Yep, you read the title right! And no, of course I’m not implying that if you don’t get or understand Kojima’s latest game, Death Stranding, it implies that you lack the mental capacity to comprehend the game. This however, is one of the many statements made about the game to justify or defend Death Stranding’s recent polarizing reviews that have come out.
Death Stranding has created what is perhaps the most polarizing reception of any game this year. It’s the first game that can be labeled “boring” and “slow”, yet receive praise and admiration, scoring high on meta-critic. Some have claimed to have cried, laughed and cheered the game in their reviews, while other couldn’t even finish the game because of how boring the first 10 hours of the Death Stranding had been.
Yes, you read that right! It takes 10 whole hours according to many reviews for the game to actually get good, which is wild. It also actually started a discussion within the gaming community on the subject of fun. That games don’t have to be fun to be enjoyed. Like the one thing that a game has to be in order to do well is to be fun and now we’re debating whether or not that is even necessary!
Any other game on the face of this beautiful planet would have gotten slaughtered by reviewers for being not fun, extremely boring and slow-paced. I can’t even begin to understand what led to this massive shift in opini….nah I’m playing, I know exactly why and it’s called bias. Death Stranding, a game about connecting people, has instead not only divided the community, but has also exposed a clear bias when it comes to Kojima and his games.
Some people (I don’t want to generalize), don’t want be seen as “uncultured” or lacking good taste when it comes to Kojima, who himself is an icon in the gaming community. Anyone that knows a thing or two about the gaming community and Kojima, knows that the guy has a cult following, that are ready and willing to destroy anyone who gives any of his work a bad review. IGN got a taste of that with their recent review, despite giving it an honest review. Which by the way, was rare to see.
Heck, some folks have even taken the Rick and Morty approach, in which if you’re not able to understand the underlining theme of Death Stranding’s story, it means that you don’t have the intellectual capacity to appreciate the game. See, the problem with that is, if the majority of people can’t seem understand your game’s story, then it’s not the people’s fault. It just means bad writing. Look, I actually shared my thoughts in this video titled ART or BORE??? Why Are Death Stranding Reviews So Polarizing??, in which I casually shared my thoughts on this so go ahead and check it out.
Overall, this whole thing is quite interesting and I can’t wait to see how the rest of the world will react when Death Stranding lands on store shelves. I’ll definitely be playing this game…in the summer seeing as it’s coming to the PC and I’ll get to see what the buzz is all about for myself. I have the patience for it.
