I played the original through, almost in one sitting, two and a half years ago. Took me over 90 hours.

I'm here again. I'm streaming it as I go (I'll put the link in the end), to entertain my wife as she missed most of the plot beats of the original. I'm curious what got added.

But! Make no mistake, this is a Hideo Kojima game. There's cutscene after cutscene, exposition after exposition, people blathering at you and telling you things near-constantly. For a game that's about being alone in a hostile land, you are rarely ever truly alone. But! Unlike Metal Gear whatevers, I never got the idea that the story was stuck up its own ass. I only played 5 and had enough after maybe ten hours.

People joke about the game being a UPS sim, that all you do is walk around delivering packages. If you're efficient about getting through the plot, you can get a vehicle fairly quickly which definitely speeds things up, and changes the game from walking with an awkward load, to a light trials-style adventure as you move your bike through rocky terrain. Gadgetry gets revealed to help you navigate obstacles, and then gets outmoded, only to get outmoded in turn. It's the vicious technological cycle, compressed into one game.

And jokes about UPS sim aside, my recollection of my first playthrough is that I literally spent more time in infrastructure projects than I did hauling much of anything. I built roads. I repaired others' bridges. I connected zipline networks. Sometimes I attacked camps of badguys to steal their metal and resin, just to build more stuff. I did banditry on bandits on the regular. And I'll do it again, I know me.


But it's not just that this is a story, but it's a story that weaves together a bunch of different elements and takes them to new directions. Like "Snowcrash" by Neal Stephenson, weaving Sumerian mythology and cyberpunk, this meshes post-scarcity scifi utopias with Egyptian mythology with a whole bunch of other concepts that I could weave a postgrad paper about were I so-inclined. I'm not. I think the plot is compelling and the most dominant thing here, but I want to tell you about the game and keep getting tied up telling you about the theme.

The gameplay, uhh, well, where it gets me is in the exploration of it. It's a game not just about exploration, but about working out how to navigate around it, how to quell some of the threats. I went on about the infrastructure before--there are prefab roads you can build, and you can put together zipline networks wherever you please, once you work out how to do it. The west half of the map is positively huge, but as you get through the game, you can get through it a lot faster.

I've been streaming this game of late. I have specific hours where I'm doing other things, but if you made it down here, past all these rambling words, hell, you're my kind of person. Drop on by, say hello. I'm glad to chat with you. https://www.twitch.tv/fdejeuner. If I'm not on, check the schedule, because I will be then.

So, to sum: Get this game because you want to be told a weird story, told as video clips, as audio clips, and a fair bit of optional reading. Play it through as an exploration game, and if it initial pace chafes, zip through the first few story missions to get the bike. Later there's even faster, more capacious vehicles, and more things to do. If that doesn't move you, you're still my friend.

movie sim with walking inbetween. not kojimas best work

A fun game with a slow start, it takes time to get into it but once I got everything start rolling I am hooked. The best part of the gameplay is this is a very immersive and atmospheric game and on top of that the sound track is really good and tasteful ("Bones" by Low Roar). Sam feels weighty but responsive to control (similar to Snake in MGSV) and SFX is the cherry on top. Do I even need to explain myself when it is THE Yoji Shinkawa's art direction?

However, the game has major pacing issues. I'm playing on Very Hard difficulty which isn't that hard to be honest, yet as soon as I ran into forced combat section everything fell apart immediately. The game doesn't need combat at all, and I highly doubt if it was Kojima's original intention to include combat section as if he worried about the gameplay become stale if there is no combat.

Story wise I have not run into any major plot holes so far but some of the narrative element from Preppers through out the map does conflict with logic, especially once I reached mountain knot area. I mean these people choose to be isolated in the first place (The game specifically stressed this) and you cannot reconnect them with the rest of Chiral network unless you reached two starts with them... EVEN IF THEIR LOVED ONES' LIFE is on the line here! Do you want me to help you or not??? I remember specifically the Roboticist said she wanted to share her work and knowledge with other people but this woman decided to live deep in the mountain where average human being cannot reach her, remember, It was HER choice to live there. So, WTF Kojima???

The worst offender, gameplay wise, was driving. For the love of God add some grip to truck tires, and please PLEASE add suspension to trikes! You have no idea how many times my truck loses grip on the slightest elevation and how many times my trike bump into NOTHING on a flat road (if it's on rough road it is guaranteed to stuck on something)! Has Hideo Kojima sama ever driven a vehicle before? The driving in this game is insufferable to say the least.

Overall, this is a game that worth playing and I cannot wait for the sequel to join Steam.