like the speed kept increasing.

The, the, the, the, like, the, the, the, what Hearthstone did over Magic the Gathering is in addition to making like fully digital and like taking advantage of the fact that it did not have to have a physical version.

So you could do like a lot more RNG and what have you. But like they, it was just like a smaller deck and much shorter rounds.
And people got used to the pace of play of Hearthstone.

And then Marvel Snap comes out and it's like even smaller deck.

We're going like like we're making this thing like like less than half the size of the Hearthstone deck, which is already half the size of the Magic the Gathering deck.

And, you know, now, now instead of like a round taking 20 minutes, it takes like five minutes. You know what I mean? Like they

And it makes you wonder what the end point is going to be.

Are we going to get to a point where there'll be some big multiplayer game that people are playing at some point in the future, which a round is like one minute long? You know what I mean?

It's like, it's like, it's almost like old arcade fighting games where it's just like one-on-one. I mean, old arcade fighting games.

Obviously, there's a current thriving fighting game community, but like it, like, you know, fighting game matches are not particularly long.

Could you have the same sort of thing happen with a battle royale approach?

I would be totally in favor of it if you could could keep the loading and island loading that fast. Because if I think the

window of return, I don't know what the word is. There's like a phrase where it's like describes

the amount of time you put into something versus the amount of time you get out of it. But what I mean is...

If you're spending a minute 30 in the game, you have to be able to load into the next game in 10 seconds. Oh, sure, right.
You know, and that's...

Yeah, you don't want as much downtime. I get what you're saying.

Like, that's part of what was kind of frustrating about Street Fighter when it went online is unless you were continuing with that same person, there was a length of time that you had to wait in order to fight somebody else, which kind of made you lose your own personal momentum.

Whereas

if you're at an arcade, you just drop in another quarter and you're instantaneously playing again. Yeah.

So I think it's possible that that's where it'll end up. And certainly I'll be on board for that.
I don't need 25-minute matches.

matches, and I feel like I'll look back on it and be like, God, do you remember that Fortnite used to take like 25 minutes to win? Yeah, like that sounds insane.

It is this still,

this is like a zero-build thing. Yeah, that's really cool.
It's just zero-build with the best weapons of all the seasons. Wow.
It's great.

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Nick, what have you been playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking. So I got the, I was trying to figure out anything to do with my Switch 2 and before Bonanza comes out.
Yeah.

Because I just like, I'm not that into Mario Kart World, right? Like, you know, whatever, fine.

I'm glad I have the new Mario Kart and it came bundled with a system anyway, the version that I got.

But

it's just not a game. It's a kind of a game I've moved past at this point in my life.
But I got the GameCube controller, which I think we all have. Oh, yeah, yeah.

The GameCube controller is really slick.

And I mean, it's just, it reminds you how stupid the controller was, but it's also so ergonomic and so distinct that you kind of, like, I do have nostalgia for it.

And I did just have like, this is just great to, like, it just feels great in your hands. Yeah.
And actually playing a GameCube game with a GameCube controller, which I have not done in.

I mean, I guess it probably, I probably would have hooked a Wave Bird up to my

Wii U was maybe compatible with. I can't remember.
Yeah, it was. I never got, I never plugged a GameCube controller to my, my Switch one, I don't think.
Oh, no, not the, the Wii was compatible.

I don't know if the Wii used. So maybe it was just the Wii.
Maybe the last time I actually was using a GameCube controller to play GameCube games was,

you know,

with the Wii, with the Wii. And I never messed around with the GameCube controller for emulation on PC or anything.
And so just, yeah, just playing these games again is

so cool. Of course, Nintendo being Nintendo, they only have three fucking GameCube games available right now.

All right, sure. Fewer games than launched with the GameCube.

But one of them is Wind Waker. And as well as Soul Calibur 2 and

the F-Zero for GameCube, F-Zero GX, right?

It feels awesome to play Wind Waker with a GameCube controller again. And Heather, you had the observation that...

Because you can kind of, I think that by default, the C-stick,

the right analog stick, is inverted for...

But you can change that setting in the Switch to... Which was, I don't think, something you could do in the original game.
I don't think you could do it. No, I agree.

I don't think you do that in the original game. Maybe you could do it in the HD remaster.

If you do that, it does like

you know,

there's some jank to the UX, but it does like feel like

a modern game, like Link running around, just great running around. Oh, yeah, fantastic running around game, great, great, great locomotion.

And it's also just the power of good art direction. I mean, like, what are games that came out in 2003 still look this good? You know what I mean? Like, it looks fucking incredible.

It looks like it could be a game today.

Like it's yeah, because

and I don't think I'm saying, oh, it looks like an art style that would be emulated today of like the old Wind Waker. I'm saying it looks like a game that could come out now.

Yeah, like, oh, there's this, there's this beautiful new indie game that has this really distinct look. Part of the response to, you know, Chibi Link back in the day is like,

they think people will memory hold because now this game is so beloved, but it was like kind of polarizing the same way Super Mario Sunshine was around release.

And there was a, there was a big backlash to the art direction at the time. People thinking that like, like, that's not how that's not how Link looks.

And

obviously, you know, Twilight Princess is something of response to this game, right?

Like, of just like, okay, we're going to bring back the aesthetic that you were hoping for with this Generation Zelda. But looking at it now, it's like, wait, this is like

maybe the best looking Zelda game, like in general. Like, it's just like, like the art direction is so pristine.

And, and again, just like the distinct choice of having this sort of,

you know, storybook animated look is, is, it, is a big part of what, what gives it its legacy.

So it's, it's just so weird to think back of when that was coming out and when people were like annoyed by it. People were so fucking angry about it.

I remember the first time I encountered footage from the game was at Anime Expo that somebody had the trailer running on a television behind their booth, and I thought it was for a Zelda cartoon.

Yeah. Like, I was like, oh, what's that? Like, is that a Zelda anime? And they're like, no, that's the new game.
That's the game. And I was like, what?

And I remember being blown away by the explosions, like the way that there were like spirals in the explosions that look like a cartoon.

These are all effects that we take for granted now because of cell-shaded video games. But at the time, that was like the premium, like the premier,

the premiere podcast, the premiere

cell-shaded video game. Yeah, you had, I mean, you obviously had like Jet Set Radio, which

I think predates it. Yeah.
But that was less of a, that was more just like a character design was like the self-shaded characters were the foregrounded element.

Just the whole world just feeling like an interactive cartoon was like completely novel. And not in like in a, in an interactive, in like a way you can,

you know,

fully engage and control your character, not like something like Dragon's Lair or Space Ace, right?

You know, um, so I had not, I didn't have a GameCube, I had never played uh, Wind Waker, I haven't, uh, I so I started playing it on Switch 2, but I haven't played it with the GameCube controller yet, and I'm excited to get in there and play it at some point.

This link, having backlash,

like having played a little bit, like the opening area of this game basically reminded me that my very first Zelda was this link

because of the DS game

Phantom Hourglass. And I love the Phantom Hourglass.
And that was the very first Zelda game I've ever played. So it's just funny to think about everyone's like, I hate this link.
And

my experience is, oh, cool, this, this, to me, new character link. I had not played a Zelda game before.

So it was just, I don't know, it was nice to revisit the art style, frankly.

I love it. I can't wait to check it out and play it a little bit more.
Oh.

Oh, that was the other funny thing, too. I was like playing it, and I was like, wait, so in this one, Link has like a whole family.

He has like a sister and a grandma.

I like it. I do like it.
It's very, it's very, very sweet. Well, as the story goes,

it's a really cool way to investigate the Zelda myth.

Like it's, it's neat because their relationship to Zelda is kind of like our relationship to

Link and Zelda. It's a cool, I love Wind Waker.
It's one of my favorites, if not, it's probably my second favorite Zelda after Breath of the Wild. Wow.

Yeah, I guess Breath of the Wild is got to be number one for me now.

Partly just because I never really connected as much with Tears of the Kingdom.

But

yeah, I do really love Wind Waker. And again, it's the game, the Zelda game of that era that that lingers with me the most, you know, and that I still, I still think about.

I guess, I guess, where else would I? I mean, I put when I was doing my top 10 list, our top left 10 games all the time, I had Zelda 1, The Legend of Zelda for NES Famicom on my list.

I do have a lot of affection for that game.

If we're actually ranking them against each other, because I mean, but a big part of that for me was like the importance of that game and getting me into that type of,

you know,

exploring a world and dungeon crawling and

just like the idea of a game being not just a series of challenges and a series of levels, but like an adventure. That was so novel for me at the time.
But

if I'm actually ranking them against each other, I guess I probably would put

Breath of the Wild.

I might go Majora's Mask. I mean, I really do love Majora's Mask as design, but I, I mean, Wind Wakers 3 or no, no, no, because I can put Link to the Past over that.
Actually, I probably link the.

Why are we doing this?

You're doing it. We're not doing it.

Everyone stop.

Is that what we're here for? God damn it. Jesus Christ.

Where do you put it?

Here's

just put a bonus. Breath of the Wild, Link to the Past.
Majora's Mask. Wind Waker is probably something like my order.
Where do you think you place Freshly Picked Tingles Rosie Roopy Land?

A game I didn't really didn't know existed until just now.

It's like they handed the Zelda license to Chuck Tingle for one off.

Guys,

should we talk about the thing? Let's get into it. Let's get into our first impressions of Death Stranding 2 on the beach.

My first impression is, my God, so much in the world has changed since the last one. Yeah.
Our world.

Like dropping in before anything happens, hearing the sounds of Death Stranding threw me all the way back to 2019 and made me be like, oh my God,

this has been a very cataclysmic six years. Yes.
It's been wild. I was thinking about that, how

I'm different than when I started playing the first one.

Just like, and then it made me scared

to think about the

things that are going to come true from this game.

So, you know, it released obviously in June 26th of this year. We were not playing pre-release copies, but we did get the, we did all pre-purchase recording this based on the effective release date.

Yes. So we all pre-purchased the digital deluxe edition.
So we were able to play for a couple of days in advance. Well, one of us didn't get just the digital deluxe edition, did we, Nick?

Look, I had this pre-ordered uh and i was not sure if i wanted to actually open it uh so i got the digital deluxe edition because like i like i'm fine double dipping on this game potentially um because

i like i i don't know what whatever like i i know i'm going to love it and i love the first one so so whatever i just kind of made that that calculus But I do have the Death Stranding 2 on the Beach Collector's Edition.

The physical copy. the physical copy

look at this big bastard it is it is the size of nick's torso the box

um

now the first and it has it has uh you know lou on the front of it uh the baby and and it's like

ranch thought it actually was like a car seat

it's cute it is cute it's adorable the first uh death stranding came in a briefcase the collector's edition, with the BB in it.

This one apparently comes with a statue of the Magellan, which is the ship from Death Stranding 2. Yeah, let me read the contents because I still have not decided if I'm going to open this.

And maybe I'll open it on the show or maybe I'll take it home as I don't know. I haven't made a decision.

If you don't open it, what are you going to do? Just leave it closed forever? Are you going to sell it someday?

My Baldur's Gate 3, you know, collector's edition is still in trick wrap but for what i like having it to throw it away later like what yeah he's not that kind of guy who collects i like having it i think one day i'm not giving you a hard time yeah no well here's the thing i none of us have any leg to stand on on this

no i'm not like i'm just i'm curious about like

your emotional attachment to a closed box versus like handling the stuff within yeah maybe i'll open it Let me read the contents. Physical items.
Death Straining 2 on the beach.

Digital Deluxe Edition. Digital Downloads.
We'll have an extra code there.

Ranch if you wanted, or somebody. 15-inch Magellan Man statue.

3-inch dollman figurine.

Matt's familiar with that length. Art cards and a letter from Hideo Kojima.
How about that? Should I open it up? What? Wait, what?

Did you just

being nice to you and defending you?

Yeah, like, why, why? Why did you just attack Matt in the middle of reading this? I didn't attack him.

I don't. I have no idea.
Now I have to sit over here being jealous of three inches.

All right, I'm opening it up.

He's opening it.

Fuck. I wish you were opening it in a different way.

Please, can you open it with a knife or something? Oh, my God.

He just started chewing it on it.

I fretted my way through it. I just used my nails.

All right. Please, hold on.
Can you put it farther? I don't know what to do. I'm tearing it.
See, I'm tearing it. I I shouldn't have opened it.

It's because you became like a ravenous animal all of a sudden, and he's just now shaking it over the floor. What are you doing? This is the most scared I've ever been.
He's never opened a box.

Hey, that's a nice box. That's nice.
This is really cool.

The box inside is better than the box on the outside. The inside box is pretty sick.
The inside box is nice. And this is actually, it was good that you opened it, actually, because actually the box.

Slowly, Nick. Let me probably open this child's coffin real quick.

Wouldn't it be the first time he said that?

All right, here we go.

Hey, nice. He's just throwing shit on the ground.
What was that? This is just the fucking disc. Are you sure it's not the letter from Kojima? Oh, shit, it might be the letter from Kojima.

Is there a letter in it? Don't tear it.

God damn it. This is insane.
It might be

a good idea.

Use a knife or something. I'll Freddy it.
Hold on, I'll use my nails. Freddy it.
Oh, my God.

Okay, there we go.

He opened it. And by the way, the dollman's not three inches.
That thing's huge.

Thank you, Ranch. Ranch got scissors for Nick.
Thank you, Rochelle. Thank you.

While I'm doing this.

There's nothing else we can focus on, man. Yeah, I have to make sure that you do it right.

He also immediately pointed the scissors at his own stomach.

That is not a joke. I was trying to open this.

No. Nick, if I trust anybody.
This is tricky. Look at what he's doing.
This is tricky. Yeah, no, I actually am scared about it.
Okay.

I thought this guy was a fucking Boy Scout. The way he's handling these scissors.
I think he's. Give me that badge, son.
He's the kind of Boy Scout who burnt down the forest.

One of them ones Smokey was talking about. No, I always practice campfire safety.
Yeah, that's good to know. I can't.
This is just a mess. You don't need help, Nick.
Can I help you?

I mean, you can, you can dig at this. Is this...
Let me see. Is this...

Give me the scissors. Is this a set? No, but you know what? I see what the issue is tricky.
Because it's a sticker over it, and then there's also, like, it's a fold-in

to the sticker-slash-fold combo. Would a knife be better? Well,

it's like a thing.

Oh, you know what? Do this. Coming at it from the side.
So I'm not supposed to open this part? I think it'll unfold easier if the stuff's out, maybe. Okay.
okay. Now he's just tearing it up.

He immediately is crushing.

This is pissing me off. What?

I regret buying this and I regret opening it.

We have to just make it completely clear. He did this all on his own.
Yeah.

Like, he could have patiently and delicately

gone through it. This is as if Sideshow Bob put his own rakes down.

All right. Here we go.
Hideo Kojima Game Creator. What if you said dear Nick? Oh my God.

I knew you'd have trouble opening this.

Fuck. It's good.

Dear fellow porters, welcome to the world of Death Stranding 2 on the beach. I am very happy to embark on this new journey with all of you once again.

Death Stranding is a game experience designed to help players feel the importance of connection through the social strand system.

During the pandemic, many of you may have experienced feelings of isolation and loneliness akin to the world of Death stranding.

In the sequel, however, our protagonist Sam is not the solitary figure he once was. With the support of his new companions, the members of Drawbridge, he will strengthen his connections.

Now, Sam and all of you will begin a journey of new choices. In a time where the word division is at the forefront, what is the connection we should truly seek?

No matter what choices lie ahead, we encourage you to never lose sight of hope. Stay true to your mission and discover and explore the connections you can find from there.
How about that? Wow. Wow.

And there's some cool art on the back of that, too. Yeah,

all the art, all the key art that they've released for the game is really, really cool.

Which side do you

put in the frame?

I know. Sam and Lou, or do you put Kojima? I think this is a two-sided frame situation.
Oh, yeah, you gotta have the Kojima letter on display, but Sam and Lou.

You want to catch the crib so he doesn't fall off the bed.

I believe it.

There's There's a bunch of different cards here. Art for different characters.

Love seeing Fragile again. Cool.

There's Fragile. Yep.
And I'm not sure if all these are in focus. There you go.

Here's Higgs.

Higgs, who we learned recently from friend of the pod, Gene Park,

shares the same last name as the owner and founder of Domino. That's right.
Yes.

Which

can't be a coincidence. Well, especially when there's a Domino's Death Stranding 2 Japan-only collaboration, yeah.

So, Nick has pulled out all the art cards. He's pulled out the three-inch-tall Dahlman figure.
Yeah. Dahlman? It's obviously

massive. He just threw on the ground.
No, it just fell.

I didn't throw it. And then,

oh, my God.

I should not be handling this.

Oh, the Magellan. The statue.
Oh, yeah, the statue.

Okay.

I just, what's so funny about this as an experiment?

is that there is like, there is, there are content creators online who, this is their whole thing, opening boxes. Yeah.
And I like, whoa, that's fucking good. This is fucking rad.

That's really fucking good. That's great.
This was worth the purchase. It has a dick.

Yeah, that's sick as hell.

Okay, so it's a statue of the Magellan with some, you know, like a tar body, I assume, is going to happen at some point in the game.

Yeah, um, yeah, I guess maybe we're maybe in minor spoiler country here. Well, this was every, I mean, this is on the bottom, it's in the trailer as well.

Yeah, it's uh, it's a heinous and grotesque and excellent-looking figure. Yes, wow,

this is great. All right, I'm glad.
I'm glad he's back. Purchase redeemed, he's he's he's gone back the other side of it.
The purchase is good now. Yeah, you know what?

I'm glad I got so close to the statue. That was insane to me.

Just shatter it. Put it away.

I'm glad I spent $250 on this. Bam.

Fuck.

Sounds of me vacuuming it up.

Now it's wet because I'm crying.

Oh, my God. You've never been this tense on this show.

Have you ever, I mean, I guess you have

in the past, maybe for other games as well, I've never purchased a

collector's edition of a video game that has a bunch of stuff that comes with it. I've done it for Death Stranding one.

I did it for Disco Elysium for the Switch, which had the most phenomenal collector's package with like

a huge art book with all of this behind-the-scenes stuff. And then also it had like a deck of cards.
It had like, it was a really, I mean, it's a same-size box.

Like, these things are all coming in these, as Nick described it, child-size coffin

boxes.

Beyond that, I'm not sure. Yeah.
Those are the two major ones for me. I bought the Baldur's Gate 3 one still in, still in box.
And I also got the Diablo 3, like the biggest collector's edition.

I played so much Diablo 2. That's still probably the most hours I put into an individual video game.
I was so hyped for a Diablo 3 at launch.

Obviously, it had its flawed launch, but I bought that one intending to keep it in box as well. For me, so so often,

the reason I don't get the collector's edition is because I don't want a statue of something from the game. I want something from the game.

And that's why the Death Stranding one was so exciting to me because it was like, oh, it's a life-size BB. Yeah.
And a briefcase that like Sam carries. Yeah.
And the tape that he uses to seal stuff.

Like all that was like, oh,

this is for me.

Square Enix sells jewelry from Final Fantasy games.

And I've always wished that the Final Fantasy Collector's Edition would include a version where you could have the stuff that they wear inside the game, like the jewelry.

I got close to buying the Alan Wake 2 one because I love Alan Wake 2 so much, but then I just kind of, I just, I, I just have so much stupid stuff that I was like, I can't justify like having this little lamp.

And then, like, when I'm, when

my wife and I eventually move to a new place, justifying taking this little thing with me, but I do regret not buying it actually. I got a like, yeah, I'm the same as you.

Like, I only have like so much space in our apartment, and I definitely do not need this. But again, I just like, I don't know, I love Death Stranding.

This is really cool. This is really cool.
I'm also realizing now that I'm remembering that I didn't drive today, so I guess I'll be going home on the bus just holding this.

Oh, great. The scary guy on the bus is scarier.

So did you bring that box with you on the bus? Train. Train.
Oh, yeah, yeah. But I'll probably just Uber home.
Well, you probably just put it back in the box, though, too, right?

Oh, yeah, you can just put it back in the box. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
You're going to leave all this here for Rochelle to clean up? Yeah.

All right, let me just jam the shit back in here. Fuck in there.

What the fuck?

Fuck.

So, I mean, Death Stranding 2. We should talk about it.
Yeah. DS2.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought the thing.
No, no, no. It was.
No, I derailed the Death Stranding 2 talk with them. No, we

did. This needed to happen.
Yeah, this was the, you know, upsetting preamble.

Yeah, this is our Death Stranding. I'm playing this game.
I'm booting it up. And I think I got the least time of any of us

because

I'm not yet past

the prologue into the second biome. So that's where I'm at.
But I will say that

in my sub-four hours of gameplay, it was crazy how immediately this game locked me back in.

And I think part of what's so effective about the very beginning of this, which again, we're kind of in first impressions mode, so that's what I can speak to right now as of this recording,

is

the first game is a famously slow start.

And there are friends who have tried to get into Death Stranding, some with success, others,

it hasn't taken hold, where I just, you just kind of, it's like trying to get someone into like the wire.

You know, it's like, like, yeah it takes a little bit to get its hooks in you but once you're in you're you're fucking in Death Stranding one has so much preamble so many cinematics so much exposition and such a slow trickle of new features that it just for a while it just feels like you're kind of like like walking around clumsily and and it's not necessarily that's part of the charm of the game but it's not necessarily something that's going to be feel like an addictive gameplay loop whereas death stranding two just kind of like cuts through a lot of the bullshit bullshit and just gets you right in the middle of the action but then there's also the element of the first one

being the only other game that's like that right before right so like you're not really used to playing a game this way they did have to explain a lot more stuff yeah and and for me that's uh one of my favorite parts of death stranding one was the the the sheer drop-off of knowledge that you you experience in that game.

Like from the moment you start, everything is so completely unfamiliar.

and i'm hoping that uh again with only a few like i've gotten into the second biome uh i'm in i i think it's episode three because it's broken up into episodes and the first episode is called sam so i'm uh in episode three and still it is very familiar like there isn't uh a ton of new concepts and i'm absolutely trusting that there's going to be new crazy bullshit that this game pulls off that it teaches us because right now it's just like oh yeah the the chiral printers and the and the way the the dooms work and the way the bts work it's yeah it's a really great refresher course that sort of like sam prologue where you're like oh right this is how this works this is what the beach is and as um a sort of tonnage of sci-fi concepts i was surprised how many of them did stick with me right uh like i don't remember all the relationships of like the political bodies but like how the world works and the fact that there's that the world beyond death is timeless and so they're using it as a processor to like run computers through it.

Yeah. Is like such a great fucking hook.
Yeah. That stuff's great.
But I also, yeah, like this stuff like time, like time fall and like void outs and things like that.

Like I'm like, oh yeah, that's all that stuff I,

you know,

now that just occupies my brain, like those types of things. Then in this game, there's a,

I can't remember what it's called in the game now currently, but there's like a similar to active time lore in Final Fantasy 16.

Yes, there's like a glossary of terms that you can just go to at any time, which is extremely helpful.

I think that that glossary of terms was in Death Stranding, but it was like in the emails or whatever.

You would get like emails about all of these concepts.

And now it's just like when somebody is speaking, there's an icon that pops up in the top right corner of your screen, and you can hold down the pause button, I think. Yeah.

And it brings you straight to a glossary that investigates those terms. I fucking love glossaries.
Yeah.

As the person who went back to playing Welcome Tour, I'm like, every single one of those glossaries, I'm like, oh, thank God. Give me paragraphs.
I love the glossary.

I should look up what it's called, but the, I do think it's really cool.

I will say I found it a little intrusive because it's, it's basically always there, at least in the early going.

I'm sure it dissipates over the course of the game. game, or maybe not.
Maybe you're just constantly being tossed new vocabulary that you have to dig in on. So it kind of like took me

a couple of hours to train myself to not instinctively do it for absolutely everything that comes up. Because you can do it like a half dozen times per cutscene.

I had the same issue because I was like pausing effectively in the middle of cutscenes.

And the way I remedied it is I wait until the like a chunk of stuff has happened and then I press the glossary button or access it through the ring menu. Yeah.

And then I'll go through all the stuff with that has new exclamation points next to it and and read up on all of the stuff we just learned. That's smart.
Yeah.

I mean my memory of the active time lore system that's what it was called. Yeah, you had to like go to a person to like get it.
Yeah.

No, but but my memory of it was it was a little bit less of an like it was a little bit less of like we're going to a completely different

you know

maybe I'm misremembering it, but we're going to a completely different screen. Like we're going to completely like it felt just like a little bit less disruptive, a little bit less intrusive.

Yeah, because it was just like you, you kind of just knew it was there if you needed it. Right.
It wasn't like a thing that was like,

I feel like in this game, at least in this portion of the game currently, is that like it'll that that's always going off.

And then also, like, when there's a mechanic that maybe you're not doing or something, or like should be doing, a big sort of like, like, not menu, but sort of like reminder will pop up on screen and be like, hey, like, if you know, if you want to run, you could you press in the L3 trigger to, you know, to run or whatever.

Yeah.

I, yeah, I still think the game that had the best version of that,

this sort of a glossary vocabulary sheet is Pentiment. And that was kind of more of like a hyperlink sort of system, but obviously a very different sort of game, different sort of presentation.

But that one was like, it was so easy to get context on absolutely everything and it never felt like it was interrupting your gameplay or the story.

I don't know if you guys encountered the game over screen yet. No, I did.
I did as well.

Because

I'm

playing in a hard mode. Oh.
And

got executed by the first big BT because I was like, I don't remember how to do any of this shit.

And it's really, it throws you into a boss battle very early in the game.

But one of the options on the continue screen is pretend you won. Yes.
So you can skip. Yeah.

I wrote that down as well. I thought that was so funny.
And it's great. Cause like

when we went to the

premiere,

he was talking about how there's all this like stuff in it, like that's like so that because he wants people to play the game and like finish the game and stuff and see the story.

So I think that was like something that maybe he alluded to, like as being in the game. But then also

he was saying that

while there's like more combat like type scenarios that he he really wanted to emphasize that it was still just a delivery game. Yeah.
That's like the main thing.

And I think that's, and it's funny because I've now experienced both things, I think,

about in equal measure, I think. Like

combat and delivery. Yeah, there does seem to the combat certainly is more front-loaded in this game than it was in Death Stranding 1.
Like you get, you're mixing up pretty early. And then also

there is, I mean, like, I do like the, I love stealth.

And I do feel like

the Death Stranding stealth was not as robust as what was present in in metal gear solid uh as a franchise obviously but i think it's pretty good and it's pretty satisfying in death stranding too well yeah it's it's stealth as an option is is really robust yeah and i will say and i don't think this is a spoiler your um is it the otteric yeah uh can be upgraded to give you even more Metal Gear-esque capabilities while traversing space.

And additionally, there are virtual reality missions you can take that are essentially training courses that teach you how the stealth works in Death Stranding and how you have to manipulate,

how you have to traverse when light is present or when it isn't present.

And all of that stuff is like as an introductory course is making me think that the stealth elements are going to get more and more complicated because those are you those are your like table of contents on how stealth works.

Yes.

I double dipped on Metal Gear Solid for PlayStation 1 because I bought Metal Gear Solid and then also bought Metal Gear Solid the VR missions.

And I loved the VR missions, maybe more than the base Metal Gear Solid 1 game.

They obviously brought the VR missions back for Death Stranding Director's Cut, and I thought those were a lot of fun, but I love them in Death Stranding 2.

And it's also just like such an elegant way to tutorialize things. Just like, hey, this is a straight-up virtual experience so you can experiment with some things that you can use in the game world.

Yeah, and like, I feel like sometimes in games when they have like a

thing for something like that, it's not as fun as playing the game. No, these are fun.
They're super fun. They're super great.

Yeah, I was like, I did, I just cleared the six that you have available to you at the start.

It feels like every time a new concept is introduced and you get those VR missions, it's like, oh, yeah, that's the first priority. Let's mess around with this.

It's also the combat is so satisfying in part because of the built-in slow-motion pops that happen when you defeat an enemy that allow you to reposition reposition your own weaponry towards the next target like there's a really great uh speed cadence and like hiccup feeling to to the uh to the combat that makes it like you want to do it yeah and i think from in contrast to the first game in the first game you had lethal and non-lethal rounds yeah right and so if you use lethal rounds on living people in death stranding one you have to then dispose of their body because then there's a dead body on

the corpse will cause a void out. Exactly.
And that's a friction point. That's tough.

You don't want to necessarily be doing all that all the time. In this game, they're just...
I'll haul a corpse off to the

middle of doing something. Now I have to go take this body somewhere.

And, you know, of course, if you're just utilizing the many zip lines and roads and stuff, it's probably not that difficult.

But, you know, early game, there's not that much infrastructure currently um

in this

i think it's a very in death stranding two it's very very savvy that there's an in-world reason for now you can just go in blast or whatever you want because all the all the rounds are just non-lethal yeah you can just do it if you want i guess and it's great i'm trying to remember how i was introducing because i think in death stranding you get the non-lethal rounds first and then you later get lethal rounds but you're like cautioned against using them i actually got through i mean almost all of death stranding one without using lethal rounds I just like, I would just default to non-lethal rounds because I found it was usually enough to render a character or render an enemy unconscious to get through an area.

And like you were saying, dealing with the aftermath of killing them. I mean, hey, maybe that's the thing the game was trying to

teach you. Maybe that was like a moral the game was trying to convey.
I did accidentally kill something in this game. I ran over an animal in Stranding 2.
In Stranding 2. Wow.

I ran over an animal while driving

like the tricycle car thing. Wow.
And it docked me a hundred likes. Oh my God.

And

it made Lou upset. I'm sure.

I'm not somebody who enjoys stealth combat, right? Yeah. But the rope, which is one of your

strand that you can use in order to take down enemies if you surprise them, is such a crunchy, good feeling. Feels great.
That it feels like a combat move.

Like the sound of it and the whip smack of all of the action on screen makes me want to do it. Yeah.

And so I'm motivated both to just walk in, guns blazing, walk in with a with a sniper rifle or whatever, or walk in and be like, can I get this guy? Yeah. Can I get this fucking dude?

It's really satisfying. And the additional element, President and Death Stranding one, but I really like it of you can hold your breath.
Yes.

So fun. And it's, again, it's just, it like adds some tension to it.
Yeah. And makes it all the more satisfying when you actually pull it off.
And again, that mechanic is, again, this is very early.

So I don't feel like we're in spoiler country at all.

You do get a sniper rifle pretty early in the game and you have to hold your breath in order to fire the trigger. And that's fuck, that's so fucking good.
It's really good. It's so good.

Yeah, I mean, it's, I don't know, just the choice of like your breathing being an element of the character, the, the, your interaction. I, I, I don't know.
I, I, I love being able to,

I love it just being that granular.

Did you have the feeling? Because

sometimes you're playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto or whatever the fucking, and you're like, oh,

you see a cop car in reality and you're like, oh, there's a shotgun inside. You kind of get that jeweled in your brain.
I feel like with Death Stranding, I would end up being like,

I could fucking kill this guy with a suitcase.

Just standing in Jama juice being like, if I could strangle him with a rope from behind, you never know. Yeah, I don't have that problem, Nick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

As much as I love violence, I don't walk around after I play video games going, I could kill.

And then

for where I'm sitting,

like closer to him physically, closer. I was less alarmed than what I thought he was going to say,

which was, have you ever tried it?

The game is funny. Yes.
Yeah. It is funny in like a wacky way, like a really over-the-top, absurdist, wacky way.
Yeah, Kojima comes out at the beginning of the game, and he's like,

But then there's also,

there's also

because Sam is so

on our side with how absurd everything is, like he's so like, what, sure, whatever.

Like, part of what makes him a great protagonist, both Norman Ritas as the manifestation of Sam and Sam as a character, is people will talk to him and he'll be like, I don't know what you're talking about.

And, like, very early in the game, you encounter a new kind of enemy and

Sam just says, who the hell are those guys?

Later on, he's like, what's their deal? Yeah, what is their deal? What do they want?

These little spider creatures is where he says that, right? Or is it later? No, it's later.

Yeah, different guys. It's red guys.
There's something too that he said that I feel like

It's not

It's not a spoiler because we all know this character exists, but the interaction, I think, is a spoiler for, I think, so I won't say. This is tough.
All right. I'll tell you later.
Okay.

We'll stay super spoiler late here because the game just came out. It just in because I'm in chapter three as well.
Yeah. And so the game, the game is funny.
Yes. Because, I mean, also, it's also not.

Yeah. Because like, it's extreme.
Like, there's like, there's some stuff in it that you're just like, Jesus Christ. Yeah.
Like, pretty early on. Very early.

And then in chapter three, you sort of, in rapid succession, meet three insane characters.

I've heard about this. Yeah.

Okay, what the

sure, like, great. So we're still doing this bullshit.
Great. I love it.
Well, one of those characters, I think, is Dollman, right? So Dollman is in the trailers. It's not a surprise.
It is a,

in the world of Death Stranding, there is the ha and the ka, and they're like ancient Egyptian terms of like the physical being and the soul that inhabits it. Yeah.
And in Death Stranding,

a person's spirit sort of infuses, possesses a very small doll that looks like a ventriloquist dummy. Yeah.
And is animated, I think, on threes or something.

Like he's got like claymation animation compared to everybody's extremely smooth, fluid,

120, 60 frames per second, whatever. Yeah.

Do you want to, I mean, I don't know, it's a thing we talked about in Get Animated, but do you want to clarify what you mean by animated in threes? Oh, so

when you're looking at Death Stranding on a

60 hertz capable television,

the animation of the characters is refreshing 60 times per second.

When Dollman is animated, his

only him in a world that is otherwise like smooth as silk, he's animated like maybe

seven times per second. Like he's very choppy and it is very funny to look at.

But also he's introduced to Sam and Sam effectively is like, okay.

And he sort of functions as like Mimir does in God of, in the God of War. Jimmy Cricket.
Yes, exactly. Just kind of gives you a little like, hey, check this out.

Like, all right, we could try this or something. Or he's also like, he said something kind of when you first walk out with him.
And I was like, that was beautiful. This is so nice.

I remember, sorry, he's already uh, he's, he's obviously in the little guy category, yeah, for sure.

And he's pretty, he's pretty good, and you can customize his outfit, yeah, you can change the color of his clothes.

I've not progressed to dollman yet in, um, in my, in my play, but I'm, I'm very excited to get to him and get to know him.

I, I, like, I, just, just, because you were just talking about frame rate, I, so I've, I'm playing on a, on a Poverty PS5, I get just like the bass log, never upgraded to the, yeah, to the, the, you know, um, the pro, but

I, uh, I, I think it's running pretty well. Like, we got in performance mode.
I don't know.

And again, it's the power we were talking about with Wind Waker. It's like the power of good art direction.

Like, I just love the world and the aesthetic of Death Stranding, and I think it's rendered quite beautifully. Yeah.

It's also hard to visually demonstrate the difference between the base PS5 and the PS5 Pro. Like, it is not a selling point of the PS5 Pro that stuff looks astonishingly better.
Yeah.

The only difference that I've read between the PS5 and the PS5 Pro is that you are effectively running quality and performance mode simultaneously when you run performance mode.

But on the base PS5,

if you run it on performance mode, it's pretty visually identical. Yeah.
I'm really looking forward to this coming to PC, I guess, as well.

Again, I mean, I guess I've already double-dipped on this thing, but

I will triple dip as the port authority when this, when this comes over to my main platform. Yeah.

I mean, look, look i bought death stranding director's cut on sale on uh my steam deck thinking that i was gonna play through it again yep uh i didn't you know life happens when you're busy making other plans and all that and i didn't get to replay it all the way through again uh but i uh it's it's there for me with all that to say

I'll buy it on Steam Deck or I'll buy it on Switch 2 if it makes it over to Switch 2. It kind of seems impossible that it would ever get to

Switch 2 port, I wonder. I'll get Death Stranding Director's cut on Switch 2

if they do that.

It's just

astonishingly gorgeous. I've been playing with the photo mode a lot, which is not something that I typically do, but the things you can make Sam do is kind of fun.
Like, you can make a

sticking out tongue face. Right.

And so I like to make him do that in inappropriate situations. Hey, Matt, what was the button you pressed for photo mode? Because I accidentally skipped past when it said photo mode.
Oh, it's

so on the on the dual sense controller, the touchpad,

there's two things that you can press in. Uh, on, on the right corner, that is the one that can make him talk and say, I'm Sam, and all that.
And then the left corner is photo mode. Oh, wow.

I keep wanting to push in the two

sticks because that's photo mode and other ones, and I wish it was that instead.

I want the map to be the left press on the touchpad. I've only used the touchpad to give likes.
Yeah. And I entered photo mode once and I was like, how the fuck did I do this?

And I've tried long pressing every button on the controller because there's a lot of long press to activate other modes of interaction.

It makes me feel like what Kojima wants is a controller with like twice as many buttons. Yeah, he wants more buttons.
Sure, sure.

But thank you for

letting me know how to enter photo mode.

I will say I was trying to stealth behind a guy and then I accidentally hit the I'm Sam button

That would be more scary than being taken out silently, I think

I was just in my own home hanging out

came up behind me and yelled his own name Jesus Christ.

I want to say something about making deliveries. Let's go.
Wait, wait, just one quick control thing.

If I have any sort of

minor hang-up with this game, it's just a Kojima quirk of like having some weird button mapping.

I haven't messed with it with remapping anything yet, but it's just like things like R1 to crouch just feels unnatural to me, you know? Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, that should be

like circle or something. I always think of that as a face button, or maybe a, in some games, you know, like a like an L3 or an R3.

Well, what I think that the reason I think that's keybound there is that it's also hold breath. Right.
And hold breath and pull trigger are

on purpose a difficult combination to do.

And I think that that's supposed, if I was going to read into it, pulling a trigger on a sniper rifle while holding your breath should be harder than pressing your thumb and pulling the trigger.

So you have to pull you for the first time ever.

You have to use your middle finger to pull the trigger because you have to hold down, hold your breath with your first finger. Yeah.

I mean, I've definitely, you know, dealt with games where where i'm using uh you know r1 with with my index and r2 with my middle uh but like i i will say that i i think i'm sure there is a there is a strong logic behind it and a design defense for it i i'm more just saying like as someone in the early hours of this game that's that's like one of those things you just have to adjust to

um you're talking about deliveries you want to talk delivery just to back track one second to control yeah I did buy the Death Random 2 controller, and it's pretty nice. It looked cool.

It looked really cool. That's great.
um i wish it was the the edge because i don't have a dual sense edge it's a great controller uh and i wish it i wish they would do the special edition for the yeah

i agree uh it's a heavy controller the edge i know that it has less battery and that was like the joke when it came out was like oh the more expensive controller lasts not quite as as long yeah but man it is a nice controller to hold

to get me one of those one day it's a heavy boy um deliveries delivery we talked about these a lot because we've done three episodes about their first death stranding.

When you get an S rank, is there a better feeling in games? I don't think so. I kind of don't think so.

It's really satisfying, but also a thing this game does is just repeatedly tell you you're a hero.

Thank you so much for bringing that to me.

I thought I'd never see this magazine that you found on the wasteland ever again.

So last week, I think, Nick, you asked me the question: is there anything that would break your Fortnite addiction? And I went, I don't think there is.

And when I first started playing stranding, I texted you guys, I think Fortnite has ruined my brain

because during the first hour of play, I was like,

man, I'd rather be playing Blitz. Like, I love fucking Blitz.
It's the new mode. My friends are playing right now.

Into the second hour of stranding, I was like, oh, fuck, this has its hooks in me again. I I just want to fill up all the stars.

I want to like build out the chiral network. Like, I don't know why the gameplay loop is so satisfying when all you're doing is picking shit up and bringing it somewhere else, but it is so good.

I like to see something on my path, like a discarded

piece of cargo or something, and then be like, I'll toss that on my back. I don't give a shit.
I'll take that with me.

Well, look, Death Stranding definitely unlocked that the thing I love about a game like the aforementioned breath of the wild is not so much combat but traversal and exploration like that's what what what really why i'm really connected to it and

i mean it's it's just it's great walking around but i i also think there's the design team has figured out something at like a primal like lizard brain level of just

like the the incentives that are that are presented for delivering something and delivering it well is just it kind of just feels like a really like really pure version of gameplay, if that makes any sense.

It's like

there's, there's almost, there's very few,

it's, I mean, it is abstract because you're, you're, you're within this world with its own, uh, you know, rule set and its own lore, but it's also like, like, very direct of like, take this item to this location.

It's like, it's like, that's like a baby activity, you know what I mean? Yes.

But it's like so satisfying to

achieve. And you're also,

the risk reward that you're playing with on a personal level of like i mean at least for me the the threat of games is how fast do i want to move physically versus how much am i willing to risk what's on my back and then additionally oh there's a thing over there on the map that i've that i've scanned i've scanned the world for with my autorec and i can see that there's a package like 200 feet out of the way it's nearer to an enemy

i do want to pick it up I know that it's only going to get me like 15 more likes. So I want to run to that package, which risks damaging everything that I'm currently carrying.
Yes.

And all of that like calculation, all of the

gymnastics that you're performing in your head is also satisfying. Like it's good to do it.
It feels good. And it also like rewards like caution and patience.

Like it's, it's, it's like walking on a tightrope, right?

It's like, it's like there, there's a, there's an in it's a pretty i mean not not simple in terms of what you're the skill required but simple in terms of what the activity is but what's engaging is like how focused you have to be on it and like yeah you you can't rush it like you i mean you you can you'd attempt to rush it but at your own peril but it's also interesting too because now with the

with the refined um stealth system in this game

If you have too much stuff on your fucking back, they'll see you. I love that.
It's so funny. And somebody may get crouching in the tall grass and have like a gigantic stack on top of you.

It's so like you have to then sort of then like either plan ahead or have something

that you can then build. Yeah.

I did this recently. I was like, oh, I like, I brought a thing that you can build a structure with and I then put stuff in storage so that I can go stealth.

And then I went back and I got the stuff that I put away. Yeah, once you get PCCs again, I was like, oh, yeah, right.

You can build like, yeah, obviously I'm already stumbling upon users built structures, which is a big part of the, what's fun about this game and what a big part of what's what's engaging about it.

But it's like, oh, yeah, I can build that. I can build stuff in the wild.
And that's, that's just like, again, it opens up a huge, uh, a huge part of it. This seemed new to me.

Uh, I can't, I mean, I mean, it's just been a while since I've played Death Stranding 1.

On the field now, you can see like the little signs that, you know, of people that are just leaving signs or, you know, warnings or things like that. Let me tell you, I'm liking all those signs.

I'm liking every single one that I get. I love doing it.
It's very fun because the sound is good, too. When somebody likes something you've left behind, you have a small window to like back.
Yes.

I put it, I mean, I put like just a thumbs up sign somewhere, and then people are like, and I was like, man, it just made me happy.

When you use somebody's ladder or something, or you use somebody's climbing rope, that's always great.

And I could be wrong. This one does seem new to me.
And

before you go into one, just in case you're a listener and you haven't played Death Stranding, the way that it works is you can build structures in your game. They will appear in other

people's games randomly. The more people who use those structures or like those structures, the more worlds in which those structures will appear.
So if you place a bridge well,

then it is more likely to be instanced into many, many other versions of everybody else's game.

Whereas if you place a bridge poorly, poorly, nobody's going to cross it, nobody's going to like it, and it's not going to show up.

It's a multiplayer game by way of a single player game. All your interactions with other users are indirect.
They're playing their own version.

But yeah,

it can be populated. Your world can be populated with their items and

structures and vice versa. Yeah, I mean, just going back to the first game.

I think people who got deep into Death Straining 1 all had the experience of building zipline networks and roads and just all this infrastructure.

But like, I still like, I just think back with so much,

you know, like a weird amount of pride of like the zip line network I built because one of them got like thousands of likes. And it was just like, oh man, that feels genuinely rewarding.

Well, it's the same. It's like it's the same fake thing that you get when you when you had like a tweet go off

back in the day when you're like, oh wow, this got 200,000 likes or something. This is crazy.
What the hell?

And then like, you know, you, then you show it to somebody and that who's like actually yeah smart and impressive they don't it doesn't fucking matter it's like you can't

anyway um the two

you're this mf really wearing crocs in church gets like

17 000 likes like hey i did something

yeah you're like wife went to work all day and he's sure this um

so

having this conversation reminded me of a second thing that i do think is new which is when somebody walks the path that you walked did it in the first one say something, it says something like, you know, such and such player walked your trodden path.

And that seems, that seems new to me. I don't remember if it was in the first one.
Well, I think that it was.

Something that is definitely brought to the forefront in Stranding 2 is the more people who use a path,

the more the path becomes a permanent feature of the landscape. Interesting.
So if tons of people are using the same shortcut, it gets worn through through like a footpath on a on a grass lawn.

Oh, okay. And so like it will deform the actual rocks to make that path

smoother for everybody who is using it. Okay, so then maybe this one

isn't new then, the second one, which is there's like a sign that you can put down requesting items and weapons. Yeah.
Is that new? I don't remember.

I don't remember that specifically.

I certainly, as far as new features go, I don't remember a skill tree at all.

That's like a completely new element.

I mean, it is kind of, I'm like, well, I'm kind of exhausted with skill trees in general and these sorts of games, but this one is like, it's a pretty light touch. And

in terms of like, you know,

it's not

so overbearing and becomes just like, oh, the focus of my gameplay is just trying to go through and to progress through my skill tree. It's

immediately satisfying. Yes.

Like

in the opening minutes, I was like, how is anything going to come out this year that I'm going to like more than this? I just like don't know.

It also made me tear up once already, and it was via a music drop. Oh, sure.

And

as

for people who played Death Stranding, Low Roar was like the

audio, the aural focal point of the game's sound.

And in between this game and that game,

the singer of Low Roar passed away.

And I was like, oh man, when I think about Death Stranding, I think about

that first musical drop where that needle drop of Don't Be So Serious

and how much of a vibe that was.

So when this game in the first couple of hours drops a different Low Roar track, I just fully teared up. Yeah.
Because I was like, oh man, this

score

meant a year or two for me of like listening to it. I even transferred the entire soundtrack to mini disc and was listening to it on mini disc for a while.
Yeah.

Um, so when that song popped up, I just felt like, again, that six-year passage of time being so intense. Yeah.

And, and yeah, I, I don't know that I've ever gotten teary from a needle drop in a video game before, but boy, oh boy, did it do it. Yeah, I, I clocked that as as well.
I was just like,

just thinking about how much time we spent

like playing the game and just listening to that music. Going on walks like during the pandemic, listening to that music.
Yeah. You know?

But

the music in this game, too, by the way, is fucking fantastic. Phenomenal sounds.
Yeah, the scoring Ludwig Vorcell and Woodkid as well, collaborating in various capacities.

And yes, just a bunch of other, like a soundtrack with a bunch of discrete songs from a number of artists that just pop in at various points.

They talked during the premiere event that Matt and I went to about how the score responds to your gameplay.

Like, if you are following the path that is directly toward your goal, like you'll have more layers of the song that are playing simultaneously.

You'll have the drums, you'll have the violins, you'll have the chorus. And if you deviate from that path, maybe it'll settle into just strings.

Like it'll pull out just that track of your like 16-layer audio track. The place where I noticed it, like having been told, I was like, oh yeah, it's this thing.
The place I noticed it was combat.

Like it, that, like, having a musical, like having a score where like I shoot a guy and there's like a dun-dun-dun-dum-dum. And then I hide and it goes back into like quiet mode on the, on the music.

I was like, oh, he's, he's achieved. the feeling of watching a movie that has a score that is scored to the action.
Yeah. But from the, from backwards.

And I'm not, I, I'm pretty sure that other games have done this previously, but the specificity and the intensity of it in Stranding 2 is great. I also like the specific

cinematic camera moments that you get in it too, because it's like,

you don't need it. Like, you don't need it, but it just kind of fucking rocks.
Like, it's just, it makes it seem so fun and cool.

Well, the first time you do it, so one of my favorite things in a film is like, usually, when the composer's name comes up in the opening credits, there would be some flourish in the, in score that gives you just like a wink almost.

That's me. Yeah.
And in this,

when you're given the chance, the choice to do aerial camera mode

and effectively like IMAX cinematic mode, the camera pulls out in that introductory moment, and that's when you see Kojima's name across the screen.

That's fucking great.

It's really, really great.

The one thing

from the previous game that I still do not like very much

is BT. You're scared of them? I'm scared of them, and I don't like it.
They're actually, they're pretty scary, actually. I mean, you're not supposed to like them.
I don't like them.

I don't like having to deal with it at all. I kind of like, I don't need them in the game to enjoy the game.
If they weren't in there, I would still be like, this game is still really good.

Wasn't there a moment in Stranding 1 where a BT gave you a like and it was really unsettling? Yeah, I was like that. Yeah.

But I think in that. I mean, that starts happening.
I feel like that happens,

just starts happening more as you get into the late game, if memory serves. I don't know if it's maybe it was a one-time thing, but I feel like that's a thing.

You reach a point where BTs just start liking

things that you've done. I can't remember what it was exactly.
I do think, though, that this game sets you up to handle them

more effectively

sooner.

So, like, while I've encountered them

and died in the same spot that you did

on normal

they're not as challenging but I you know it can depend on your loadout you cannot have enough yeah you should have seen me when I had the chance to add

extra ammo pockets yeah to my fucking like so I could have more grenades and stuff

like because grenades are the quickest way to dispose of them and it but they take three and each grenade pack has five and i'm like i'm not carrying enough of i'm not carrying enough of these yeah um but you can upgrade your backpack nick pretty pretty rapidly into the game yeah you can add extra pouches and i liked it because it reminds me of the resident evil 4 briefcase yep but you visually have to align things on the velcro portion of your backpack and prioritize what it is that you want to carry yeah on the outside of your backpack not in your like actual cargo yeah and you're like prepared with this first by you get, you can like design your backpack and put patches.

But if you have a patch somewhere, you can't put like a utility thing there. So you have to then, I had to like strip all the personality off of my backpack.

No, I mean, this was a, this was a thing that was in Death Stranding one. And yeah, I do absolutely like making those choices of how to arrange things,

how to how to Tetris it. Yeah.
And sometimes you got that thing where you got like that maddening one-occupied square. You're like, god damn it, I just can't quite jam everything in here.

and that's where you put a patch yeah that's where the patch goes i had put because like they one of the patches some of the there's like little pictures or like one of them's like you know bridges or whatever um but they have like blood types and i was like i'm gonna put my blood type on my backpack that's kind of fun and i had to take it off i had to look at a i like forgot what it was i had to like look what it like i had to look it up i'm sorry man that must have been painful for you it was

it was pretty easy i have a little card in my wallet

i also put my blood type on my backpack Why not? Why not? I put the Bridges logo because I was like, I want a retro backpack. Yeah.
I put the

Kojima, like, Luden thing on it earlier. I put a bunch of, I put a bunch of you should have seen the patches on my backpack.
It was going crazy.

I like that one of the baseball caps you're given pretty early in the game is also Kojima production. We've got to talk about the fucking baseball cap for just one second.

All right, let's talk about the baseball cap. Because you can wear,

you could either experience the game

and in an immersive way

by just leaving Sam as like a default, like how he looks.

Or you can give him a hat and sunglasses and you can turn the hat backwards and basically just be playing the Norman Ritas game instead and just look how he always looks all the time, which is cool as hell.

It's really funny. But

at the premiere thing, Kojima pointed out that you could turn the hat backwards and it got a big pop from the audience.

Extremely funny.

Because there were hat and glasses in in death stranding one but yeah you you can do that and you can't i can't remember if you could pop the glasses in death stranding one but you can do that in this death stranding two yes um but i i mean i just like the hat that says why me yeah i like that i like like wearing his sunglasses and the cap i will never ever ever play this game wearing a cap forwards absolutely not there is a slight benefit to wearing the cap also.

It has slightly better stamina increase. A gameplay mechanic, I haven't figured out how it works yet because it's early enough in the game,

is that

Sam gets sunburnt. Oh, yeah.

And you know that he's gotten sunburnt because when you're in your private room, which is like your sort of reset point in these games, when you're in your private room and you go to sleep and you wake up the next day, it'll give you a status update on your sunburn, which is never introduced by any character.

It's never like, hey, look out, Sam. You might get sunburnt out there, so be careful.

You just know that

your sunburn is healed. And that's how you know that you had a sunburn.
Interesting. Yeah.
And you can't, there's not a way to put on sunscreen. Right.
There's not a mechanic for that.

You can still piss and shit, though. Yeah.

You don't see it and you don't get to pick anymore.

They've nerfed pissing and shitting in this game. Unplayable.
Well, can't you piss out in the field? You can piss out in the field still.

I haven't tried it yet, but I remember doing my bladder zempty. It was the first thing I wanted to do.
Take a big piss.

But if you pee on the tar, doesn't that also hurt the thing? It does. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

I don't think they've included you taking a dump while an ad for Norman Ritas' motorcycle show plays anymore. No, that's not in there anymore.

But he drinks this tea now. He doesn't drink energy drinks anymore.
He drinks like a canned, like a sparkling canned green tea. And

I want it. I want to try it.
It looks good. I like that Porter beer.
I want to try that porter.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing they should just make.
Yeah. Yeah.
But, you know.

I'm really enjoying my limited time with the game. I'm very excited to dig into it a lot more this week.
And

I think it's, I mean, what a fucking video game.

It could always lose me later on, but I just don't think it will because I love Death Stranding the more, more, the more I played it.

And Death Stranding 2 just feels like an iterated upon improved version. There are outlets that have had the game for some time and have completed the game.

And I mean, it's getting like nines and tens like across the board, which is not to say that it's going to keep us necessarily, right? Like, we could always differ from the review consensus.

But given that the first one got like 8.5s and some sevens, which playing it, I was like, how is that possible? How could you not get this game? Well, it was so singular that I think

there was going to be a backlash because it was just like, people are just like, what is this?

What am I playing here? But I'm sorry, please finish your point. But the fact that

it has retained all of those elements with some quality of life upgrades and people are now reviewing it as nines and tens across the board makes me really excited to get into the late game and find out where the story goes.

When's the last time this happened where there was kind kind of like a muted or mixed response to a first entry, but then over time, people all kind of came around on it.

And then when the second entry comes out, people are like, oh, wait, yeah, this is fucking great. Demon's Souls.
Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

That's a great poll. Like, nobody, nobody gave a shit about it.
Demon's Souls to Dark Souls because Dark Souls is universally

well-regarded. But

yeah, maybe that is it. I want to get back to it so bad.

I know. I can't believe I did this fucking podcast.
I know.

I love it so, so much. And I did change, I changed my

ringtones. They offered ring, they have like ringtones on like the Kojima Productions website.
Wow. That are some, not the sounds that I want.

Oh, but it's the sounds from your ship, the Magellan, and it's really good sound.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

now my phone sounds more insane.

Can't wait to get to the ship because this is like, you know, again, I'm still in the prologue, but it's given me mass effect,

you know, like vibes from from what I've heard. The ship is good.
Yeah. Ship is great.
Yeah.

I have to bring this up because we're talking about, we talked about likes, you know, and how, and how good that feels, how good it is to get a like. Yep.

It with from other players in the game, from other characters and things like that. And giving likes feels good as well.
Yep.

Sam's got this new ring. Yeah.

And he wears, it's like, it's, um,

it's like an aura ring. It's like an aura ring, but it's also like his phone, kind of, right? Where it's like, it's his, it's his communicator and he can

like see where you're going and manage all your stuff. It's your pause menu as well.

So, every time you press pause, Sam puts his thumb up and it's basically giving you, the player, a thumbs up while you're going into the pause menu.

And I just gotta say, I feel like a million bucks every time I press pause. It's pretty good.
I love it. I love it.
It also happens so fast

that it almost feels vestigial. Like, it's not like he brings his thumb up into camera and then you enter the pause.
It's like the way that like

if you were recording a video the moment right before you hit pause in a video on your phone, like that same gesture is how fast he brings up his thumb so that you can hit the pause menu.

And it's kind of blurry even. Yeah.
It's great. It's just, I don't know, like seeing it,

seeing a cool guy do a big thumbs up was better than that. Imagine he gave you a thumbs down.
That would be tough. That would feel really bad.

And then I probably wouldn't even like the game anymore, if I'm being honest, if he was mean to me like that. It just happens one time with no explanation.

I can't wait for the game to wish me happy birthday. I'm so excited.
Yeah, first thing you do is put in your birthday. That's right.
You know, it's coming.

At some point.

My birthday is in August. I guess I'll get it while I'm playing the game.
Wow, there you go. Yeah, I should have put that day.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, today's my birthday, actually.

What's a little lie?

I know you're lying.

Thumbs down. Psychomantis comes into the game.

Well, Death Stranding 2 on the beach. First impressions.

There was no need for me to say that. We just did it.
We just did it. Hey, you know what? In case you were fucking confused, you little dipshit.
That's what we just did, okay?

Calm down, sweetie. That was just what you just listened to, okay? Sometimes you take a tone with the listener that I I don't approve of.
I just need to keep everybody in check.

I feel immense gratitude that anybody's listening to the show. No, me too.
But you know, there's got to be one dipshit that's a little confused. What was that? What was I just listening?

You know, let me say this

to that idiot. It's okay, baby.

It's okay. It's okay.

We love you. Yeah.
Daddy loves you. That's worse.

That upset ranch. She's covered her mouth.

Yeah, Nick calling himself daddy was pretty tough. All right, that was our first impressions of Death Stranding 2 on the beach.

Fuck. Daddy loves you.
It's time for the question block.

All right, this first one is from Silent Martyr. Hey, Silent Martyr.
Silent Martyr writes, if you guys had to pick a game to learn a speedrun of, what would it be and why?

I have an immediate answer for this. Go for it.
Tony Hawks Pro Skater. Because there's a speedrun mode in

the OnePlus 2 remake that they did a couple of years ago, highly anticipating it in the 3 plus 4

that's coming out soon.

And you can do it. And I've tried, I've like,

I know the warehouse, the first level, the warehouse level, like the back of my fucking hand. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do.

I can complete all the tasks.

all the tasks in that level in like 40 seconds, which is not fast, actually.

You get two minutes.

Some of the ones that I've seen are staggering. It's unbelievable.
Yeah. If I can get it lower than 40 someday, I'll hopefully record it.

Like the screen recording will be one of my great achievements of my life. That's great.
But I like to try to get my score lower than 40 when I can. I have two answers.
One that is my

That is my video game answer, which is Sonic 2.

I think it would be really fun to be a speedrunner at sonic 2 yeah but my second answer is grand turismo because i'm like

if you became good enough at grand turismo speedrunning like if you could like master those tracks and come in faster than anybody in the world yeah could that translate to a real life skill i mean it did didn't it like for that like in that movie yeah but at least on the guy that did that but like So if you actually became a speedrunner at Gran Turismo, would that make you a good driver?

Could you then become a race car driver?

I don't know. Nick, what's yours? It's a great question.

If we're talking, you know, doing a bunch of skips and just breaking the shit out of the game, I mean, I love watching the Baldur's Gate 3 like four-minute speedruns where they just have all, like, all these insane skips that involve placing like explosive barrels and specific,

you know,

like points in the world to skip large swaths of progression and just get immediately to the nether brain.

Those are so awesome to see. So, I, and, you know, that's my favorite game.
So, it'd be fun to mess around with those.

But if we're talking about like playing it like kind of straight up, uh, you know,

I shouldn't say no skip, nothing, you know, with like we're talking about a glitchless run.

Um,

I think I'd probably just go OG Super Mario Bros. Like the very first Super Mario Brothers.

Because I know Super Mario 64 has a thriving speedrun community, but like Super Mario Brothers was a game that when I was a kid, me and my friends would speedrun without realizing that's what we were doing.

Like, like, that was like before there was like a vocab, like, that was a term where that people were saying it at least was common in the zeitgeist. And so,

um, I like, like, yeah, just the idea of like trying to get through that game as quickly as possible with warps or without warps. And it's also a game I know really well.

And it's also a sort of progression that's extraordinarily linear.

so it's really easy to you know wrap your head around from a speedrun perspective cool answers great question great question uh this next one is from logger b and logger b writes hi logger what's up logger b with all the new dlc coming out years after initial release what traits would bring you back for a dlc so like think about like elden ring and shadow of the earth tree

that was like a pretty that was like what like a year and a half or something like it was like or a while at least uh this kirby one that's coming out for Switch 2 that I'm very excited about. Um,

it's like it's a pretty significant chunk of time in between release and then the base game. So, wait, so is this a like what would bring me back to a game that I that I maybe didn't love?

Or I guess what's worth it to go back when they add DLC so late. To me, it's something like Kirby, where like there's like not just

like not just like cosmetics or like a new level or something. It seems like there's like a whole new story that they're adding to

the game as well. Yeah, I feel like I need like substantial new content,

not just like another character that I can play the same game again with, you know? Yeah.

I would return to a lot of games if you could purchase a speed slider. And I'm not joking.

Like, so that I could set movement speed at my

ideal speed for that game.

Like if I could move through

Blue Prince at

45% faster, like physically in the game. There are a lot of games that I would probably return to just to be able to play them with slightly faster movement.

That'd be an interesting one.

Like fucking Mario Odyssey at Sonic Speed. Hawk, that would be great.
Sonic Frontier Speed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, also, like,

you can date characters you couldn't date before.

I'm always into romance in games. It is true.
If they just added more romance. I was just like, you know, hey, there wasn't dating in Metaphor Refantasio originally, but like now you can date.

And I was like, all right. They added it?

No, I mean, like, if they added that in the DLC, I'd be like,

I wasn't excited about it or anything.

No, but it's like, yeah, like, if they had, like, hey, we, there is actually an addition, there's an additional epilogue, or there's like a whole new, you know, that those, those areas are pretty substantial.

So, if there was a, it would be enough if there was a whole new area, say, and Metaphor Refantasio, there's like basically a whole new town where you had to go and you had that set period of time to try to solve their problems.

Um,

and uh, like if there was one more of those, that would be enough. But then if they also added dating, you know, I might play more of the game.
I used to get like during the

Batman Arkham days, like in particular, like Arkham City had some great

story DLC that I really, really loved, but then they also would add

like sort of like new modes, kind of. They do like a sort of like, like, not a horde mode, but like, um, like a time, like a time-based, wave-based fighting arena mode.

And I'm like, I don't need this. I don't like this.
I always always want more story. That's like the number one thing.

So, like, with something like Shadow of the Earth Tree, I'm like, oh, just like a whole new area. They basically just made, I mean, that, that is just pretty much a whole new game is the thing.
That's

there was a version of that that could have just been a straight-up sequel. Yes.

That's like, so that it's obviously the most labor and time and resource intensive to build out entirely new environments, have new story, have new gameplay mechanics, all that sort of stuff, which is why a lot of times it's just

remixed existing elements.

This next one's from Michael P. Hi, Michael.
What's up, Michael P. In the movie Yesterday, a man gets hit by a car and wakes up in a world where the Beatles never happened.

Only he remembers anything about them. What video game property slash series would you feel the saddest about if it was erased from history and only you remembered it?

My answer is Kingdom Hearts because there's no way I would be able to do what he does in the movie Yesterday, which is pretend he's the Beatles now and become very successful.

I could not from scratch make Kingdom Hearts 2.

be a disaster. That movie is insane.
Yeah, just a crazy Brent. No, I haven't seen it, but it's a crazy body.
Have you ever seen it? I've seen everything about it. Brent you seen yesterday?

No, I've never seen it. Danny Boyle, right? It's a Danny Boyle movie.
Yeah. It's fucking, it's an unhinged film.
Yeah.

He's a little kooky. Oh, I love Danny Boyle.
I absolutely love 28 Years Later. I mean, I think it's like

he's a fascinating director. I love that he's always trying new stuff.

I, you know,

love train spotting. I even think T2 train spotting is pretty effective.
Love a movie like Sunshine. Did he direct Steve Jobs?

Yes. Yeah.

I love Steve Jobs. I mean, like, he's a fantastic director, a true auteur

who makes bizarre choices sometimes. And that's part of what's fun about him.
But yesterday. They're calling a separate movie T2.
It's so fun.

Yesterday is insane. And I mean,

I guess I shouldn't spoil the ending, but

I do know what it is because I looked it up because I was was like, I'm not watching this. This seems crazy.
So then it's crazier than I think.

It feels like this movie is going to go towards like, okay, at some point, we're going to go back to, he's going to come back to our reality.

He's going to make that choice, or he's going to wake up from a dream or whatever. And he's going to be like, hey, all this success that I'm having is completely unearned.
And

although I am sharing their music with the world, like by me claiming credit for it, that's a weird thing. None of that happens.
He's just like, oh, yeah, this guy's a big hit musician.

He's just like, wait, wait, this this guy is cool.

What is this trying to say? It also, I mean, the ending is so crazy. Well, there's a scene where he goes and meets an old John Lennon.
Yeah. And old John Lennon just is like a, is like a,

you know, like kind of a hermit who like lives in a beach and like creates art or whatever I don't remember exactly or what what it is but then he's just he's basically like like

indirectly because he doesn't understand the that that he lives in a different reality lives in an alternate timeline, but indirectly, kind of like it seems like he's thanking this guy because he gets alive.

I was like, what? But doesn't it end too where then, like, it sort of like happens again?

Like, he mentions something about like Harry Potter, and nobody knows what it is, and it's sort of like, not again. Like, he's going to do that now, too.

Like, the most successful man on earth is the Beatles and also Harry Potter. Isn't there also a line about how Oasis doesn't exist because the Beatles didn't exist?

That's actually a good joke of the movie. Yeah.

So my answer is Kingdom hearts what is it what is what would you guys be sad i would be so bummed if street fighter didn't exist oh good because like so many of

like my core memories of my childhood are like playing street fighter and like the sort of energy of that moment uh

inner sort of internationally

um and if that just didn't exist i'd be like bummed yeah that would be that would be mine and i also i couldn't make street fighter i i could describe describe it i'd be like that's two people fighting that's easier to describe to somebody who knows how to make video games than somebody trying to explain the totality of the kingdom hearts right right uh my answer is not a game uh but a guy

wario If Wario didn't exist, but Mario still existed, that would drive you mad because it also means Waluigi doesn't exist. And also, it's just such a great, like, it's like the evil spock of our age.

It's such a great shorthand for describing like the villainous version of something that's virtuous. Yeah.
And so a world with no Wario sounds like a nightmare.

You'd say, I'm a Wario, I'm going to win. And no one would know what you're talking about.
Yeah. And then there's no.
What is wrong with you?

Absolutely no friction for Mario whatsoever. So yeah, Wario is my answer.
I guess if you make me pick a game, Honey Pop 2 Double Date. Okay.

That's this week's Get Played. Our producer is Michelle Chen.
Ranch, yard underscore underscore sard. Ranch, are you streaming anything these days? Yes, I am playing playing Silent Hill too.

How's that going? It's going slowly, but I really like it. Let's go! Hello!

My boyfriend! In my restless dreams. Wait, you were playing some Balacho, too, weren't you? I don't know if you were streaming it, but.
No, I was playing that on the plane here.

Yeah,

it's off my phone now.

Our music is by Ben Prenti, BenPrentyMusic.com. Our art is by DuckRigade, design, duckrigade.com.
Get played merch at kinshipgoods.com. Link in the description.

Also, check out Get Animate, our sister show show on Patreon. Matt, what are we watching this week? We're finishing up Gurn Lagan.

This is the end. It's the end of the Gurn Lagan, and I'm not sad because I watched it.
I'm sad because it's over. I loved it.

Gurn Lagan, as it stands right now, one of my favorite shows I've ever watched. It's a triumph, and I think it lands the plane success.
Absolutely. Or, you know, maybe it doesn't.

You got to tune into the Patreon to find out.

I think it's a, it's a, I think I can spoil that. I, I really was satisfied with it, and I'm really, really glad that I watched this show in totality.

And I'm really happy that people have been checking out our series and chiming in with us over at GetAnimate. So check that out at patreon.com/slash get played.

And hey, you know what got played this week?

The last six years of our lives.

That was a hit gum podcast.