Played another 6 hours of DS, and yeah, it's great. Completing other people's bridges, upgrading their postboxes, building my own bridges and watchtowers and seeing people use them, seeing people's abandoned cargo and returning them, adjusting my cargo on my body and my bike, sorting orders and prepping routes, checking lost cargo in delivery terminals to see which ones I can pick up and deliver on the way, keeping Norman Reedus' silly body from falling over as he goes down a slope while holding his breath with 120kg of shit strapped to him rapidly decaying in the time rain and the wind blowing in his face while BTs hover closer and closer to him because his BB is getting agitated, and finally getting to a clearing with a breath-taking view of the sea and a port and a chill ass song starts playing and the camera pulls all the way back. This game rules.
Literally the only thing that has disappointed me are the MULES. They're jokes! Just zero tension in the encounters because they're dumb and I can parry every single one of them easily for an instant KO.
I've only ever had to fight BTs twice, and those were for missions. Yeah, there hasn't been much to it, but at the very least it looks cool as fuck.
Just about to start Episode 3 and I'm looking forward to having more stuff to build, different cargo to carry, and new order restrictions to keep me on my toes!
And yes, I can see how Alex and Vinny (and Rob over at Waypoint) soured on the game at the last third. If all this engaging delivery stuff gets shunted aside for EPIC CLIMACTIC BOSS BATTLES and ENDLESS WAVES OF ENEMIES and HOUR-LONG SPEECHIFYING WITH PROPER NOUNS that actually just feel tedious to get through is going to bum me out.