Deadly Premonition

Story - 9.0/10
You play as Francis York Morgan (call him York; everybody calls him York), an FBI agent who goes to the quaint countryside town of Greenvale in order to investigate the grisly murder of a young waitress working at the local diner. Very soon, you realize that every character has something to hide, including the main character, who has an alternate personality named Zach that he talks to all the time. The story is very engaging and paced well, and the characters are all interesting. The dialogue is great, especially the dialogue between York and Zach in the car. However, I do feel that the character relationships feel a bit fake, but the story is engrossing nonetheless.

Gameplay - 7.0/10
The game controls are similar to Resident Evil 4. You walk around at a sluggish pace, and can sprint. You can aim over the shoulder with your weapon, at which point a laser sight will show you where you are aiming. The controls are very odd, however, but it adds to the novelty of the game. For example, you aim by holding RT, then pressing A to shoot and B to reload. The camera is locked on the player. You can turn to either side, but the camera will snap back to the player when you let go of the right stick. The gameplay is by all means mediocre, but again, it adds to the novelty that makes this game so bad it's good. There is a lot to do in the game, and you have a fairly large, open world to explore. You have various factors of your life to manage, including maintaining your hunger, the amount of sleep you're getting, and how much gas is in your car. You also have a schedule to follow. Your colleagues will be mad at you if you don't reach a certain location within a certain time frame, but you can always go off and do other things in town like go to a bar, go to a diner, or hang out at your hotel. There is a lot of driving in the game, which can be annoying (especially since the driving is clunky), but there are random blurbs of great dialog between York and Zach when they're alone in the car. There are also "Other World" segments of the game where you have to gun down zombie-like enemies, which is where the gunplay comes into mind.

Presentation - 6.5/10
The game is rather bland in terms of color. There's not a lot of color in the game, and the graphics are pretty poor. There is little to no detail in the environments, trees look 2D, and the game has a lot of jaggies. The animations are also lousy. However, none of the graphical problems hindered the game in any way, and the art style is nice. The music does not fit at all, which strangely fits. The music is happy and cheery, and quite catchy during the regular levels, and creepy and eerie during Other World segments. The voice acting ranges from good to mediocre, and even the bad voice acting was enjoyable to listen to.

Final Score - 8.0/10
This is a game that is meant to be bad. It's the video game equivalent of a B-movie, and will go down as a great cult classic. The ridiculous dialogue and voice acting, clunky controls, and Twin Peaks-esque story all culminate into something that is so bad, it transcends being good -- it's great. Oddly enough, the price point of the game (a mere $20) also adds to the novelty and helps establish this game as a "B-movie game". This game had me laughing my ass off and loving (almost) every second of it.

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

BlackStigma wrote:

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

You can probably find it for less than $20 considering it came out in February.

I actually might give this a rent now. XD

xSTONEYx187x wrote:

I actually might give this a rent now. XD

The people who hate this game just don't understand it. Simple as that.

BlackStigma wrote:

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

You mad at Reach?

Hmmmm....maybe I'll rent it.

PhunkGamer wrote:

Hmmmm....maybe I'll rent it.

Sounds like a plan to me as well.

Alan1994 wrote:

BlackStigma wrote:

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

You mad at Reach?

Yeah, the matchmaking is incredible frustrating. You vote for gametypes, completely retarded, Team Slayer and Team Swat are completely different, I can't stand Team Swat, Team Snipers, Team Slayer Pro, etc. Yet I am forced to play them because they are popular. Shit, it's almost impossible to play the less popular gametypes. I want to do f*cking headhunter but it's not popular so it's almost always voted against.

I find myself spending half the time playing online cussing out everyone else and saying f*ck every 10 seconds. I've been looking forward to this game even before ODST came out, and all I get for my patience are headaches and frustration with only a few enjoyable matches here and there. It's like playing MW2 all over again.

BlackStigma wrote:

Alan1994 wrote:

BlackStigma wrote:

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

You mad at Reach?

Yeah, the matchmaking is incredible frustrating. You vote for gametypes, completely retarded, Team Slayer and Team Swat are completely different, I can't stand Team Swat, Team Snipers, Team Slayer Pro, etc. Yet I am forced to play them because they are popular. Shit, it's almost impossible to play the less popular gametypes. I want to do f*cking headhunter but it's not popular so it's almost always voted against.

I find myself spending half the time playing online cussing out everyone else and saying f*ck every 10 seconds. I've been looking forward to this game even before ODST came out, and all I get for my patience are headaches and frustration with only a few enjoyable matches here and there. It's like playing MW2 all over again.

Ah I see. There aren't much Matchmaking choices right now, which is a bit annoying. Bungie said in the future they are adding more playlists.

You could always party up with friends to vote for something other than Team SWAT or Team Slayer Pro. And yes I agree, I hate SWAT....it's dangerously close to how COD plays.

Alan1994 wrote:

BlackStigma wrote:

Alan1994 wrote:

BlackStigma wrote:

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

You mad at Reach?

Yeah, the matchmaking is incredible frustrating. You vote for gametypes, completely retarded, Team Slayer and Team Swat are completely different, I can't stand Team Swat, Team Snipers, Team Slayer Pro, etc. Yet I am forced to play them because they are popular. Shit, it's almost impossible to play the less popular gametypes. I want to do f*cking headhunter but it's not popular so it's almost always voted against.

I find myself spending half the time playing online cussing out everyone else and saying f*ck every 10 seconds. I've been looking forward to this game even before ODST came out, and all I get for my patience are headaches and frustration with only a few enjoyable matches here and there. It's like playing MW2 all over again.

Ah I see. There aren't much Matchmaking choices right now, which is a bit annoying. Bungie said in the future they are adding more playlists.

You could always party up with friends to vote for something other than Team SWAT or Team Slayer Pro. And yes I agree, I hate SWAT....it's dangerously close to how COD plays.

I love SWAT. I don't think it's like Call of Duty at all.

BUT . . . BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND!

TRF wrote:

I love SWAT. I don't think it's like Call of Duty at all.

BUT . . . BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND!

It's like Call of Duty, because you die in 1-3 shots, and there's a lot of camping, but on killstreaks. Luckily, you don't spawn with nades.

But yes, as to the topic at hand, how long does it take to beat this game?

lol good review. I'm really interested in playing it now!

Btw on an unrelated subject, this is reallllly weird.... in my pocket my ipod touch went from being locked, to being on the homescreen.
It's strange enough that it managed to do the slide to unlock thing but not just that.... I have a 4 digit code!! :O

I know for certain it was locked before then I heard the "click" sound when it turned on in my pocket.

It's.....quite scary really!

But yeah...sorry to change the subject.

This game sounds like everything Alan Wake should have been

BlackStigma wrote:

TRF wrote:

I love SWAT. I don't think it's like Call of Duty at all.

BUT . . . BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND!

It's like Call of Duty, because you die in 1-3 shots, and there's a lot of camping, but on killstreaks. Luckily, you don't spawn with nades.

But yes, as to the topic at hand, how long does it take to beat this game?

People who camp in SWAT are idiots. First of all, you NEED to get a headshot if you want to kill them right away. If you're camping (which is hard to do on Halo maps), then you're a sitting duck.

As for DP, I suppose you could burn right through the main story in fifteen or so hours, but there are some difficult parts, and there's a lot of exploration to do.

DemonWolf wrote:

lol good review. I'm really interested in playing it now!

Btw on an unrelated subject, this is reallllly weird.... in my pocket my ipod touch went from being locked, to being on the homescreen.
It's strange enough that it managed to do the slide to unlock thing but not just that.... I have a 4 digit code!! :O

I know for certain it was locked before then I heard the "click" sound when it turned on in my pocket.

It's.....quite scary really!

But yeah...sorry to change the subject.

This game sounds like everything Alan Wake should have been

Destructoid stupidly compared it to Heavy Rain when it is a lot more like Alan Wake. A funny, clunky, Alan Wake.

BlackStigma wrote:

Alan1994 wrote:

BlackStigma wrote:

I might get this game soon, I need something to distract my anger towards Halo Reach.

You mad at Reach?

Yeah, the matchmaking is incredible frustrating. You vote for gametypes, completely retarded, Team Slayer and Team Swat are completely different, I can't stand Team Swat, Team Snipers, Team Slayer Pro, etc. Yet I am forced to play them because they are popular. Shit, it's almost impossible to play the less popular gametypes. I want to do f*cking headhunter but it's not popular so it's almost always voted against.

I find myself spending half the time playing online cussing out everyone else and saying f*ck every 10 seconds. I've been looking forward to this game even before ODST came out, and all I get for my patience are headaches and frustration with only a few enjoyable matches here and there. It's like playing MW2 all over again.

I feel your pain. I can't believe they put like SNIPER and SWAT in a TEAM SLAYER list. It should have its own list like Halo 3. I pretty much been taking a break from competitive multiplayer and been playing campaign and firefight at times although Firefight can have similar problems, but it's not as annoying compared to competitive multiplayer. You can't go wrong with infinite snipers with infinite Needler .

Back to topic:
Good, and straightforward review. Heard a lot of stuff about this games and I've been reading the forums on GS, and it seems like everyone is saying it's an underrated game.

ZeInFormer wrote:

Back to topic:
Good, and straightforward review. Heard a lot of stuff about this games and I've been reading the forums on GS, and it seems like everyone is saying it's an underrated game.

The game has a cult following of sorts, which is probably what the developers wanted from the game. It's definitely one of the more memorable games I've played in a long time.

I'm taking your word TRF. I'm going buy this soon. Probably see if its in stock when I get Fable 3. Can't wait to give this beast a go. XD

Stoney wrote:

I'm taking your word TRF. I'm going buy this soon. Probably see if its in stock when I get Fable 3. Can't wait to give this beast a go. XD

Have you played/got it yet? It really is quite awesome