Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Review – Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
• Host: Greg Miller
• Guests: Blessing Adeoye Jr., Jerrica Hannah
• Episode: Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Review
• Release Date: June 23, 2025

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1. Introduction and Context

The episode kicks off with host Greg Miller welcoming listeners to the review of Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, alongside guests Blessing Adeoye Jr. and Jerrica Hannah from the JK Games podcast.

Greg Miller (00:07):
"Welcome to Your Death Stranding 2 on the beach review. A kind of funny games cast for Monday, June 23rd, 2025."

The hosts share a lighthearted moment about Blessing’s special notebook provided by Kojima Productions during the game preview, highlighting the unique disconnect theme of the game.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. (00:44):
"You're not allowed to connect while we're disconnecting. Connecting the world, connecting Australia, connecting the disconnected world."

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2. Playthrough Experiences

Blessing Adeoye Jr.'s Perspective

Blessing shares her extensive playtime and comprehensive engagement with the game, emphasizing how Death Stranding 2 is a direct sequel that addresses and improves upon criticisms from the first installment.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. (08:58):
"As Buckwild, the rules of this universe are there is such conceptual and emotional buy-in from those crafting this story that I can't help but to buy in myself."

She praises the game's enhanced combat mechanics, dynamic weather, upgrade systems, and narrative clarity, culminating in a high score.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. (10:43):
"If I'm going to give this a score out of 10, I'm going to say it's a 9.5."

Jerrica Hannah's Perspective

Jerrica offers her insights, noting significant improvements in pacing and narrative integration, making the story more accessible even to newcomers.

Jerrica Hannah (12:10):
"I can recommend Death Stranding 2 to someone that hasn't played the first game and it be okay."

She highlights the empowering gameplay mechanics and the seamless introduction of new tools and weapons, which enhance her overall experience.

Jerrica Hannah (14:28):
"9.5."

Greg Miller's Perspective

Greg discusses his evolving experience with the game, initially rating it lower but expressing growing appreciation as he delves deeper into the story and gameplay mechanics.

Greg Miller (08:31):
"But I don't want to start there since I didn't even finish it. Blessing, right back to you."

He reflects on the game's ability to engage players differently based on their playstyle, likening his approach to stealth tactics reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid.

Greg Miller (12:01):
"Very easy and almost maybe to a detriment."

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3. Gameplay Mechanics

Styles and Approaches

The hosts discuss their distinct playstyles:

• Blessing adopts an aggressive, action-oriented approach, utilizing a variety of weapons and strategies to navigate challenges.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (19:31):
  "I was really impressed when I started listening to other podcasts this morning as well. They're talking, like, Jordan Miller was talking about how he was stealth around, and, like, he played it like a stealth game."

• Jerrica initially hesitates to engage in combat but grows more comfortable using available tools and weapons, appreciating the game's flexibility.

  Jerrica Hannah (23:43):
  "I actually had a lot of fun with the melee later on."

• Greg emphasizes a stealth-focused gameplay, evoking memories of Metal Gear Solid, and expresses a desire for more immersive combat scenarios.

  Greg Miller (30:46):
  "I feel like it's a great game. I think it's a great, great game."

Navigation and Environmental Interaction

The dynamic environments of Death Stranding 2 play a crucial role in shaping gameplay:

• Blessing commends the game's weather systems and environmental hazards that require strategic navigation.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (56:07):
  "There's a harrowing, like, oh, man. This reminds me of driving in a bad storm in real life."

• Jerrica appreciates the varied terrains and the introduction of new elements like overflowing rivers and expandable environments.

  Jerrica Hannah (54:58):
  "The environment, so obviously it's way larger. But as soon as I'd get a new mission to go to a new spot or the direction was a new outpost that I hadn't been to yet was always super exciting to me."

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4. Story and Characters

Protagonist and Support Characters

The hosts delve into the narrative depth of the game, focusing on the protagonist, Sam Porter Bridges, and his interactions with other characters.

• Blessing expresses a disconnect with Sam's character development, feeling he is too quiet and lacks emotional depth.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (40:57):
  "Sam Porter Bridges is too quiet and too like he doesn't have much going on in terms of."

• Jerrica highlights the elevated roles of female characters, praising their emotional depth and narrative significance.

  Jerrica Hannah (83:17):
  "All the women in this game have something very important they're working through. And just like, it's a, you know, everyone talking through emotions and grief and how humans sort of overcome that and find partnerships."

Boss Fights and Villains

The performance of Troy Baker as Higgs is lauded, showcasing compelling villain dynamics.

• Greg admires Baker's portrayal and the spectacle of boss fights, though he criticizes the gameplay mechanics associated with them.

  Greg Miller (43:29):
  "You have such a good live reaction face that I'd love to see you."

• Blessing agrees, noting the visual and environmental integration of boss battles but suggests a need for more engaging gameplay elements.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (69:19):
  "Spectacle wise the boss fights are like 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10."

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5. World and Environment

The immersive world of Death Stranding 2 is a focal point, with enhanced dynamic elements making the environment feel alive.

• Blessing praises the realistic weather changes and their impact on gameplay, such as rising water levels during rainstorms requiring different navigation tactics.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (56:17):
  "They have, like, sandstorms and stuff that'll come through and, like, you know, create a way more aggressive environment."

• Greg echoes this sentiment, sharing personal anecdotes about dynamic events like avalanches and their effect on immersion.

  Greg Miller (56:33):
  "I was like, oh, that's a nice touch of like, oh, that's cool that this is happening so this should happen."

---

6. Improvements from Previous Game

Significant enhancements from Death Stranding 1 are discussed, focusing on user interface and social features.

• Blessing notes the streamlined menu system and the introduction of a more intuitive D-Pad navigation.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (74:04):
  "I think they improve the menu system, like the, like in game menu system."

• Jerrica appreciates the changes in cargo management, highlighting the auto-arrange feature for easier inventory handling.

  Jerrica Hannah (75:11):
  "I do love the prospect of when the game is out for Everybody, probably seeing YouTube videos or TikToks or whatever of people doing crazy shit as far as like what they're building."

• Greg reflects on the smoother integration of online collaborative features, enhancing the sense of community and shared world-building.

  Greg Miller (62:02):
  "It's only me building my own."

---

7. Criticisms and Areas for Improvement

Despite high praises, the hosts identify areas where Death Stranding 2 could enhance player experience.

Narrative and Protagonist Depth

• Blessing and Greg feel that Sam Porter Bridges lacks emotional depth and express a desire for more engaging cutscenes and character interactions.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (40:58):
  "I find [...] he [Sam] has a lot more going on [...] it'd be fine if it was like a silent protagonist."

  Greg Miller (34:52):
  "I think the narrative plot point to me of like, hey, we're all disconnected from each other and this is a problem."

Combat Mechanics and Boss Fights

• The repetitive nature of combat and the lack of innovative boss fight mechanics are noted as drawbacks.

  Greg Miller (73:57):
  "I think gameplay wise, like, I could see it."

  Jerrica Hannah (71:23):
  "To your point, really, I was looking for more like environmental, like situations that I've had to figure out to destroy a boss, you know. Yeah. Versus me just trying to shoot this thing as much as I can."

Game Loop and Immersion

• The repetitive delivery missions and gameplay loop may detract from the overall immersion for some players.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (37:18):
  "But yeah, you want to talk about this being the direct sequel to Death Stranding 1, like, this is one of the few times, if not maybe the first time on this level that Kojima is making a sequel that straight up."

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8. Audience Q&A Highlights

Listeners submitted various questions addressed by the hosts, providing additional insights into the game.

Story Recaps for New Players

• Greg reassures new players that comprehensive story recap videos are available to help them catch up.

  Greg Miller (86:57):
  "You could watch any of the ones that are there. And then, like, in addition to that, maybe watch the one in the game itself just as, like, a final, like, you know, layer of defense to, like, reinforce that."

Zip Lines and Navigation Tools

• Enhancements to zip lines, allowing for more versatile navigation, are discussed, with Jerrica expressing excitement over the new mechanics.

  Jerrica Hannah (75:55):
  "Like, you can change the trajectory of the zip line itself. Like, it can now curve or go up or down."

Female Characters Representation

• The hosts defend the game's portrayal of female characters, emphasizing their depth and importance to the narrative.

  Blessing Adeoye Jr. (84:05):
  "I really like the core cast of women in this game. In fact, I like their vibe and I like their presence more than normal."

  Jerrica Hannah (83:17):
  "All the women in this game have something very important they're working through."

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9. Closing Thoughts and Scores

The episode culminates with both guests offering high praise for Death Stranding 2, though Greg maintains a slightly reserved stance as he continues to explore the game.

• Blessing Adeoye Jr. (89:46):
  "This is, for sure, a contender for me and like, I think a guaranteed lock in my top 10 list."

• Jerrica Hannah (88:00):
  "Death Stranding 2 ... one of my favorite games of the year. And once again, it made me cry a little bit a couple times."

Overall Scores:

• Blessing Adeoye Jr.: 9.5/10
• Jerrica Hannah: 9.5/10
• Greg Miller: Tentative 8.5/10, pending further playthroughs.

Greg Miller (89:34):
"I think Death Stranding 2 really lives up as a Kojima game as far as what it's delivering gameplay-wise, what it's delivering story-wise."

Both guests express enthusiasm for future content and collaborations, underscoring their commitment to covering Death Stranding 2 comprehensively.

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Conclusion

The Kinda Funny Gamescast episode provides a thorough and engaging discussion of Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, highlighting its strengths in narrative depth, dynamic environments, and character performances, while also addressing areas for improvement in combat mechanics and protagonist development. With high scores from both Blessing and Jerrica, and promising ongoing exploration from Greg, the episode serves as a valuable guide for gamers considering diving into this highly anticipated sequel.

Transcript

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Foreign.

[Greg Miller]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to Your Death Stranding 2 on the beach review. A kind of funny games cast for Monday, June 23rd, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30 aka New York Game Awards nominated aka BB Poppy Blessing. Eddie. Oh, yay, Jr. Good day, Greg. Good day to you. How are you?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm doing well. How are you?

[Greg Miller]

I'm great. Has this notebook shown up on content? Did you bring it on the preview? I don't, I don't. I don't remember.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I did bring it up.

[Greg Miller]

I was listening. I guess I just forgot. This is an amazing notebook. Hold this up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, right.

[Greg Miller]

Look at this. It's a. It's a little Death stranding thing they gave you when you were at Kojima Productions previewing it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, this is one of those where I mentioned this on one of the preview things, right. But we got there and they're like, by the way, no laptops, no phones, like, no electronics allowed at the.

[Greg Miller]

You're not allowed to connect.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You're not allowed to connect while we're disconnecting. Connecting the world, connecting Australia, connecting the disconnected world. Yes. But, yeah, they gave us these notebooks and so all my notes are in here. And it's funny, I didn't take any more notes for the review. And so when I got in, because I had left this in the office, I was like, you know what? I'll just use my notes from the preview because I don't think much has changed. Spoilers. But I just started reading these and I'm like, oh, man, I took a lot of notes and a lot of them are. It's funny just looking back.

[Greg Miller]

Give me your funniest one you've seen so far. Open the page. Find me a funny one right now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The one that I.

[Greg Miller]

It's so funny. It should be that hard. Find a funny one right now.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mentioned one to you right before this, right? Of like, this is the best I've seen a baby look in a video game. Lol. There's another one where I just. I. I just write BT spiders and that's it. Which we'll talk about. There's a note. I had an earlier note in here that says something along the lines of like, oh, no, this game is playing it a bit more straight. And then a note here that says, never mind, Kojima on is bullshit.

[Greg Miller]

Yep, yep, yep, yep. As he should be. And rounding out our trio, it's the one, the only. It's Jerrica Hannah from JK Games podcast. Hello, Jerrica.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Howdy.

[Greg Miller]

How are you?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I'm phenomenal. Yeah, I'm a little tired, but I cannot wait.

[Greg Miller]

Why are you so tired? Why are you so tired?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I've just been playing a lot of Death stranding too, and I can't talk about it and now I probably can. So the energy has. Something has crept into my body and now I'm alive. Every time I pee on something, a mushroom appears.

[Greg Miller]

There you go. Exactly. You should get that checked out.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, maybe.

[Greg Miller]

Jerika, of course, thank you for joining us. Of course, we love collaborating Crossing over with you. But this, of course, only happened because you reached out to me and said, hey, who can I talk to a PlayStation to get a code for Death Stranding 2? And I said, hey, why don't you just come review it with us?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Oh, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And you said, yeah. And we did a whole thing in Chicago where we revealed it. But I want to correct you. I didn't write into you're wrong. And I also did miss the very, very end of the show, but I don't think it came up. You said, of course we flew Jerrica out here. Jerrica flew herself out here. Oh, she said. She literally said, this is a once in a lifetime, once in a lifetime opportunity. So she flew herself from the one, the only. Arkansas. No, Green Bay. Alabama. Alabama.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Alabama Bay. Alabama.

[Greg Miller]

I remember I said it when we were out there. I was like, wait, are you Arkansas or using Alabama? I went Greenbow, Alabama in the forest. Gump voice. That way I'll always remember Alabama. But I had to get there in the end. So, Jerrica, thank you for doing that for us.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, thank you for yourself. Thank you for having me. Yeah. It's been a journey.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And we're going to get into that journey here, everybody. Because of course, this is the Kinda Funny gamescast. Each and every weekend, a variety of platforms, we run you through the biggest topics in gaming. Whether they be previews, reviews, or just topics we need to talk about, we cover them all, each and every day Live. Twitch TV, kindafunnygames, YouTube.com kindafunnygames of course, podcast services around the globe. If you love that, of course, join us. When our programming day starts with Kinda Funny Games Daily, it goes into a gamescast. Then there's something like the Kinda Funny podcast. Then we stream video games and we have a great time. If you like what we do here as a small, independent 11 person business, we would love you to pick up the kinda funny membership. Patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funnygames, Apple and Spotify. You can toss us 10 bucks a month. Get all of our shows. That's more than 80 episodes a month ad free. And of course get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg way. That's 15 to 20 minutes of me podcasting solo to add up to four hours of exclusive content each and every month. If you are watching live like so many of you are right now, of course be part of this Show. You've read IGN's review, you've read GameSpot's review. You've seen it all. You've probably read Jordan Midler's at VGC like I have. Go ahead and super chat on YouTube.com kindafunnygames with your questions, comments, concerns. We will tackle them here. Of course this review will be spoiler free as much as that's possible. No big beats, but obviously we're gonna talk about Pigs game. You might, but I want you to know ahead of time, obviously don't go into story spoilers. We wouldn't be there for you. However, housekeeping for you. We will be there for you this weekend, if you didn't know. Friday Mike and Roger are freaking it again. Freaking it again. Friday the 27th, Michael will go step for step on a treadmill with Norman Reedus in another literal marathon stream for the launch of Death Stranding 2. But this time they have a few surprises. Get ready to go the distance because they will stream as long as you support. Can they make it past KF GD on Monday? How high will Mike's heart rate be? Come or how much Chili's will they order? Come find out. Friday, June 27, exclusively on Twitch. Then of course on Saturday, it's my championship parade here in San Francisco. I'll see you outside the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero at 10am we will do a parade on the sidewalk. We will walk wheel of signs. We will mock Tim and ruin Pokemon Go Day until we get to square pie. Guys, 10 to noon Saturday in San Francisco. Of course, we're an 11 person small business, all about live talk shows. Kind of funny. Games Daily already covered that. Meta and Xbox are teaming up for a headset and Jerrica doesn't want anything to do with it.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, do you care less?

[Greg Miller]

No, no. I got my Xbox everywhere. I don't need a strap to my face after this. It's going to be the kind of funny podcast featuring Danny Jollis. And then it's going to be a stream of Dune Awakening with Mike And Nick, if you're a kind of funny member, Today's Greg Way is Mike and Roger buying a treadmill. And I've seen parts of it. It's an experience. Thank you to our Patreon produce, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Cash App Mood, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Death Stranding 2 On the beach is upon us. Of course out tonight for Deluxe Edition users. You can get in and get it that way. June 26th for everyone. The PlayStation Network description reads, embark on an inspiring mission of human connection beyond the uca. Sam, with companions by his side, sets out on a new journey to save humanity from extinction. Join them as they traverse a world beset by otherworldly enemies, obstacles and a haunting question. Should we have connected? Step by step, legendary game creator Hideo Kojima changes the world once again. Jerika, you said you are low on sleep.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

How many hours have you put into that Stranding 2 on the beach? And have you rolled credits around at 8?

[Jerrica Hannah]

80 hours and I have rolled credits.

[Greg Miller]

80 hours.

[Jerrica Hannah]

That's could have been more. It could have been more.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Jerrica Hannah]

But I wanted to see the finish line.

[Greg Miller]

Talk to me about those 80 hours then from a top level. Is that so? That's obviously main quest, but how much side stuff did you do? Where did your time start? Getting lost?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I started taking my time back from the game. And that's not a negative way of saying it. Like I want it to take more of my time. We'll get to that later. But probably about 30 to 40% of the game I've started going just mainlining more the main missions in the game.

[Greg Miller]

But beyond that, were you just doing all side stuff? Were you building roads?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Oh yeah. I got way in the weeds, way deep in the weeds with building my roads and we'll get to it. But like some of the exciting things with this game is what else can I unlock with this prepper and started really getting connected with some of those individuals I was meeting.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Blessing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

How many hours are you in Death Stranding 2? And have you rolled credits?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I have rolled credits. So it's gonna be fun talking about this because I did the preview at Kojima Production a couple months ago right. Where they allowed us to play up to 30 hours of the game. So this playthrough the review. Playthrough I roll credits at around probably closer to 45 hours. Of playing. If I combine that with my preview, then we're talking about probably closer to 70 hours.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Playing overall. But for this playthrough it took me about 45 hours to roll credits.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. And then I have not rolled credits. I am in episode 14 of 16 episodes talking to you out there. You're like, you got like an hour and a half left. But last night I was playing, playing, playing, got to a thing and I was like, I'm going to put it down here. Obviously 40 plus hours. I have plenty to say about it and know how I think about the game. But we'll get into all that. But I don't want to start there since I didn't even finish it. Blessing right back to you. Give me your top level synopsis and score for Death Training two on the Beach.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's so funny because like I mentioned before, I didn't most of the time for reviews I like to take notes and this time I didn't because I felt like the notes that I would take are the notes that are already in this preview.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, of course.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And honestly, a lot of the things I said during the preview echo here. I'm going to read one excerpt from my preview notes to kind of sum it up. I said this is because this is a rare direct sequel from Kojima. It feels reactive to any and all criticism of death training 1. The combat is fun and engaging. It gets you into the game quicker. There's more dynamic weather and obstacles. There's more tools and upgrade systems. The story feels easier to follow and more interesting. It's more beautiful, it's bigger. The soundtrack is better. There's more variety in the BTS and the ways to deal with them. There's a glossary system akin to Active Time Lore which makes the story easier to follow. And all that is still echoed here. I think the game is still doing the thing of all right. Direct sequel. What are all the pieces of feedback that we can take from the previous game that we can use to make this game overall just a better experience? The one other excerpt I'm going to take from my preview notes is this. As Buckwild, the rules of this universe are there is such conceptual and emotional buy in from those crafting this story that I can't help but to buy in myself. Death Rain 2 plays so strongly by the rules of the first game. Emotional from an early on speech about beaches and I think for me playing it in this review playthrough, that's the thing that shines most is Death Training one When I think I first played in, when most of us, when we all first played Death Stranding 1, I think one of the main takeaways was, oh, this world is weird. Oh, this Kojima is like going full Kojima. Oh, this game is bizarre. All that shit, right? Oh, Chiral network. Oh, beaches, BTs, BB. Like all that shit.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Playing it this time around, I like, I can't believe how much buy in that I have into the universe that they've crafted here where they're talking about the Chiral Network and like crazy things that go on with the Chiral Network. And I'm sitting there like, yeah, I get that that's weird. Like, that's interesting. Like, I'm fully into what they're doing narratively here and I think it works because it's fully in on what it's doing. But then also they really use the world to uplift the characters. And this time around, I think the characters really shine. I. I don't know if I have a favorite character. Maybe. Maybe I would say Troy Baker's performance as Higgs is like my favorite performance in this game. It's fucking awesome. But between that, between Fragile, between, you know, what we see out of Elle Fanning and Shirley Kitsuna's character of Rainy. Right. Like, I love this cast so much and I think narratively the themes that they're tackling, the tone that they have, like, I think it's really unique. I think it's really interesting. I think it's really special. Gameplay wise, it's more destiny. But all the best ways where they have figured out how to make this the best truck simulator meets like, you know, third person action game in the weirdest world possible that they could have made. And I fuck with it. So heavy. If I'm going to give this a score out of 10, I'm going to say it's a 9.5.

[Greg Miller]

Damn, you love to see it. I have so much. I'm jotting down things you're saying because I want to double back to them, but Jerrica, top of the order here. Where are you going to score this one?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Listen, I was a huge. Obviously I wanted to ask to be a part of this, because I was. I. I've played a few Metal Gear games. Metal gear solid 5 was the last one I played, but I never finished it. Metal Gear Solid 3 was my first Kojima game that I digested. And I. To say that I'm like, Death Stranding was like one of the first games, obviously doing his own thing. And I Just fell in love with just how weird it was and the story overall like really hit with me and I also I'm not the most exciting person in video games when you're like the play style. Like I could do a walking simulator which was a lot of people talking about the first game. I enjoy the ambiance. I enjoy the dust training is a vibe and it helps you like sit and reflect with what you actually got going on in your life or with Sam in the game for dust running too. I think the fix was the pacing of it all and primarily like for me. I can recommend now Recommend Death Training 2 to someone that hasn't played the first game and it be okay and I'll get to that in just a second because it gets you into the world much sooner. They equip you with tools that are introduced at the right points of the game. Depending on what area you're in, depending on what part of the story. The narrative's tied into that too. Like you're introduced and fed at the right points and it encourages you. I feel like I am empowered as a player to try new weapons to go to this new area that looked a little nerve wracking. I don't know if I want to go over there yet. I know there's BTs over there. By the way. I never enjoy BT interactions in the first game. Don't love them in this game either. But I felt more empowered to not shy away from those experiences. What overall like I think the. The fixing of the pacing, the introduction of the narrative and how they sort of set you up for success based on that next mission is really well done and it's way easier to follow. I think this is going to be more of a hit with more people now. But yeah, it's the. The learning curve of this world is intimidating, especially if you haven't played the first game. But they do a lot of things to help with that.

[Greg Miller]

What's your score?

[Jerrica Hannah]

9.5.

[Greg Miller]

Damn, you're right there with bless.

[D]

I love it.

[Jerrica Hannah]

I want to get back to it so bad. I'm ready to do it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Greg Miller hey, how'd you like that's raining too?

[Greg Miller]

Well, I so much I'm jotting all the notes now because I can't wait for this discussion with you all. But yeah, you know my especially for so many people watching this history with Hideo Kojima games is quite well documented. Right? Like I would not be here without Metal Gear Solid. So that's how important that game was. Let alone that series, let alone him as a creator and stuff like that. And so I've had an interesting ride with Death Stranding 2 on the beach, an incredibly enjoyable one to just, you know, get ahead of it or whatever. But you know, what's fascinating was even pulling in. You were talking about, you know, a better experience. It's easier to follow these things here. I went back and listened to the kind of funny Gamescast review of Death Stranding 1. The original one, not the one Roger and Mike just did, but the one that was me and Fran and Andy and Imran, right? And Tim leading it and us talking about it. And there were wise words said on that podcast by me and they were listening to Fran and Andy talk about where they were with the game and. And I kept saying, oh my God, I wish I had that experience where I mainlined Death Stranding ones trying to hit review embargo. And Andy and Fran were similar, comparable hours to me, but were lost in the side stuff. And so with Death Straining two, I feel like I explored more and did more side stuff, which helped me care even more about the world and about what was happening. And I think something powerful that you said, bless, was the idea that like when you get in the buy in from both the creators and the players is so important here. Listening to that Death Stranding one review, of course, from 2019, right? When the game originally came out, November 8, 2019, it was this. The first question from Tim is what is this game? Because we still didn't know. We didn't understand what Death Stranding was. There's so much bending over backwards. And to start Death Stranding 2 on the beach and be tossed right back into it of the Chiral Network, the bts, this like there's no hand holding. Like there is, you know, we talk so much about Final Fantasy 16, right, and active time lore, the fact that they have their little glossary every time it pops up. You can hold down your start button, right? You can go right in, read it, you can go back there. When you come back to the game after a full restart of the game, it pops up and there's like story so far section. You can go click in and refresh yourself if you are lost and all that. Like you talking about the better experience. So many of the reviews talking about both good and negative and positive impacts of a frictionless experience, right? I think that goes so far to make Death Stranding to something very special. And for me personally on the score range of where we're talking about, it's an interesting one. You and I went to lunch on Friday and I was talking to you about it, and I was like, for where I am right now, I think it's an eight. I think it's a great game, but I'm not obviously done with it. I need this. And I was talking about the things I wanted out of it and stuff. You. And you were like, well, hold your horses a little bit. Blah, blah, blah. And so now to be there with an hour and a half till end credits, they paid off in the end here with what I was looking for of like, here's this big story moment, here's a meaty cut scene, here's all this stuff. And it was like, okay, like last night. Yeah. Yesterday into last night, when I was really cranking through it is like, damn, you're doing. You're giving me what I wanted here. And it was this slow, methodical build to get there. So it's like, for me right now with an asterisk not being. I mean, I'll beat it in two. After the kind of funny podcast, I'm going to sit down and beat the game, right. I'd be leaning towards 8.5. But I'm also hot on the ending as I build to the ending. So I'm interested to see if the ending actually pays off and everything, let alone then doubling back to do more of the stuff and finish off more of the side things. Like, you know, this is always such an interesting thing where we're reviewing these games. We want to stay quiet to each other, but then you also hold so much in. And so outside, when it was just me and Nick out there, he was like, oh, man, you know, Tim sucks. I'm like, I know he does, because Tim's not in the office. He's like, we gotta stop making fun of Tim. Like, no, no, we don't. I sent Tim a video from Death Stranding on Friday night, and he didn't even respond to I want you to watch it. And I start playing this video and Nick's just watching goes, this is insane. I know, I know. Like, that's what this game is. It is that level of quirkiness of weirdness. Again, like Kojima being Kojima, you know, coming in and giving you all this stuff to do. And I've plenty of criticisms on it, but I found myself even in the car talking about it. I would make the criticism and then go back to, like, what the mission statement of the game is. Like, what is he trying to say? What is he trying to do here? So for the things that Bump up against me here and, you know, 40 plus hours of it. Like, it's a great game. I think it's a great, great game. I'll be interested to see when I finally roll credits and obviously go back and plow through some more side stuff, what I'm gonna feel like, because I still want to go. I still think some of the most interesting stuff I've seen is the end of those individual threads with the individual people who need you and stuff like that. So it's going to be a fascinating look at this in general. But again, I want to get into all of this. We have so many questions. I have so many things jotted down. I guess where I would want to start is the question of blessing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

What was your style of gameplay when we launched gamescast as a daily product? One of the things we always said was it'd be so great to read other people's reviews and talk to. And talk to each other how this happened and that happened. And so reading Simon Carty on IGN today, reading Midler over at vgc, it was interesting how they tackled situations. How did you play Death Stranding? Because to Jerika's point, you're given so many tools, there's so many different ways to tackle things.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Things. Yeah, it's so funny because I was surprised and delighted the phrase of the year where when I would get to a. A new facility or deliver to a new prepper and they would give you an upgrade or give you an item and they're like, oh, here's this unique grenade thing that I'm not gonna spoil, but, like, it'll do this. And I'm like. And I'm like, wow, I can't believe. First of all, I'm never gonna use that because I don't play that way. Like, there are so many times where I'm unlocking items where I'm like, wait, not for me. Like, not for me. But also, that's cool as you know what I mean? Like, I. That's not even a way that I imagine tricking like the human enemies in the game because they see a. Like I'm putting out a grenade that pretends to be a thing and I'm like, oh, shit. I didn't even think to play that like that. Because when I'm facing human enemies, I'm playing the game like a fucking action game. I'm playing it like a third person shooter. I'm playing it like Metal Gear Solid 4. Honestly, like, I'm going around. It starts off because I. One of the Items you'll get kind of earlier on in the experience is a tranq sniper rifle, which I think is like, the first, like, oh, this is clicking moment for me where I'm like, oh, I can now, if I go to the tower to mark everybody at a base, at an enemy base and then use the sniper rifle to, like, start picking them off one at a time, and then they'll run to me, and then I mow them down. Like, that's sort of my routine when it comes to the human basis. So I was, like, really impressed when I started listening to other podcasts this morning as well. They're talking, like, Jordan Miller was talking about how he was stealth around, and, like, he played it like a stealth game. And I'm like, yeah, I guess you could do that. I had moments where I'm in an enemy base, I need to extract something, and I'm taking out people, and I have one person left, and I, like, I can see that they're on the other side of the base, but the thing I need to extract is right in front of me. And I'm like, I guess I can let that guy just chill, right? In narrative. I'm not killing these people. I'm just knocking them out. So it's like, well, let me just get my bag and leave. Like, fuck that guy, and I'll do that. But earlier on, I referenced Truck Simulator, because that is sort of how I played at a certain point. You. You. You unlock vehicles, I think faster in this game than you did in Death Training one. And one of the vehicles you unlock is a bigger truck that can hold more items and, like, it runs a little slower. But, like, I. You can customize it to, you know, have, like. One of. One of the things I like is that it has, like, a. Like a pulley that'll grab items from the ground as they're driving past them. And after I unlocked that truck, that was the way I navigated the map most of the time. Like, I've been. I've been on the Mario Kart stream we did last week. I was saying a lot of, like, hell, yeah, brother. And, like, honestly, that's my character in Dest Raining, too. Like, it is. It is. It is Norman Reedus with his backwards cap and sunglasses on driving a truck and me being like, all right, let's hit the countryside. We're going to deliver packages. And, like, that was the. The. The. The game for me. Like, the BTS was, I think, were the main thing where I'm like, all right, cool. Abandoned the Truck and I'm going to tiptoe through these BT areas while slowly hitting them with the blood grenades. But, yeah, for me, that was the way that I played Jerrica pretty similarly.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah. I definitely, in the first game, like, I was always hesitant to jump in. Like, I didn't really engage in, like, the mule camps at all because I just always got my butt kicked. And I was like, I'm. They're messing up my deliveries. They're beating up my packages. I don't want to do that. But with Destiny 2, I feel that I've had tools given to me or at least incorporated, like, how I might go about doing this. So combat has been a part of the game that I usually shy away from, but this one I'm engaging. More to your point, like, I love the Sniper. Like, I was using that a lot because I don't want to go hand to hand until later. And we'll get to that later. I actually had a lot of fun with the melee later on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Jerrica Hannah]

But initially, like, I just want to. I don't want to fight right now. I don't want to. I don't want them to, like, mess me up. So, like, let me take them out from a distance or let me trick them and use some of that stealth action to save this. This camp or get whatever materials I'm going to get. But overall, yeah, like, I do love just walking around in this world so much, but that's where it starts taking time. And that's just part of. That's the vibe, you know, you might not want to invest this much time into a game, but if you do and you enjoy that, you're going to have an amazing. But you don't have to. That's what I love about destroying too. Like, you have your. You can play your own way and keep that from beginning to end. It seems so to your point with the bts. And like, I learned exactly, like, how many grenades I needed to take out this great. This bt, and I sort of kept to that pattern the rest of the game. But I will say, like, yeah, like, overall, like, it's. You can play pretty much any way you want to play. I like to explore this world because it is so pretty, though.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, it's a really good world, especially compared to death. Rating 1.

[Jerrica Hannah]

I'm playing on PS5 Pro and I stayed in quality mode the whole time. I did. I normally am a performance gal.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Listen, I like those extra frames when I can, but like it. I don't know that if it's been technically shared what it is on the PS5 Pro yet, but like, it seemed to be at 60fps in 4K. Like it looked awesome. And performance mode looked pretty good too, but I did not get too deep into that. But let me go back. Yeah, it's so pretty and I love going and looking for a place to put down a little stamp to tell people, like, this is a great place to take a picture that's kind of gamer I am. Pokemon Stat was one of my favorite games as a kid growing up. So I like taking pictures of photo modes. Awesome. It's all about the journey at the point where I had to sort of stop doing that because I wanted to get to the end for y' all. Like, I want to get to it where I started, started speeding up. That's where some of my fun left me, like going faster through this game.

[Greg Miller]

So, yeah, it's a game you want to soak in.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Soak in. Take, take your time with and I.

[Greg Miller]

Think you nail it of like, I think again, a lot of reviews we're seeing today are talking about it frictionless for positive or negative reasons, but I think that's done overall in a way to make it your own. What do you want the game to be? And I found that to be refreshing and exciting and definitely an interesting choice that I think works for and against sometimes. And to how do you play the game? Right, Like, I am middler. I'm trained in the trenches of Metal Gear Solid. I am stealthing everything. I am using that fucking rope to choke the shit out of people every time. Oh, yeah, take them down. Cqc, right? And so it was interesting to be in those situations and all right, cool. Sam, thanks for making this delivery. Now we're giving you this gun that does this. I, I, I've never even touched the sniper. Never even. Never did it. Never. I, I think I stealth in, I sneak through. And again, like as I went and played, right? Then I'm getting things that augment that play style as well. I have a whole kit of that I don't use because it's not for me at all. But then you're getting decoy grenades, right, that throw off and you can put up a hologram to distract people over there. You're getting stealth grenades. Toss them down. They'll make like something you can hide behind all these different things. I'm like, okay, cool, this is dope, right? But then it comes into this interesting thing of a criticism I would have for it is the fact that I think since you're giving me all of this and saying, tackle it however you want. I think then the overall quality of those combat scenarios comes down a step where you were talking about shooting a guy, stealth, and then having them come at you, right? And that doing that way. It would be this. There was one stealth run in particular that I then, you know, aped for all my other stealth runs of like, all right, cool, I'm coming in. There's not that much cover. This long bridge. I'm gonna go over. Oh, the guy saw me. Oh, wait, he's coming. This area is so large that this guy's coming at me. And now I can do it. I have a silenced gun. I can take him out or whatever and it doesn't matter. So I would take him out, he's down. Go a little bit further. Another guy would see me, have that guy come here, take him out, right? And it kind of broke the immersion of, like, tighter scenarios where they would see bodies or be turned off by that kind of thing. So again, it was part of my play style of that's how I attached and attacked because I wanted to come in stealthily. But then it kind of was immersion breaking. Like, ah, you're not that smart that you're. That the other guy isn't doing this or calling that in or they didn't see that or hear that. It's a push and pull of. Then you could do it your way and tackle this. You do that. You know, BTS, I'm right there with you, Jerrica. Like, game one, I never enjoyed fighting them. Death Stranding 2. I also don't enjoy fighting them. So I was the same way of like, cool going out. Let's get the blood grenades. Like, I'll just fill my grenade pouch with them because I know it's going to take three, sometimes two to take these guys out, so I'll be ready for it. But then I was also the same thing of I got. I don't remember. And I know, especially reading a lot of the reviews today and the comparisons to Death Stranding 1. Vanilla, not Death Stranding directors, which changed so much, but Death Stranding 1. I really don't remember using vehicles that much. I remember being very. I am the kind of gamer of, like, I'm going out and, oh, man, the battery's down to, you know, a fourth. It's gone down a fourth. I need to stop. I need to like that part of it. I never. So, like, when I started experimenting this time and I got the big cruiser truck and I put on all the extra batteries. It was like, cool. I'm driving this thing everywhere, picking up every piece of cargo, dropping it off all the way, you know, to trying to go to the specific places to get more likes rather than entrusted to somebody else. But it was that idea of like, okay, cool, like I'm driving, driving, driving. There's a BT over there. I'll let the BT notice me. It'll do the tar thing there, but I'll hit the jets and just drive out of the BT tar rather than have to fight him. And even then it's like, it's cool that I have this option, but then I also don't feel like I'm playing the game correctly, but it's what I'm allowed to do. So it's a weird one of like, I don't like it, but I do like it, if that makes sense.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. It's funny hearing people talk about their playstyles because I think something that the game does that I really like is it puts you into the like the mind of its own world, right? Where it's. I, I saw something in one of the reviews where somebody mentioned like, oh yeah, and I'll. I ended up driving over the enemies to kill them. And I was like, I would never have thought to do that because I don't want to cause void outs. Like, you know, like there were times where I was like, I was in a truck and I looked at an enemy and I was like, I could run them over but like that seems risky. So I'm going to get out and like use the non lethal stuff because I have such buy into the world they're building. So like I never, I don't even know what happens if you run somebody over type stuff, right? And like I think that for me that goes for when you unlock a new weapon or you get to a facility and you have the prepper that like is doing the typical Hajima thing where they explain everything and like, and like any detail, right? Like they will talk through a view of. Oh, and I just put together this BT hollow grenade that will do this and this. And if you throw it at an enemy, it's going to do this and this and this. And I'm like, I, even though I know there are people that probably hate that shit, I love that shit because it makes it feel. It makes it feel realer to me, right? And I think in that same way, the more and more I unlocked these things, the more it did feel like I'm breaking the game of it because I Think way more than in death. Rating one in this game. I feel somewhat overpowered, but in a way that I like, because I look at it as like, yo, I'm. I'm Sam fucking Porter Bridges. Like, I am that guy when it comes to delivery. You know, I am that Amazon truck driver. And so, like, you know, I kind of like being able to look at a thing and being like, all right, I got to drive all the way here, or I got to drop off a package all the way here, and I know there's a BT area, and, like, having the inkling of what if I just get in my truck and just fucking drive through it? And I do that, and, like, shit starts go awry, but I still arrive and I still get through it. I ended up enjoying that experience, even though I. I think I felt like you in some ways where I'm like, this is the way the game wants to be played. But also, is there. Is there a game. A way the game wants to be played? Because it is sandbox overall.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And I think that's a big part of what they're trying to do here. What Kojima and team are trying to do is give you that experience of what is your sand Porter Bridges. And I think that works well in times. I think sometimes it works against it. I think, you know, my biggest criticism, especially early on when I was talking to you, and I was like, I don't know, an eight or whatever it. And I think it's changed here at the end in what they're giving me. Story beats wise, but I think for the majority of this adventure, I never looked at Sam Porter Bridges and said, oh, it's Sam Porter Bridges. I looked at him and went, hey, it's Norman Reedus. Like, you know, like, I feel like Norman re. Sam has fewer lines. It feels like in this game, overall, he's a. He's a more quiet protagonist. You do have choices on what you can say at certain points, but those aren't voiced. And so when I have him in this stupid hat that gives him a buff that I'm wearing. You know what I mean? I have him in his sunglasses. Even before I had him the stupid hat with buffs, I had him in the trucker hat that said, why? Why me? Or whatever. He's wearing these sunglasses. I'm like, that is just Norman Reedus on a press tour. We did nothing to his hair. We did nothing to his face. I'm not like. I think the story they tell here on paper sounds very emotional, but I feel like I Would say for my 40 hours, right. 30 of them have not been emotional. Like, you know, I think here at the end we've come together where it's like, okay, now, now I'm with you. Now you're doing it. You're giving me these full fledged cutscenes that are really driving at home. But this is where I argue with myself. One of my problems with the game in terms of my criticism is how clear the gameplay loop is and how much the gameplay loop is. Death Stranding 1. So if you've already played Death Training 1, you already know what I'm, where I'm going to go. But stick with me of like, you go to the terminal, you get the order, you get the thing, you plot out your course, you get there however you want to, which I adore. I'm such a dork about it. I zoom in. I actually put the markers of where I want to go. I'm like, I'm going to do this and navigate up the thing. Great. Get the thing, drop off the order. Great. Go back to your base, go back to the thing. Usually go to sleep in your deal. You wake up, then you wait there, sit in the bed. Somebody barks an order in at you of what's going on, you go up to the terminal again. It's a lot of terminals this time around holograms. Even the people you, you know, the people that you're working with on the Magellan, as we've seen out there, right? Talking to you through hologram form. And it becomes this very isolated loop, which of course is the whole point of death stranding that it's supposed to be. We're isolated as humanity and da, da, da, da, da. And I get all of that. But it didn't. In those. In terms of the grand scheme of it, it didn't drive home. I think the narrative plot point to me of like, hey, we're all disconnected from each other and this is a problem. As much as it drove home like, oh, this is a cheaper, faster way to do a video game of this person's AI giving me the mission and me going off and doing it, rather than me coming back for the big Kojima cut scene that I'd expect right of here, they all are and they're talking, they're interacting because when they do that, there's still no one better. The every cut scene in this game that you actually get, I feel like, holy, that was art. Especially these late game ones. Maybe even halfway through where you really get cooking, where I was like, damn, this is awesome. I wanted more of that, I guess for this. And it felt left me feeling isolated. But I don't think in the isolated death stranding way isolated in the. It's just I'm staring at Norman Reedus while we go deliver these packages to this person.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I, I, I, I find that fascinating because like I think the routine that you're talking about is part of what makes the experience for me. So to back up, I 1000% agree as far as like the Norman Reedus aspect of it. I like if I have, I think as far as my biggest critiques for the game, I think Sam Porter Bridges is too quiet and too like he doesn't have much going on in terms of, I don't want to say the performance because I think Norman Reedus himself does a fine job, right? But I guess as far as character writing and who he is personality wise and all these things and it'd be fine if it was like a silent protagonist situation where he was supposed to be an avatar of the character of or he's supposed to be an avatar for us. But it's not that like there is so much story happening around Norman Reedus into Norman Reedus in this game to where it's like, no, you should have a lot more going on emotionally and expressively and even times where there are cutscenes where he has a moment that's supposed to be interesting or emotional or he interjects in a way. I find that stuff kind of awkward in ways. And he's the only character I have that with every other character is fucking awesome. Like to the point of that you're talking about with like Kojima's delivering that Kojima shit they want as far as cutscenes and all this stuff. But I think dialing it back to us saying as far as routine, I think the one of my, and I don't want to say struggles because I honestly think this is like a really good problem to have. But one of the things I have with this game is that the gameplay loop in the routine of it wants you to exist in this world as a porter. It wants you to do the thing that you're talking about. All right? Go to the facility, you know, take in the order from the terminal, go walk a long distance and like struggle with the conditions of the environment. Get to the next facility, deliver it, go to sleep, wake up and do it all over again. Like there are so many times where I'm pressing X to skip the cutscene of going up the elevator or skip through the Dialogue of like talking to the. To the hologram or do whatever. And I like that because I think routine helps to kind of cement that experience in a video game. But at the same time, I'm also somebody who's really interested in what's going on narratively. And so like I ended up mainlining a lot of this game because I was so fascinated with the story. But I was also sad about mainlining at the same time because I also just want to exist in the world. Like, it's a. It's a really good thing to have where I'm like, oh damn. The gameplay and the story for me personally is like, are both separately so good, but they're kind of at odds with how I want to play the game because I just want to see what happens next.

[Greg Miller]

Understandable.

[Jerrica Hannah]

So it sounds like from hearing your perspectives on that, like what. What could have we seen more of like. Or situations that maybe Sam could have been in where we get more of those moments. Like, for me, I. One thing I'd like to have seen more of, like more interactions. I want the. The preppers to be able to feel like they're real people. Like, I still still feel like they're like holograms and it would have been cool to get to a point where we go further with them and see them outside of their environment.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like a back and forth conversation.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah. Or like with Sam, like it's. You bring it made me think about something because there's a few one off interactions that he has with the crew of the Magellan, which awesome ship by the way. I'm in love with the ship. I love all the sounds it makes. It's great. But there's like one off conversations he has with some of the crewmates and it's almost awkward when he tries to make a joke because he's not normally making jokes. But it's usually just me and Sam. So like Sam ain't gonna talk to me, the player. So maybe we don't get to see those interactions because of that. But I don't know what would be the. What would have helped that situate. What kind of situation would like to have seen him in to get more from Sam?

[Greg Miller]

Let me pull one out here. Okay. Gerald of Rivia Super Chats and says, Greg, how do the themes of the game affect you now that you have a child? Thank you for your great coverage. Of course, Lou, such a big part. Obviously we all know the BB and now we know Lou. I mean, you can't get away from Lou. I think this is one of the disconnects from me and it being Norman Reedus and not saying, like, what could we have gotten more. I think there could have been more talking to Lou. There could have been more talking of being a father. There could have been more of an emotional resonance core there where, again, it feels like it's Norman Reedus. Like, Norman Reedus has been told he has a baby. All right, great. That's what I'm going to go do. Like, I feel like there wasn't enough struggle there. And that then breaks off into the. All right, cool. Something horrific has happened or there's been a scare or whatever. And I'm just in my room sitting. Sitting on my bed, staring at the wall, like, not acknowledging it. And they have things where they try to work around again, the cast surrounding you. Right. We haven't talked about Doll man, right? Oh, yeah, we know Doll man, who you've seen forever in these trailers or whatever. The little marionette puppet, right, that hangs from Sam's belt just like Mamir. Right. But he also hangs in the room. So when you're in bed, you can turn and talk to him and I'll say something or this. And I also think he talks too much in a lot. Like, sometimes when I'm getting my fucking ass handed to me, I'm getting. I got knocked down by a BT or some other boss thing. He's like, oh, my God, Sam, you're bleeding. I'm like, I know I'm bleeding, Doll Man. Thank you. Yes. The packs are working as fast as they work. I can't accelerate that. Is that kind of thing. But it's like, again, not to have that back and forth from him, I think is right for as silent as he is as a protagonist, that then puts. I don't feel like he's silent because I'm projecting onto him. I feel like he's silent because he's got nothing going on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think, you know, Jerrick mentions that it's us and Sam.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But, yeah, you often forget that Dollman is there. And I think in the same way that we're referencing the mirror from God of War, like, Kratos talks to Mimir. Mirror talks a lot to Kratos. Right. Like, there's conversations happening there. And I think for, you know, there's a big emotional beat slash theme of the game that centers around CN Porter Bridges and, like, what he's going through in the moment of this game. Right. And, like, I think there's so much meat on the bone there, that is maybe a little bit explored through Sam Porter Bridges. And maybe that's. Maybe that's what they're doing through a lot of his, like, kind of quiet nature in it. But I think it would have been much better explored. Yeah. Having him having like more conversations with Doll man.

[Greg Miller]

Because.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, to your point, like, yeah, Doll man speaks up and Dalman is very different from Mimir in the way that, like, I think Dolman, he does the Kojima thing of he speaks up in mechanical, like, situations of.

[Greg Miller]

Let me explain this thing you already know that's happened to you right now. I'm like, I'm aware of what's happening. Doll Man. Thank you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Exactly.

[Greg Miller]

Like, and that's the main thing is, like, my relationship with Doll man is I'm annoyed by him most of the time. I don't. I don't. He. I loved Mimir. I do not love Doll Man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's funny because they, in this game, they do a lot more of those music cues where you're making delivery and like, as you're approaching it, like a song will pop up. Carolyn Polachek on the beach.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But like.

[Greg Miller]

Roger Picorni. Thank you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. Roger Picorney. But in the. They do that to like one build that. Build up that emotion, but then also fill in the silence between some of these moments. Right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, Doll man is right there. Like, I would have loved to hear a story from Doll Man, I think. And like, they have that in the DJ Fema Jellin sometimes where he's a bit more casual with just having conversations.

[Greg Miller]

But see, this is the weird one too, where this is me wanting my cake and to eat it too, or whatever. Right? Where it's like. I think the music cues work. I think when that pops up, that works really well because it usually is. The game knows I'm setting off on something that's going to take me a second. So let's give you a. Like, this soundtrack has such a like, clear through line of like, what it all is. And like, not all of it's my kind of music. Well, I guess in the majority of it because it's very somber instrumental. I'm not a music guy, but, you know, metal. Not metal, like metal, but like sterile is what I would, you know, I guess I describe it, right? And so like when that shit kicks up and it's like low roars doing whatever, I'm like, fucking. This works for what I'm doing as I drive through this snowy landscape on this, you know, truck that I've Outfitted with snow tires and I can go up, like, vertical slopes and all this shit, because I'm just going to fucking drive everywhere and do it. Like, there's a push and pull to it that I don't know the right answer. I think it's more like I could have just gone for more cutscenes, more introspection, more seeing Sam struggle with what is going on, what he has to deal with here, rather than just be silent the entire way.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, more cutcenes.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

I don't. I don't think you had enough cut.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Scenes until I agree.

[Greg Miller]

I think we're. I think we are. As somebody who's at the end, right. Within, again, an hour and a half. Like, it literally was yesterday's. Multiple hours of it where I was like, oh, now we're. Now it's a Kojima game. Now we're. And even then, they're not super long at. While we are looking at this again, you mentioned this, and I just want to shout it out. They're not super long. Like, you know, sometimes where you put the controller down for Metal Gear 4 or 5, whatever. We're looking at a hig scene right now. Troy Baker out here doing his business. I know Troy Baker. Obviously, he's a friend of mine, like, a personal one. I think this might be my favorite Troy performance.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I agree 100%.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, I'm saying that as somebody who loves Last of Us and. And like. But like, to see Troy be a villain and to see Troy go full into it and it be his face and all this, like, he fucking rocks in this game. Yeah.

[Jerrica Hannah]

It was. One of the highlights of my whole experience is seeing Higgs and his space and Troy bringing that to life was just insanely cool. Like, it gives me goosebumps, like, going back and like, thinking about some of those scenes that he was in.

[Greg Miller]

And again, I think that's. We're seeing. I was seeing so much of him here at the back half, right, where it's like, now he's really doing the thing and he's really eating the scenery and he's being a. He's being a dick and he's doing this thing and he's arguing. He's always got. He's one upping him every.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's so funny because in. In interviews, Kojima talked about Neil1 being that character who he sees as the Mads Mikkelsen role in this game. And like, because it's pretty much exactly.

[Greg Miller]

The same in terms of the setup of, you know, him and the soldier The Flaming Head guys.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But in, in casting the actor for Neil, right, he was talking about wanting to get somebody that could like live up to that Mads Mikkelsen performance. And I'm like, Neil's great in the game, don't get me wrong. But like, I'm like, bro, bro, look at Troy Baker. Like he put on a performance thing that I think people are going to look back on and be like, yo, that was sick. Remember this?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. But I think again, like, that's the interesting thing too is like, I. It's so hard to play this, watch it, embody it, right? And then start really thinking about the behind the scenes of it, right? Because obviously today, Okojima and it's him bringing all these celebrities and doing all these different things. Whether as I'm watching, I'm like, man, I don't feel like I'm getting as much Norman as last time. I wonder if that's a pricing thing, right? Oh, El Fanny's in here, man. She's a pretty quiet character, you know. But meanwhile, Troy is fucking guitar man out there doing this shit and fucking doing accents and yelling and screaming and it's like a fudge. This is awesome. You know what I mean?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I'm sort of thankful it worked out that way if that's the case because like, those were definitely some of the best moments in the game.

[Greg Miller]

And it's like Tar man talks so much. But of course it's just George Miller face doing the things I'm like, that makes sense as well. But so it's like, I don't know, like that's one of the things of playing this game and it's so interesting. On two different experiences staying with me, I went two different lines. Now, it's not a joke. Don't worry, I'll make it fast. Right? But I want to go to Superman in review, right, where when we were doing Superman the movie and talking about all this and I was telling all these behind the scenes stories leading up to it, I talked about how Dick Donner, the director of Superman was like, Superman needs to be an unknown. Otherwise if they wanted like, you know, Robert Redford and Paul Newman and like, it would be Paul Newman in the Superman suit, it wouldn't be Superman. And I feel like that's a lot of the characters here, specifically Sam Porter Bridges, where I had such a hard time getting in line with what he was going through and where he was emotionally because I don't think he giving enough to me for it. But also the fact that it was Just fucking Norman Reedus. It was just Norman Reedus with no bells and whistles, where even Troy looks like the Joker to some degree. And I think you could glance and be like, he looks like the Joker, but his performance is so amazing that I think it takes away from whatever he looks like. Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'll say, like, it's also. I'll bring in Leah Seydoux into the. Into the conversation, the actress who plays Fragile, where, like, it's in very stark contrast to normal Reedus, where she brings such emotional depth and such like, personality in such like a, Like a different emotional, like, part of the spectrum than like what you see out of Troy Bakers, because Troy's this extreme madman. But yeah, Fragile is this, like, emotional. Like, she kind of centers the story. Like, in some ways I almost feel like she's even more of a main character than Norm reader sometimes. Even though, like, 100%. But, like, fragile is for me the center of the story here.

[Greg Miller]

She has, I think, way more three dimensional space.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Three dimensional space, more to do. And like, she. She, I think, lives up to the task of delivering on that. Yeah, I think when. When we get to the end of the year, we're talking about video game performances. Like, there's so much to highlight in this game, but I. I totally feel you as far as I. I don't think Norman Reedus is like one of those things to highlight. And that's not by the fault of Norman Reedus. I think maybe it is. I had the same thought of, like, availability or you couldn't have him in the studio for that long. I do want to go back and talk about.

[Greg Miller]

Can I make one other point? Listen, if we don't do here, I won't do it. Superman, we're doing. In review, one of the things Nick called out in Superman 2 was that it's 2. Right. Tim was talking about, I can't believe how intrinsically tied it is to one. I think it's the same thing here. I thought it was interesting, Jerrica, that you said you could recommend this to somebody without playing the first one. Where I think, like, they're two halves of a whole. Where it is like, I think without one, I think you jump in like, what is the Chiral Network? What is it? Whereas we're all like, okay, got it. Yeah, no problem. Floating shadow people with umbilical cords. I'll go kill them, don't worry. But it's like, I think this game does such a great job of being a continuation of Death Stranding 1, but. And I'd be interesting eventually for you, Jerik, on this topic. I played this and I was very much before reading reviews today, like, yeah, it's Death Stranding, like, whatever. And then so many people today talking about, oh, well, it's better, you know, it's cleaned up and it's frictionless and it's done this where this is what my rose colored glasses of Death Stranding 1 were. I don't remember being frustrated by not having as many weapons or as many tools or as many things. But I know that they changed that in the PC director's cut we talked about. But before then, I want to jump back to you. Sorry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Well, I want to bring it back to the conversation about the Kojima, the Kojima ness of this game. That was one of the conversations that I remember having with you at lunch last week where, you know, it feels like I remember one of the big criticisms I would hear from people with Death Stranding 1 around the review period was that, man, Kojima needs an editor. Like, we gotta, we gotta put some leashes on what this man is doing as far as like how crazy we'll get with cutscenes and we're old and all this shit, right? This game felt like Kojima had an editor. Like, this played completely like he had somebody, he had people that were like reeling him back a little bit. And like, I felt that, but also I kind of liked it because we still got the crazy cutscenes, we still got the weird ass and cool ass story beats. We still got, I think, enough Kojima ness out of it. But at the same time, like, you want to talk about this being the direct sequel to Death Straining one, like, this is one of the few times, if not maybe like the first time on this level that Kojima is making a sequel that straight up. All right, here's the game again, but better. Like, with Kojima, you're always getting some kind of redefining. You're always getting a, oh, it's a prequel this time, or, oh, it's a different character. Oh, it's, you know, he's old now. Like there's. It's open world. There's always like some big shift in terms of one Kojima game for the next, even within the same series. Death Training one or Death Training two is, is Death Straining one two. You know, it's a death stranding.

[Greg Miller]

It's a Part two.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a. It's a Part two that is doing the rare Kojima thing of just being able to look at all the feedback, looking look at everything and go, all right, let's make this better. All right, let's make this frictionless. Okay, let's maybe like edit down or pace out the cutscenes better so that you're not front loaded with all this shit. All right, let's make them maybe not as long they don't have to be one hour long cutscenes, you know what I mean? At every corner of this game it feels like the team looked at ways to make this more frictionless than the last and I fully felt that.

[Greg Miller]

I want to hear about your comparison to the old death stranded director's cut, but first I want to remind you we couldn't do this without your support. On patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funny games Apple and Spotify. That's where you can pick up the Kinda Funny membership to get all of our shows ad free and of course get your daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsors.

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[Greg Miller]

And Jerrica.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Back to you.

[Jerrica Hannah]

So thinking back at the first game, like I, I was saying, like, this is my type of vibe. I don't mind walking around, exploring and being in the moment and taking cool pictures. But I went back and played Director's Guys because I've actually never played the director's cut of this game. So like I went back and played it a little bit before dive into two and immediately I was like, oh, I. It was, I was still having fun making deliveries and exploring this world. But I remembered like as I was playing through two, why I sort of got a little bit more bored with desktop one. And it was because. And what finally hit with destroying two is the change in environments, I think. And knowing that when I would get a mission so instead of point A to point B through Iceland basically the whole time and destroying one because I feel like the environment didn't change a whole lot other than when you got to go up a mountain like once or twice for this mission and you left it. But in Destiny 2, to me, I feel like the environment, so obviously it's way larger. But as soon as I'd get a new mission to go to a new spot or the direction was a new outpost that I hadn't been to yet was always super exciting to me. And that got it. That's where the hook started really getting me in. Like, I want to go to the next location, the next prepper. I want to meet them and see what they have. And that journey for that mission like took me to a new environment. Or introduced me to a new. A river that wasn't just. It was a creek a second ago, but now it's like a overflowing river. All these changing waters, the weather, and, like, the night and day cycle, like, really up the ante when it comes to, like, making sure that you're not. I feel like, like I said in the first one, it gets real repetitive. The game is repetitive, but I think the environment and the choices they make here in the second one make it way more. Even encourages you to go explore more, because there's just so much to look at.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The world feels, like way more alive in this one. I think a lot of that is, like, the, like, all the weather system stuff that you're talking about, right. Where if it's. Sometimes when it rains, the water levels in the rivers will rise, which changes how you need to navigate the environment, because a ladder might not work to get you across that river. You might need a bridge this time, which I think is really smart. You have, like, sandstorms and stuff that'll come through and, like, you know, create a way more aggressive environment. Like, I. All that shit, I think, is so fucking cool. Like, I remember the first. It was probably halfway through the game where. Well, there's early on in the game where there's a sandstorm. But then, like, halfway through the game, there was, like, another natural sandstorm. It's not like a. Like a scripted thing. Like, it's a thing that just happens, right? And I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna drive through the sandstorm, see what happens. It's directly in my path for where I'm trying to go. And it was like, a harrowing, like, oh, man. This reminds me of driving in, like, a bad storm in real life. Like, whenever you have that experience of, like, okay, well, everything's gonna be fine. Even though my heart's kind of beating a little bit. I was having those experiences in this game, and I think, technically one of the coolest things I've seen in this game are when there are these gatequakes that happen, which are essentially earthquakes, but they're caused by, I believe, the plate gates.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yes.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That are popping up.

[Greg Miller]

You'll learn more about those when you. Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Plate gate. That's how you get to Australia.

[Greg Miller]

But, you know, don't worry.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Don't worry about it. But the gate quakes happen, and, like, they just. They're earthquakes that happen, you know, sometimes. But then every now and then, you'll see, like, a gate quake happen and then a piece of the mountain. Like, there'll be an avalanche on the. On the mountain. That'll happen naturally. Or, like, if you're in a big snow area, like, you'll see, like, a snow avalanche or you'll see things fall and topple over. And that feels like, technically such a step forward in AAA video games. Like, it's like, I don't see, like, that often. That happens, like, naturally in the environment.

[Greg Miller]

When I. When I. Yeah. I had a quake, the first quake I had when I was climbing a mountain, I was like, oh, I wonder if this will cause an avalanche. And Domino's like, oh, my God, it's an avalanche. Like, oh, you know what I mean? Ran off and, like, got behind a rock and just let it plow past me. And I was like, that's a nice touch of like, oh, that's cool that this is happening so this should happen. And then it actually happens. Like, damn, that world does feel alive. It is stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

In back to it of like, you know, there's animals running around in this world. Right. In Australia, you're supposed to capture for one of the sanctuaries that I believe the sanctuary people. I probably shouldn't say anything about that, but it's like, I don't think that's a spoiler, but I want to save that reveal for yourself or whatever. But there's animals to capture and there's all these different things. The environments do change. The weather. Yeah. Whether it be a sandstorm or a timefall storm or whatever. Night and day. Like, you're talking about, like, there is enough going on that I think when I reviewed Death Stranding 1 with everybody back in the day, I kept saying, you know, this is a meditative game for me. I distinctly remember being in a snowy area and being in Quebec City playing it with snow outside falling. Right. And it was like such. A. And it was just me get the package and go deliver the package. And I think, yeah, for me, it's so fascinating because I would never. Even though it is, I would never describe the gameplay as repetitious because I think all gameplay is. You can only do so much in a video game. So of course I'm swinging my sword. That's, you know, repetition after 30 hours. But the varied nature of it. I mean, I would describe this. Everything that surrounds getting to the gameplay is repetitive, which I think, again, is on purpose for what they're trying to set up. I do think there'd be ways to make that less frictionless. Like when I want to skip the fucking cutscene of Putting it in to deliver it to the guy. Don't make me hit the button. And then it goes resume or skip. I'm like, let me skip or whatever. And then every time, the guy, the, you know, hologram guy. Oh, thanks, Sam. Let me check what you did. Wow, they're in pristine condition. I'm like, all right, skip, skip, skip. I don't need this part of this. You know what I mean? Anyways, though, the gameplay itself doesn't. And that is the joy of this game. It's. It's very much the same thing of why I didn't want to rush through it, why I wanted to go see it. You know, I'll beat it this afternoon, but it's gonna be one that lives on my PlayStation, because there's gonna be those nights I'm just like, Damn, I got 15 minutes. Let's do a delivery. Let's run it off. Let's see how this one. I didn't finish this side quest. Let's see how this.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Some of them pay off in bigger ways this time around. So, like, you know, I'm not gonna get into, like, specifics with it, but I ended up doing a mission, and that just went in a totally different direction than I was envisioning and was such a fun surprise. And there's, like, a couple of things in there that, like, I can envision.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The one that you might be okay.

[Jerrica Hannah]

You know, And I just wonder if there's more of those moments that maybe I've seen skipped over this one. Yeah. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's not what I was thinking of.

[Greg Miller]

Have you seen this one?

[Jerrica Hannah]

No.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

There's multiple of those ones, Right.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, but the payoff to that.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, I don't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I guess not that.

[Greg Miller]

Can I show it? I'm not gonna play audio, but you could. You have such a good live reaction face that I'd love to see you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This one, I'm so fascinated because. Yeah. Is that, like, you complete all of those orders?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I wanted more of that.

[Greg Miller]

So you haven't seen this?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I'm not seeing this. Oh, I like that hat.

[Greg Miller]

You ring well. That's the goofy fucking hat or whatever, right? To make it go. Oh, yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I've not seen this.

[Greg Miller]

So this again, to your point, Jerrica, right? Of like, I finished this one. And this is again where I was like, oh, thank God I did all these, because this is, like, one of my moments of the fucking game.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What the fuck, right?

[Greg Miller]

And Nick watched this, and he's like, this is insane. I'm like, this is the Game. It's like, this is like the coolest shit. And the fact that this is hidden behind just a side quest to go do that you want to talk about.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, that's fucking awesome.

[Greg Miller]

Me wanting to go see every one of these. Like, as soon as I got this, I was like, oh, well, I have to prioritize going and doing all these because what else is hidden exactly?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh my God. Have you played a specific song for. For Doll Man?

[Greg Miller]

No.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Oh, I haven't. I missed. Okay.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Y' all gotta talk to Doll man more in the Dharma.

[Jerrica Hannah]

I did. I talked to him a lot. He told me he didn't want to talk to me anymore. He didn't have anything else to say.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's crazy.

[Greg Miller]

If you think I didn't screen grab this and I won't be using this ad nauseam from here on up.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's crazy.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And like that's again like the power of what they have here. And again what I think like, you know, as I'm. You guys are the reviews that matter. You've rolled credits and all this stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And as I finished a half away from rolling credit.

[Greg Miller]

I know, I know, but I mean like, not only that, but it's also like I also love some distance from it, you know, I mean of like this, the run up to this playing as much as I can, doing all this different stuff, trying to get it like if there's more experiences like I think because this won't be done in an hour and a half if it turns out that there's more of this happening in the world. Yeah, that's where I'm like, damn, there's so much more. I want to go see so much. I want to go experience and do and have. Right?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Like that's, that's what makes the game special. I also think something's interesting that we haven't talked about at all in this review, but we talked so much about it in the 2019 review. Is collaborating with others. And I think this comes as a double edged sword for us as reviewers when we. We've had code, what since Switch to launch week. Which is why I'm way behind. Had to go to sgf, had to do switch to coverage. But when that came that we were given two weeks where all the people playing are, you know, building the bridges here. I'm setting up my charging station. All this different stuff. Building out this world together as you will when you get this game, if you connect it online, which I assume you would and you should. Right. Just like death stranding One was. And I think there's so many things there that have been upgraded and tweaked and friction. More frictionless. And I was shocked by even our little reviewer pool. The amount of things that were built out there, whether they be bridges or ladders or drops or signs or this. Right. This past week, it's been off. And so, like, there for me playing. I know you beat it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think I beat it before it went off. Then you.

[Greg Miller]

For me playing and really putting in the hours, it's gone from the opening in all these opening areas. Just a bevy of things and whatever. And now it's just dead quiet.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No way.

[Greg Miller]

So it's only me building my own.

[Jerrica Hannah]

It's very depressing.

[Greg Miller]

I'm carrying the PCC with me. Throw it down. I need a charging station here on this mountain or whatever. And so I'm so excited to see that. Come back online with everybody tonight and have a far different experience, I think, playing. Because one of the things we talked so much about in the original review was Andy saying, oh, you got to be online for this. It's such a better experience to see this. And even in the beginning here where it was like, oh, Yong Ye built this station. Thanks, Young. You know what I mean? Like, that little thing. Granted, it won't always be like that because, you know, we're going to see strangers out there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's so funny because, yeah, like, for the second half of the game, the social stuff became so key for me, where I look at a destination and I'm like, oh, all right, that's tough terrain. Should I drive a truck? And I'll look at the map and see that somebody built a generator in the perfect spot. And I'm like, that's perfect for battery. All right, we're going. Like, I can actually do this. And, like, there was some big, like, later game parts where I'm like, all right, fuck. I got a big delivery to make. And it really was online stuff that really pulled it together for me, like, being able to make some of those deliveries.

[Jerrica Hannah]

And so I found myself doing more of that this time. Like, usually I'm just the one liking stuff. Like, thank you. I'm lazy. I don't have time to build this. But this game, I was looking for more opportunities. Not because, like, we're obviously reviewing it and getting to it before other people are playing, but really I saw more opportunities to help just because of the different types of environments. And, you know, there's like, one area that you go to that's just like these Like, I forget. I don't know what they're called. I'm not a geologist, but it's some kind of rock towers, like, and you're having to, like, get up and around them. Yeah, that sounds right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Tights. Yeah. I think stalactites hold tightly to the ceiling.

[Jerrica Hannah]

One makes it, whichever ones come from the ground.

[Greg Miller]

Like, tights, I think, make the T on the ceiling. So.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Okay, there we go.

[Greg Miller]

They're the select heights, but there's just.

[Jerrica Hannah]

A lot of different types of ways you have to get around the terrain. Where I see more opportunities to help. Oh, like, someone might go this way. Like, I did.

[Greg Miller]

Yep.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Let me put the generator right here. So I did find myself doing more of that during my playthrough.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Again, I'm excited tonight to see that all come online. And I hope it keeps the stuff we already built as Ryu so we see where other people are putting it, because, yeah, there were plenty of times where it was like, damn, I could really use something. And early on, it was everywhere. It was everywhere. And that's why it was even easier, I think, to use vehicles and do all this different stuff.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Did you guys try to set up the monorail?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Here's the thing. Early on, yes. Because other people were contributing. Yes. Later on, when it's just me, it's like, it needs all these. And I'm like, I guess technically, I could drive to all these different places and get my resources that I've left at all or I've earned at all these places. But I was like, no, I got to get going. I got to move on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I tried to make it happen because, like, the game starts to send you back and forth a little bit. I was like, man, it'd be really nice to do this. But, yeah, it's just a lot of material. And, like, for me, for. In my review brain, I was like, all right, I just got to. I just got a trot forward. But I do love the idea. One of my favorite things in games is to see a system set up for people with more potential than me. Of course, when I first, like, got to the mines, and I was like, oh, this is purely for generating resources. And the monorail will help you transport resources from place to place. Oh, that's for, like, the top tier of player. Like, that's not for me, because I'm not thinking about resources on that level. I do the resource stuff when I can. Like, if I see some chemicals or some fucking, like, ceramics just out and about, I'll pick them up. I'll put them in my D Magellan for safe storage for when I need them. But I do, I do love. I love the prospect of when the game is out for Everybody, probably seeing YouTube videos or TikToks or whatever of people doing crazy shit as far as like what they're building. And death rating too, because I think the minds are going to enable that.

[Greg Miller]

By a lot, a thousand percent too. And I'll be interested to see. You know, I thought one of the cool things that they added here was these teleporters. You know what I mean? When you put down your pcc, you can use these teleporters to teleport to certain situations, which, again, frictionless. Let's make it easier. What are people's complaints? Of course you can't take your cargo with you, but I could easily see it, of course, psychos like Jericho or people who are just playing it for the first time be like, you know what? Tonight I'm only going to go to the mines and just work on the streets and just do this thing.

[Jerrica Hannah]

And you know, I can't wait.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, dying to do that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

One thing I want to compliment is the like, art direction and like, overall like visual design of the game. Like, Yojo Shinkawa has been a long time collaborator with Kojima and like, you know, we know him for the art of Metal Gear and all that stuff. I think he continues to kill it here. Like, obviously a lot of this is taken from Death's training one, but I, I will forever be impressed when I am looking at Sam Porter Bridges and I see like him. I see like, you know, a package hanging off the left arm, another one off the right arm. Like, you know, shoes dangling, you know, big old backpack full of things that are stacked up on top of each other. And it all looks so like it. I mean, it all looks, I guess, like. I don't know if industrial is the word I'm looking for, right? But like it looks made for a job. It looks made for. This is like this purpose. Like purpose. Right. But it also looks cool at the same time.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Like workwear.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, it's work trendy, but it like has a visual distinction to it that I really with. And there's that. And then also, yeah, like the Higgs slash, like the robot or cyber samurai guy that keeps popping up. Like, I fucking love looking at that shit.

[Jerrica Hannah]

What a spectacle. Like all the cutscenes with this and going towards, like when you start approaching the end, like, I was just strapped in and ready to go and to the point where I'M like, some things. I know this might go over some people's heads, but to the point, like, it almost moved me to tears because it just was so badass. Like I never had something so badass like move me to tears is a weird emotion. Oh yeah, it was different.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I love it.

[Greg Miller]

I want to get to the gajillion super chats we have, but I want to start, I want to end, I guess with this one question topic. Where are we at with Hideo Kojima games in boss fights with death training too? I feel like, you know, we are also here on the precipice of Metal Gear Solid Delta coming out. Oh, the end. Oh, the, you know, Metal Gear Solid. Oh, Vulcan Raven, Psycho Mantis boss. Like the pantheon of amazing boss battles you get out of Hideo Kojima games. But from the previous ones, Death Stranding 1. I remember being like, I'll fighting BTs. Especially the big ones where it fills up and I jump from bus stop to bus stop. Never that interesting. I don't remember anything really beyond that. That got me. And then playing this one, I'm in the same boat. I'm just like, the combat for me isn't the thing in Death Stranding. It is better, sure, but it is still like, I don't know, it's better. One of the other letdowns for me was like, we talked. I know this is very top level, but like, oh, Neil's just like Mads Mikkelsen. So you already know what the Mad Mikkelsen fights were like. These fights I feel are the same thing. I was like, this isn't that interesting or enjoyable. The carrot, the end of stick is getting to the cutscene to find out what is going on. What the fuck is going on. I like that part of it, but the actual gameplay of it. Not feeling with it, nor am I challenged by it. Then the big stuff here where the, you know, fight a big bad. It's also like these aren't okay, shoot. Red weak point. I got it. Like, you know, it's like I don't feel like I. These are ones I'd rather see as a really cool cutscene than me get in here and have a I feel stilted fight with a giant thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

For me it's the gameplay versus the spectacle of it. Because I think spectacle wise the boss fights are like 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10. Like I think the Neil stuff in terms of the environments they put you in and the situations and like the visuals of it are all the way there. That's cool.

[Greg Miller]

The visuals are cool. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But yeah, then, like, you get into the actual gameplay, it really is point and shoot. Which does bring me back a bit to, I think metal gear solid 4. I know the beauty and the beast might have had like their own unique things going on, but I think I. I think this is most similar to that. As far as I agree with that, a lot of the being the beasts were just shoot them.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And like chase after.

[Greg Miller]

This one's flying.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

This one's got tentacles.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I. I mean, I think there's a larger conversation to have about Kojima and Kojima boss fights because I still think that, like, overall, I think he delivers for what I want out of them in my taste for them. But I do think time has passed him a little bit. I do think mechanically, like, there's got to be a little bit more going on in these things. I think gameplay wise, like, you might have to think it's crazy to think that, like, Kojima needs to think out the box. Right. But I think. I think gameplay wise, like, I could see it. I totally understand where. Where you're coming from. Even though spectacle wise, I think he's still top tier. I think he's still there.

[Jerrica Hannah]

That is why I'm at a 9.5 and not out of 10 is some of the combat and some of the interactions that you have. Like, to your point, really, I was looking for more like environmental, like situations that I've had to figure out to destroy a boss, you know. Yeah. Versus me just trying to shoot this thing as much as I can. Absolutely despise the BT battles. Don't like them. I hate being in the tar. Slows me down. It's a horrible feeling. And really not too much evolved from that, those type of fights in the second game. But yeah, you make a good point. And I think because this whole set, it's like a set piece. It's a. It's a movie. Why won't he take more advantage of the environments? And like, it's so pretty and. Oh, and that was really cool. But like, yeah, I'm just shooting the boss over and over. So that didn't. That didn't win me over.

[Greg Miller]

And again, this is the push and pull of. Yeah, can eat it too. Where it's like, on the one hand, this is it. Every time before I set off on a mission, I'm so particular about what I'm picking. Do I need this? I'm never gonna need a climbing thing. I'll do that. Blah, blah, blah. Then Boss fights, you get into them and it's like, I don't find this that engaging or interesting. And then there's all. There's just machine guns and grenade launchers all over the ground.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Which of course is good because I'd be annoyed as hell to be in this boss fight and only have like my rope. But then on the other hand, it's just like, well, why am I doing this? Like, this just. This isn't. Again, this is taking me away from the gameplay I actually like. But I feel like they're building a game that's trying to appeal to everyone all at once, even though they say they're not.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I think. I also think thematically they're trying to lean more into like the sticks as opposed to the ropes.

[D]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, I think this game, there's a big.

[Greg Miller]

Multiple reviews call out the fact that that's a direct line. Right? Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, they love talking about sticks and ropes and they love leading in. I think in this game, one of the taglines to it is, should we have connected? And I think, and I remember doing the Kojima interview for the preview and he talked about over the pandemic and with the state of the world and stuff. Right. Like, he kind of had the personal realization of like, oh, maybe we need more sticks. Like, maybe maybe we should lean more towards sticks than ropes sometimes. Which is a scary thing for him to say. But also like, I think part of that kind of lends itself to why there's like more action y stuff going on in this game. Why there's more shooty shoot. But yeah, I would have loved. To your point, I think I would have loved to see more outside the box thinking as far as like, you know, when I think about my favorite Kojima boss fights, I think about Psycho Mantis. Right. Which was like, of course, you know, having to figure out like, oh, unplug the thing, replug it and then the end. Which is way more cerebral and made more of a sniper battle and having to track him down and doing all that stuff. I think those are when he shines the most, when he can figure out a new way to like make us think about gameplay. But yeah, like, most, if not all the boss fights here are. Yeah, just chase and shoot and it's not as interesting.

[Greg Miller]

I want to get some super chats and this is our chance to answer your questions based on all the reviews you're seeing of Death Tranny 2 today. Of course. YouTube.com kinda funny games I see Wiener says, is Raj in the credits I don't believe so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't remember seeing Roger's name.

[Greg Miller]

I haven't. I haven't rolled them yesterday.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I guess I didn't. I didn't really like paying attention a lot.

[Greg Miller]

Special thanks there. Nobody knows. We'll figure that one for you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I would assume not. They would have to reach out to Roger to put him in the credits, right?

[Greg Miller]

I don't think so.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

For a special thanks.

[Greg Miller]

No. Maybe. No. I don't know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Big letters. Kind of funny, all of us that were all in the credits.

[Greg Miller]

Remember that one time where he was like. I think it was in one of the podcasts where he just called him like a foreigner. He just thinks a foreigner. How die doot1e? How similar are the controls and menus to Death Stranding 1?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think the biggest change is the Audra deck button to scan is on L1 instead of R1. That fucked me up for a long while.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Playing this game. But they do. I think they improve the menu system, like the, like in game menu system. Now D Pad is responsible for bringing up multiple, like, types of menus. Like, you have, like, your little wheel that you'll use to rotate of. Like, all right, I want to look at weapons. I want to look at grenades. I want to look at items or whatever. And I think that's. I like that as 100%.

[Jerrica Hannah]

It was easier, definitely, in those combat encounters just having that sort of simplified and separated. And then one thing I would wish, like, because, like, one thing that also threw people off was just, like, how many things you have to micromanage. And like, when you are picking up cargo, like, where is this going? I do wish there was, like, a capture all button. And maybe y' all correct me, I couldn't select all, but I could select all, but I couldn't, like, put it all in a different spot or when you're picking up cargo, there was a thing that I'm like, why can't I pick up all of these at once and put it here?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I see.

[Jerrica Hannah]

And, like, you can, but you also can't like it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel like if you, like, you're saying if, like, a bunch of things are on the ground. Yeah, I would assume that if you press pause and go to cargo management. But yeah, I guess I don't know how that works.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, I don't know. But there's, like, some small nitpicky things like that. But overall, like, it's really easy to manage. I'm still using that auto. Like, they added the auto arrange feature where it puts. I use that all the time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And they added it just in like.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah. Thank God.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Press like left D pad and hit it.

[Jerrica Hannah]

You can have like a shortcut. Yeah. To it. Yeah, it's handy.

[Greg Miller]

Adem two times. How does it feel delivering packages? Do BTs screw you every 10 minutes like in death Stranding. I love the story so much, but that element let me down a tad. Has any of that been improved? Slash changed?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I didn't feel like it was that often in the first game, but maybe I'm wrong, but definitely don't feel that in this one because, you know, it's been a long time since I played the first one, but I don't feel like that's over every 10 minutes. And then also it might depend on the day and night cycle too, and what. What's going on in that region.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Again, I. I don't enjoy fighting bts. I felt like I saw them and again, this is trying to remember a 2019 game, but I felt like I saw them far fewer times than I did in Death Stranding 1. And in the same vein, back to this, like bringing down the difficulty or making it too frictionless. Timefall was also never a concern for me. I don't know if that was for y' all, where it's like, oh, I. I like drove by backtracking out of a space or yeah, last night. And it was like, oh, from the very beginning, here's a Timefall shelter. And it's like, I haven't used that once here. And I remember in Death Stranding 1 it being a legitimate fear of like, oh, I gotta. It's raining, I gotta go. But here it just never did. I think they've lessened how that really hurts.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I agree with that.

[Greg Miller]

Jeremy P. Has a question that sounds spoilery, but I don't think it is. So excited for destroying to. Not sure if you can discuss this, but is there a post game chapter where you can wrap up side content after the story, like in Death Stranding 1? Also, any plans for a spoiler cast later on? Spoiler cast? All options are on the table and that's a great idea. We'll probably end up doing that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I would imagine to keep it spoiler free. I'll say you can keep playing the game after you finish it.

[Greg Miller]

Good enough. Demon Hacker says any changes made to zip lines. Loved zipping. I never zipline.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, really?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I'm a big zip line.

[Greg Miller]

I'm not a zipper. I've never even destroy anyone. I was like, no, I don't fuck with this.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And he's really.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Jerrica Hannah]

And the first one, could you, like, use the monorail? Like, what is that extra zip line? You know, I'm talking about, like. I don't remember. Because you can grab a monorail, like, zip line and use that. If you have another zip line, you can actually zip to that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't know if I didn't.

[Jerrica Hannah]

You can do that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's cool.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah. An extra way of zipping around.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Interesting.

[Jerrica Hannah]

I can't think of anything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel like they work a lot.

[Jerrica Hannah]

You can change, like, the trajectory of the zip line itself. Like, it can now curve or go up or down.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No way.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, because that's. You can change the. The way it goes around. So, like, if there's a mountain here, I can go over there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, that's super cool. I. It's funny because I never built zip lines. I just always use the zip lines that were there for me.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And so that's actually really good to know.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Danny in the middle of the live chat, says, how the fuck did Greg even play Death Stranding 1? So many things he didn't interact with. What do you mean? Like that? We just talked about how this whole game is played, how you want to play it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I just play it like a regular joke.

[Greg Miller]

I played it like I wanted to walk around. I didn't want to use my resources on zip lines. It's pretty simple, actually. These resources I'm protecting, all right, I'm using them on my shit. And I was listening to the review. I got scolded by Fran and Andy because they were like, oh, yeah, I'm putting resources into the streets. And so I'm like, I never fucking do that. I use them, but I don't use them. It's like, oh. And he's like, you're that, take a penny, leave a penny. You don't leave a penny.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

For real. I'm like, anytime I see a request for, like, a structure or whatever, I'm always fulfilling it if I can.

[Greg Miller]

Bobby Joe Blessed. Did they actually change anything from the game demo you all took part in?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The one thing I noticed was when I. And I don't know if this is a change or if maybe this is, like, a different part of the game. But, like, in a boss fight I was doing during the preview when I died, it would give me the menu to, like, revive or, like, try it again or whatever. And in the game and during a boss fight, I died, and it put me into, like, the repatriate thing of, like, swim back to Sam or whatever. Yeah. Like, do the baby thing and then that's how you. So I think that was the only difference I really noticed. One thing I will say this isn't related to the question, but we've had, like, the trailers and stuff playing throughout the, like, the episode. Yeah, man. A lot of spoilers in these trailers, let me tell you.

[Greg Miller]

I almost texted you last night because it was like we were coming up finally at, like, hour 39 of where I was gonna see the trailer they ran it or the. The scene they ran at sgf, and I was like, why wait? Why the fuck did they show this at sgf?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No reason for them to show that at sgf. That was crazy.

[Greg Miller]

Jackie M. We'll start with you, Jerika. How much more time do you expect to put into Death Stranding 2?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Easily, I think 20 to 40 more hours, I think is easy just because of, like, how much side content I didn't do. And I want to see how those play out. And then, yeah, I'm gonna get in there and put my zip lines up. I'm so ready.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bless, man. It's tough for me because it's so tough for me to play games after I've rolled credits.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I would like to play more just because, like, I think there's. There's still a lot of meat left on the bone, the phrase of the day. But also I kind of want to start the alters and so, yeah, we'll see. I could see myself playing, like, 10 more hours if I dedicate myself to picking it back up.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I'll be this afternoon after kind of funny podcast. And then it's going to be another one of those Best Intentions where it's like, I remember Death Stranding 1 where I was like, I could see me platinuming this. And then, of course, a million other reviews carry you away and you never get back to it. It's the same thing here where it's like, man, I want to see all these side missions through. I want to see what other people are building tonight. But it would be. It would be interesting to come back to it because it would. I really do feel like I'd come back and then it would be like, cool, I'm warping all over the map. I'm using, you know, I mean, I'm not playing it the way I've played these 40. Whatever, two hours will be when I beat it. So it's like, I don't know if. I don't know. I would love to do that. I would love to sit here and platinum it. But I'd imagine I got to get back to other stuff and go play other things. But then I'm going to see life. I know. Yes. I mean, yes, of course. I want to get back to Fantasy five. I need to finish Pokemon now. The Switch to update's out. You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Which one is that again?

[Greg Miller]

It was Violet. Okay. And then I need to finish Links Awakening as well because I'm like, what, two dungeons short on that now from the Switch review stuff we were doing. But then beyond that, of course I need to do exhibition 33. I feel like I'm in the place right now where I'm ready to go tackle that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah. So there's too much to play right now. Kobe writes in on a super chat and says without any in depth details, would you say the game is bleaker and would you say the game is bleaker and hopeful or more of a pessimistic view of the world compared to the first?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Bleaker and hopeful.

[Greg Miller]

I think that's what you're saying. Are you reading it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not trying to.

[Greg Miller]

Wait.

[Jerrica Hannah]

I don't know.

[Greg Miller]

I think he already knows it's bleaker, but is he saying it's hopeful?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh.

[Greg Miller]

Or is it more pessimistic?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Oh, I don't wanna. I don't want to comment. I don't wanna. Because I just get. I feel like I ruined some of it.

[Greg Miller]

I'll say right now where I'm at. I feel maybe I shouldn't say anything.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. It's weird. It's a weird one to talk about in that sense because I don't know.

[Greg Miller]

Whatever you're feeling through your journey, you don't want to know at the end if I think it's going to be more bleak or more hopeful.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And obviously for people who have finished it already, Taven says, I just got the plat in Death Stranding one requires me to play Hard mode. Late game and I enjoyed it. Should I start in hard mode for two? How is normal mode in terms of difficulty and cargo and structured degradation? As I've been saying this entire review, I think the game is incredibly easy and almost maybe to a detriment. So I would say, yeah, if you enjoyed Hard mode on the first one, do that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I agree with that.

[Jerrica Hannah]

I want to turn it up a notch myself. So. Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Gene says, does Detroit Rock City play When We Fight Troy? No spoilers. No spoilers on what music.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I do want to definitely shout out the. The soundtrack, the licensed music. Is so fucking good.

[Greg Miller]

It was definitely one of those of, like, you have your little player that you can go in and put songs. And I was putting. I'd put them on it and then I go to Spotify.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Follow that artist and put them on my real playlist too. So I'd be all set to do. I see Wiener says, can you speak to how female characters are treated? This is a conversation that I've seen, obviously, as the. The discussion and discourse begins today.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, this is a fun one because, like, a lot of my immediate group of friends don't love Kojima games because they don't love the depiction of female characters oftentimes in Kojima games, which I think is very understandable, especially when you look at, like, quiet. Quiet and like, oh, she dresses like that. She breathes through her skin. Right. Like, that's the meme that. That flows around in my. In my friend group. And like, it's funny because I. I don't want to defend. Defend it because I'm like, well, I think that's genuine. I think that's authentic. And if you feel that way, you feel that way. Right. But I'm also, like, having played all the Metal Gear Solids, I'm like, oh, but there's some really good female characters in metal gear solid 2. But also, I totally understand where you're coming from, I think, in this game. And I want to hear Jerrica's answer more than my answer honestly, so I'll answer quick. I really like the core cast of women in this game. In fact, I like their vibe and I like their presence more than normal.

[Greg Miller]

Reedus. I agree with that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Derek, what do you think?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I totally agree. And if anything, they're put on. I don't, you know, I don't want to get into this because, like, I like the surprise of it to see how these friendships evolve. But, like, they're put on a pedestal and they're sort of like, definitely one of the bricks of the narrative of why things are happening. So, yeah, I think they. All the women in this game have something very important they're working through. And just like, it's a, you know, everyone talking through emotions and grief and how humans sort of overcome that and find partnerships. So that's all I'll say. But yes, I think Fragile's role has been elevated, and I can't wait for you to see how that evolves with the other characters. Yeah, it's good. I think even Sam's jealous of some of his friendships have come out of the, like, on the show.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Jerrica Hannah]

And he's, like, always making comments like, oh, I wish I could join.

[Greg Miller]

There's, like, such a third wheel vibe to a lot of different things which are cute and, like, again, like, really great in terms of. Of what it is.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Kebabs writes in and says, per Steve, sailor, accessibility is not great. Question mark. Well, if Steve's saying that, I believe Steve.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, agreed.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I haven't. I have not.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Well, I haven't. I haven't dealt in those settings. But, like, I definitely agree with him.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

My dog Nick 96 says, Would you say the trailers have spoiled anything?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The trailers, yes.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Is it spoiled anything or is it just laid out these breadcrumbs that, like, when you're playing something and you. They introduce somebody, you're like, oh, I know that person. Because I've seen. I think it's.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's because of the nature of death stranding. Everything is so weird and you really don't know what you're seeing until you have context around it. So if you've not touched the game, I don't think the trailers are necessarily spoiling anything for you. But for me, watching SSGF and being 20 hours into the game, watching that cutscene, I was like, oh, interesting.

[Greg Miller]

Even stuff they were showing here, I was like, I haven't seen that yet. So I can imagine I'm about to see that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, there's nothing I'm the. And once you all play the game, you'll understand. There is nothing I understand less than why they showed that scene at sgf. Yeah, it's such a bizarre scene to show, especially knowing all the other scenes you could have shown at sgf. That would have been way more hype. That would have been way less like. Yeah, yeah, it's a weird one.

[Greg Miller]

We'll see. David and Super Chat says, I never finished Death Stranding one, but I want to jump into two. Would the story recap videos do a good job to catch me up based.

[Jerrica Hannah]

On what you've seen in something else on YouTube? I think the one they do in the game's really short.

[Greg Miller]

Who is it?

[Jerrica Hannah]

Like, I don't.

[Greg Miller]

Just find something else, like a channel. Sorry.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Yeah, yeah, Find like another video.

[Greg Miller]

Like, IGN's done a bunch. I know.

[Jerrica Hannah]

There you go. Just something that's a little bit more lengthier. But yeah, I think you definitely could get more from the story than the little snippet they give you at the beginning of the game.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch out there right now. And yes, I think you could do that and be fine. I think it would give you a setup of what this is, who these people are. What's going on with the BB4?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I can't find the one. There was one I watched before the preview. I did that, like, did a really good job. I can't find it in real time. But honestly, you're probably fine watching any of the ones that are there. And then, like, in addition to that, maybe watch the one in the. In the game itself just as, like, a final, like, you know, layer of defense to, like, reinforce that. But you'll be fine. You got the corpus also.

[Greg Miller]

And our final super chat for right now is from Christopher, who says, bless, go play the altars right now. Dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What interest do you have in the altars?

[Greg Miller]

Gregory, I. Everybody says, greg, you love clones and all stuff, and it'd be a really cool thing to do. And then it's the management part. When I. When it looks like Fallout Shelter, I'm like, that's where you'd lose me. Right? I do not want to do that whatsoever.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You love clones.

[Greg Miller]

I love clones. Tracer.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, which ones?

[Greg Miller]

I mean, Con El, of course. Superman's clone. Half his DNL Superman, half his DNA is Lex Luthor. That's Superboy right there. We got a. You got a. We got a stew going on.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fair enough.

[Greg Miller]

What do we got in terms of closing thoughts on death stranding to Jericho?

[Jerrica Hannah]

I'm so glad it exists. I think it does push the envelope in a lot of different ways, which Kojima is known for. But that's why I'm glad it exists, because I think there's things that can be influenced by this game. And then, you know, I've been reading the book, his book, the Creative Gene, while sort of re are playing this game. And he's just put so much of his inspirations, whether it's from books, movies, tv. Obviously we know that he's a fan, but he has just put so much that's into Dust rating one and two. So it's sort of. Sort of cool to see how that all came to be in his perspective. But yeah, like, he's pushing the boundaries in a lot of cool ways, and I can't wait to see what he does next. And yeah, dust rain 2. So far, one of my favorite games of the year. And once again, it made me cry a little bit a couple times. And then that one scene was just so badass and I cried. Yeah, you'll have to see when you get to that part. Yo.

[Greg Miller]

It's good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I Agree. Jerrica. As far as, like, it's up there as one of my favorite games of the year, like, this is for sure a contender for me and like, I think a guaranteed lock in my top 10 list. And I think even more so, I think it's up there for, for Kojima's games. Like, I would have to sit and really think about it because every Metal Gear Solid is like really special to me in different ways. But I think Death Training 2 really lives up as a Kojima game as far as what it's delivering gameplay wise, what it's delivering story wise, like what it's doing at. I think at this point of his career as like, you know, he's been. He's been such a staple over decades and still is cooking up new ideas and doing really cool, interesting and different things that I think do actually work.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And so yeah, if you have any interest in Death Stranding 2, definitely go play it. Especially if you played the first one. If you're, if you really didn't like the first one that I don't know if this is going to be the one. But like, yeah, if you, if you, if you're interested, pick it up, play it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. This is a great game. I can't wait to finish it this afternoon. I can't wait to play more after that. And more than anything, I'm just so happy that Hideo Kojima gets to go make weird shit. Yeah. You know, again, like the headline from Games Daily last week, right. Of him and Wood Kid and Wood Kid being like, it was it tested too positively. Right. Like, I love the idea that this is out there and you're already seeing a smattering of opinions running the scale on what it is and then these think pieces of what it was and how people connected with it and where it went. I love that he's making that kind of art. And I think it's, you know, fascinating to play a game where you really get. And this isn't for everybody, but for me in particular, like, you get more the more you put into it. Like I'm getting more out of this the more I put into it and more I want to go do it and what I want to go investigate. So a great game for sure. 959 5. And then a tentative 8 or 85 from me, maybe more. We'll see tomorrow when I think we're doing a what you've been playing where I can finalize my review score for the one, the only Death Stranding 2 on the beach. But ladies Gentlemen and bees. If you Love Death Stranding 2 or think you will, we have so much more Death Stranding 2 content for you. Of course. Friday it is the Jabronis doing their stream. Roger and Mike are doing another Walkathon marathon stream where they have a treadmill, a bunch of different surprises. They will start playing on Twitch TV Kind of Funny games after the Gamescast on Friday. They will then play as long as you want. They are already saying can they make it past Kinda Funny Games daily? On Monday we will find out. Of course if you love Death Stranding and want to know more, you should go watch Roger's excellent interview with Caroline Polachek over on the Gamescast from last week. He got to sit down with her because of course he got her into this game. Not like he signed the contract, but he gave Kojima her album. Kojima reached out. She is now doing on the beach the title single from Death Stranding 2 so you can see Roger live his dream as he talks to her about the insane journey they've been on. Of course if you need to catch up on Death Stranding 1, there is a 21 hour Death Stranding 1 stream video up on YouTube.com kind of funny games where Roger Mike and first marathon stream has been edited into one video for you to go do. And then of course you could check out Mike and Roger's Death Stranding 12025 review on the Kind of Funny Gamescast feed. So you don't have to go far to find more Death Stranding coverage here. For now though, we will bid you adieu, remind you that this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be previews, reviews or just things we need to talk about. Of course, if you like that, pick up a kinda funny membership patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kinda funnygames Apple, Spotify, get all the shows ad free, support a small independent business and of course your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a podcast series called Greg Way Jerrica. Where can people keep up with you?

[Jerrica Hannah]

You can find me and Kayla on JK Games podcast pretty much everywhere. So stay tuned because we are about to do some cool stuff with our channel. Spoiler alert. We're about to play lots of Tears of the Kingdom. Right now there's some games I got to play, more of that I've never finished and that's one of them.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, well thank you again Jerrica for making the time coming out here doing all this. I hope everybody shoots over to support you.

[Jerrica Hannah]

Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

Anytime. Blessing. Thank you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Thank you for having me.

[Greg Miller]

No problem. We're going to reset for the kind of funny podcast which you can watch live on Twitch and YouTube, later on YouTube, everywhere on podcasts. But for now, until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.