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Rating

So, this game is like Silent Hill meets GTA meets Twin Peaks. Somehow. The textures are repetitive, the fight mechanics are a little awkward, and the animations can get a little stilted.

Still, the writing is better than most any game I’ve seen in recent history, the miniquests are fun, the music is fun, and the voice acting is charming beyond reason. I can’t remember the last game I’ve had this much fun exploring since… Wasteland. The writing is giggleworthy when it wants to be, tongue in cheek, but always intentional. The balance of humor and supernatural allows the creepy sequences to be much creepier than the later Silent Hill games, or other strict “survival horror” genre games.

A lot of the game and story elements are by no means new or original, and in any other game they would have came off as the cliches they are. But the amount of love the devs have placed into this game, the enjoyable nuances make this well worth it all. The graphics are unimpressive, but the immersion (even with the constant breaking of the fourth wall) is top-notch. It NEVER comes off as a budget title or shovelware. I bought it instantly after reading a few reviews and would have paid two or three times as much, for the amount of enjoyment it’s provided. I hope the devs are snatched up by a larger studio and given gobs of dough and free reign for their next release, because I really want to see what they’ll do next.

Rating

It is very difficult to describe Deadly Premonition. Don’t go in expecting amazing gameplay and grafics, let me just say that. Expect something different.

Okay, the grafics could be on PS2 and the enviroments of the town are horrendous. I found myself stopping and laghing at the trees that look like those paper foldouts that you can make with 2 peices of papers. The character models are still bad but better than the enviroments.

Let me tell you the basis of the game. You are an FBI Agent, Francis York Morgan, who came to this small town to investigate a murder *cough*Twin Peaks*Cough*. The story is alot deeper and is very interesting.

Sometimes you will shoot enemies with guns in a Resident Evil 4-5 way with worse controls. It is actually okay and provides some challenge because iit’s hard to aim.

You can also drive around the small town and do tons of side missions in a GTA style thingy. The only problem is it takes way to long to get anywhere. Luckily York can talk about Movies and cases on the way.

There are alot of things to do in this game. I beat it about 4 times and have not figured out even half.

Now the best part. The characters. They are so unique and develop as you go through the story. Also, I heve never laughed as much at a game. The dialouge is SOOO cheezy and has such odd humor. The music is out of place and fitting at the same time. It’s fitting because it fits the weirdness. You will be staring at your screen saying WHAT? and laughing your head off at crazy akward moments. You cannot count how many odd moments there are.

Overall this game is insane and way worth the 16 bucks it is now on amazon. It is 20+ hours!! If you like Twin Peaks, Craziness, Low-budget undderrated games, Laughing, playing video games, 80s stuff, Mysteries, good story lines, Being confused, yelling WHY???!!?? and WHAT!!!?? at your screen then you should buy this.

Only don’t buy if you are crazy about grafics.

Bye, I’m off because I need to finish Red Dead Redemption. That’s also a great game by the way.

Rating

I popped this game into my 360 and was BLOWN TO GOD COUNTRY!!! This game has no…NO limits when it comes to graphics. It takes a bomb and BLOWS THE UNCANNY VALLEY INTO DUST AND TINY FRIKKING PEBBLES!! I drink gallons of coffee just to stay awake and play this game over and over and over. I have ruined countless pairs of jeans playing this game. Needless I have given every other game I owned to Goodwill and canceled my order for God of War 3 and Lego Universe.

Rating

This is my personal opinion, and I dont mean to offend anyone or want anyone to offend me, but being the owner of a Xbox an Xbox 360 and a Ps1,2 and 3 as well as a PSP, I can honestly say that this is the best game I have ever in my Twenty Five years of life, played, this game is not only fun and quirky it is engrossing, never have I played for more than 4 hours straight, yet with Deadly Premonition I found myself going on those long stretches of gameplay only heard about in the news (usually to portray the gaming industry in a negative light) dont get me wrong I love games with awesome graphics, but lately something has been lacking in these, and that is story, sure we all wanna see things blow up or kill 53,596 Zombies in one go (hehehe know what Im talking about?) but in implementing these things such as multiplayer mode better graphics etc, developers have forgotten what made the gaming industry what it is today, and that is a good story, this game is up there on my top ten list along classics such as Silent Hill (only the First One) Resident Evil (One and Two) the original Grand Theft Autos, Metal Gear Solid, etc. I highly recommend you at least rent this game, if you dont like it then youre out a couple of bucks, and if you do, I guarantee youll buy it, its THAT good.

Rating

I am a big gamer, always looking for something that really piques my interest, has lots of depth, interesting characters, is very interactive, and has a captivating story line.

I can’t express it strongly enough- PLAY THIS GAME! I’m still stunned by how much it pulled me in- I didn’t expect to be so consumed by it when I first opened it. This game has the most quirky sense of humor and the most odd, interesting characters, random, hilarious dialog, vast & realistic map scale, and the creepy disturbing element that I adore too!

I could go on and on, but I’ll try not to.

I’ve played TONS and TONS of games, and I don’t generally re-play them.

Deadly Premonition WILL be played again. There’s just too much gaming-goodness to not play it again!

LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!

PS, I encourage everyone who loves this game to do whatever you can to express your admiration and encourage others to buy it- it’s a low budget game, and we need to encourage the developers to make a sequel! Even my GF’s Mom & husband are hooked on it- despite their initial reluctance to try it or play video games at all!

Also, anyone who ‘thinks it sucks’ either didn’t play it, or are too superficial to see the gem this game really is! It may not be a ‘shiny, crisp’ Uncharted type, but it more than compensates in so many ways!

Don’t Miss Out! PLAY IT!

Rating

If you like Silent Hill and you like Twin Peaks, this game is made just for you. In almost every way this game feels like a low budget mash-up of these two universes, and pits you in a small, open-world town recently struck by the tragic and brutal murder of one of its your citizens. You play FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan (but call me York, everybody calls me York), a quirky re-imagining of Agent Dale Cooper, who smoke cigarettes to pass the time, sees messages in the cream in his coffee, and likes to chat on and on with his alter-ego Zach (who is supposed to be the player controlling his action) about 80′s movies. The controls in this game aren’t good, the production values are overall very low, it has Xbox-era graphics, and the animation and lip-synching are not very good. Basically, there’s a reason this is a budget title at $20 at launch. None of the complaints that normal game review sites like IGN point out and harp on, however, are detrimental to the experience, and are all easily circumvented or forgiven when packaged along with the dialogue and psychological twists and turns that happen throughout. The game gives you quaint little “previously on….” recaps whenever you load a game up, and the pacing is brilliant. If you ever do get bored with the main story, there are plenty of side missions you can get from the eccentric characters in the small town of Greenvale, or go fishing or peeking in people’s front windows.

Let me say that this is not a game for everyone, but for $20 I can easily recommend it to anyone who is a fan of both Twin Peaks and Silent Hill and who won’t be completely offended by a game on the Xbox 360 that doesn’t have cutting edge graphics. If it’s eccentric characters and stellar writing/storytelling that you are craving in a video game right now…. do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

Rating

There are many things that are annoying about this game that would justify abandoning it within the first few hours. BUT, If you are a casual gamers who is willing to put up with issues in exchange for story, then you might enjoy this title. It’s true that if you enjoyed Twin Peaks, you are more likely to understand the interactive movie aspects. But its also true that “game play” is superficial and repetitive. And the music is purposely set-up to be intrusive to your living room, yet after a while becomes part of you. That’s the thing about a game like this and explains the love/hate reviews. Either it becomes you or it doesn’t. And if you let it in, it will be memorable. And for a low cost, 20 hours to play through game, sometimes that is more than enough. I am still whistling the theme song.

Rating

I should probably clarify. Heavy Rain is a great experience. It has great graphics, voice-acting and Story-telling but controls so uneven (and awkward) I had a hard time calling it a video-GAME. Deadly Premonition has PS2 level graphics, believable voice-acting, a great odd-ball story and so much variety in gameplay I have no problem calling it a video game. In fact in-spite it’s many short comings (which I’ll mention later) it has more the feel of the old point-and-click adventure games than Heavy Rain.

The story of Deadly Premonition takes place in a small american town where a local girl has been murdered brutally and you’re an FBI agent called in to catch the killer. The characters of this game all have oddball quirks which will remind most people of Twin Peaks (with a little SUDA 51 thrown in). You’re main character talks to an imaginary friend named ‘Zach’ and sees messages in his coffee. The oddball charm of this game in my opinion is what keeps alot of the more unpleasant aspects of the gameplay tolerable.

The game splits between sand-box style exploring (more Yakuza than GTA), driving, shooting (ALA Resident Evil 4), and adventure game style. Throw in side quests for cash (though everything you do seems to give you $$$), clothes customization, eating, sleeping, shaving, and card collecting and you have the most dynamic game released for a console. Unfortunately the controls of this game are mediocre at best though were never frustrating enough to make me stop playing.

Also this game is long. I think my first play-through took me about thirty hours and I didn’t do alot of the side quest missions.

The sound and graphics of this game will be deal-breakers for alot of people:

-The background sounds (office noise, woodland creatures, footsteops etc) and voice-acting are actually very well done. The more direct sounds are okay until you realize that every door opens with the same noise (no difference between metal and wood) and the music keeps looping the same four songs. Also the sound keeps changing volume for some reason.

-The Graphic animation in the game (especially with shadows) is very well done but the textures look very much like PS2 graphics (and even worse the outdoors almost look PSONE).

What’s sad is just with a bit more polish this game would’ve been an all and out winner: smooth out the controls (especially driving and combat), re-edit the sound and music, hell take an extra year and buff-up the graphics. I’d actually pay $60 for a game like this.

Even with my list of complaints I really enjoyed my play through Deadly Premonition (and am still going back to it). It’s not perfect (far from it) but it’s dynamic gameplay and oddball charm will keep the right person entertained almost more so than the latest gameplay releases. The $20 price tag doesn’t hurt either.

Rating

Let me open up by saying I’m apprehensive when a game gets a “2″ anywhere. Whether it is a scale system of up to 10 or 5 “2″ is never a good mark. Yet after playing Deadly premonition it is my hypothesis that the IGN critic rating this game did not actually play it. You see IGN is known for their love affair of free roaming sand box games such as the popular GTA series. Such games come with their own bundle of frustrations and frankly I don’t see how Deadly premonition is more “guilty” of those shortcomings than Rock Star’s chrome plated champion.

The first issue to cover is this IS a budget title. The people who made it were “small time” independent developers. No, you shouldn’t expect Deadly premonition to look spectacular and though the game mechanics are passable they are not revolutionary. (Than again I felt the same way about GTA, aka the driving and gun fighting were “just okay” but nothing to write home about.)

Unlike GTA you’re the good guy this time around. Agent York is coming to Green Vale to solve a murder mystery and apparently the rural hamlet is also “cursed”. Deadly Premonition is serious enough to want to tell a good suspenseful yarn but not so full of itself it excludes cheesy satire & humor. If you love to laugh it is a decent enough reason to pick up this game! From the very beginning York is a few fries short of a happy meal. He discusses cartoons, comic books, and movie trivia with his faceless partner Zach. We can make many assumptions. Zach could be a ghost from a deceased family member, he could be representative of the player, or he might be a multiple personality in an ingenious yet unstable mind. Regardless the actual origin no game has EVER opened up with such an odd & colorful protagonist.

In itself the concept of a free roaming survival horror game is quite original. Most games of this ilk hurry us along. Whether we’re stranded on a hostile spaceship or in a city infested with zombies there are never many people to talk to and any semblance of “normal life” is restrained to notes, descriptions, and diaries the protagonist finds strewn about. For example in Silent Hill you may read a computer entry from “Joe the water sanitation guy” who fought a giant sewer slug but it’s not as if you get to sit down and have a cup of coffee with him.

Greenvale by comparison is not “abandoned”. People drive to work, go to the diner, get into arguments, and try their best to raise their kids. While Agent York can collect enough evidence to move events onto the next chapter in the investigation there is never any rush to do so and he can visit anyone at his leisure. When not tracking down the raincoat killer or fighting ghost zombies of the damned in the town’s “shadow dimension” York buys new cars from a grizzled Vietnam veteran, peeps into people’s houses to observe their routines, changes clothes, shaves, eats, throws darts in the bar, and literally goes fishing for items.

You quickly discover York is not the only eccentric person in dodge. Sigourney is a crazy old woman that carries around a pot in the pursuit to keep it warm. George is a stoic Sheriff with a troubled past which left scars on his back. Emily Wyatt is snug in her role as the “kind and courageous deputy officer tom boy” all us geeks can fawn over. A Californian rocker store clerk has twin sons holding an important secret. Nick is great at cooking yet abrasive when it comes to socializing. There is also Diane, a seductive rich art gallery owner known for her promiscuous habits and odd late night meetings. Keep into perspective these are only a few of Greenvale’s citizens. This isn’t akin to the 5 character “skeleton crew” found in games akin to the Silent-Hill series. The end result makes you feel as if you’re in a “real place” instead of a Hollywood set piece.

Along with York’s health eating and sleeping effect his “hunger” and “awareness” meters. If you don’t take care of York beyond throwing an occasional health kit at him he will suffer for it. York’s “hygiene” is important as well. Let him go long enough without a suit change or shave flies will buzz around his scraggly beard! If you want to play as a hobo FBI agent your wish has been granted!

Combat in Deadly premonition reminded me of Resident Evil 4. Pull out York’s gun and things immediately are seen from over his shoulder and he even has a stereotypical “laser light” and red cross hair targeting icon. While shooting York cannot run but for any of you that enjoy this genre it is not too much of a detraction. In addition York can do a quick 180 spin, push objects out of the way, and smash crates and zombie ghost skulls either with his bullets or close range melee weapons he finds along the way. Certainly he is no Kung Fu master when it comes to swinging a golf club or shovel but he still gets the job done!

I was even more impressed when this low production value gem had “chase & hide” sequences. These occur when the raincoat killer pursues the hero and he has to hide in closets, hold his breath, sprint to a safer check point, or dodge axe blows through real time events so as not to end up the next gruesome victim. Most horror games only give us the choice to fight or only give us the option of evasion so it’s great to finally have a combination of both of them.

Driving isn’t hard. While you have it in your power to light up your turn signals, switch on sirens, and employ the windshield wipers none of those tasks are necessary to make it from point A to point B. The only annoying occurrence is running out of fuel or getting damaged beyond repair when in the middle of nowhere. Easy solution? Carry flares with you at all times. When one of those puppies lights up in the sky another patrol car will be sent to you free of charge. Luckily you can also switch the automobile camera from 1st person to 3rd person if you have a personal preference. Having a vehicle “cleaned” or “refueled” at the gas station will keep it at top performance. Remembering these tips will save you a lot of grief!

The inventory screen of Deadly Premonition is the weirdest piece of interactive game art I’ve ever seen. It looks like a surreal office with a cracked wall leading to outside. Mounted over a fireplace is a moving deer head. From this window in York’s mental attic players can change out weapons, view the town map, look at clues, and view collected trading cards . Most designers would have made this a boring and drab task grid of monotony so the extra creativity is something that should be appreciated!

It perplexes me this game got low reviews. It wasn’t egotistically puffing itself up to seem better than it actually was. The people behind it were generous to offer it for a mere $20.00. If that were not enough Deadly Premonition has a fairly large sandbox setting. Unlike its’ more linear action driven survival horror siblings this beast cannot be blazed through in only a few nights.

My verdict: A

Rating

I’ve heard some claims that this game is “so bad it’s good.” I’d like to put that argument to rest. This game is just flat out good, period. You don’t have to make excuses to enjoy this truly wonderful gem. Once you’re pulled into this creepy murder mystery you won’t want to finish until you’ve collected every playing card, completed every racing mini game, and solved the murder of Anna Graham.

Welcome to Greenvale, you’re agent York Morgan, but please call him York. If you’ve ever wondered what a Twin Peaks video game would be like well this is as close as you’ll ever get to such a thing. All the elements are here: large midwestern town, quirky townsfolk, FBI agent who is enthralled by the small town, and a murder so horrifying it threatens to destroy the simple goodness of this place.

When you first start the game it would appear at first that everything is as you expect in a survival horror game. Slow walking undead creatures? Yup. Resident Evil style controls? Yup. There are few surprises to find in the games prologue but those who push forward will be greatly rewarded by all of the other gameplay elements that come into play as the game and the town unfold before your very eyes. It’s the little details that always make me grin. The exaggerated looks on the character models. York’s cheesy smile. Turn signals and windshield wiper controls when you drive the car. When York talks about popular films such as Superman 4 with his imaginery friend Zach.

The game blends the “real in-game clock” of Dead Rising with the open world freedom also found in that game but instead of just one mall you get an entire town to drive around in. In the same league as such great games as Mad World, Killer 7, and No More Heroes; Deadly Premonition is ambitious in it’s design and most of all you can tell that the devs had just as much making it as you have playing it.

There is no need to make excuses for this game. The graphics, music, and gameplay elements are deliberate and they all work as long as you’re willing to enjoy them for what they are meant to be.

Rating

At first glance Deadly Premonition appears to be just another budget Resident Evil 4-5 clone, but upon closer inspection this game offers more charm and laughs than any other game this generation.

Deadly Premonition is a budget 360 exclusive which is heavily inspired by horror games and TV shows of the 90′s. The core game is more or less an unpolished Resident Evil 4, with over the shoulder perspective, laser sight equipped weapons, and glowing items. The structure of most of the combat involves you navigating a hellish dungeon version of a town building and trying to gather evidence in order to help profile the mysterious Raincoat Killer. Speaking of whom the Raincoat Killer could possibly be the greatest invincible foe this side of Nemesis, constantly forcing you to hide or flee whenever he appears. The biggest difference gameplaywise is that after the prologue Deadly Premonition opens up into a Grand Theft Auto style open world full of various sidequests and collectible trading cards to find. While it’s certainly not as robust as the popular Rockstar series it is quite surprising how well it was executed here.

I’ll get this out of the way, yes Deadly Premonition is a $20 game, yes some of the gameplay mechanics are janky at best, and most of the visuals are absolutely horrendous. Yet despite these flaws Deadly Premonition brings heaps of something that most games lack this generation, charm. From the Resident Evil 1 so bad it’s good caliber dialogue, the completely out of place music, and the ridiculous amounts of driving between missions you just won’t find anything like Deadly Premonition on the market today.

Now if you are one of the kind of sadomasochists who enjoys laughing at bad games you will find plenty of material to satisfy. The audio levels for the music and dialogue are turned to extreme highs and lows so often that you’ll have to rely on the often inaccurate subtitles to understand what the hell is going on. The “lighting” can jump so drastically between two doors that it made me think back to the days of Quake 1. Most of the animations are extremely exaggerated forcing you to sit thru 10 seconds of Agent York opening his car door unless you hit Start. (protip hitting start will save you a ton of time and frustration throughout)

Despite what the lead designer SWERY `65 (who incidentally worked on the PSX game Tomba) will tell you the game was heavily inspired by David Lynch’s early 90′s TV series Twin Peaks. From the murder of a teenage girl in a Pacific Northwest town, the strange inhabitants of said town including an old lady obssesed with a cooking pot, and a extremely quirky FBI Agent with an unseen friend and an obsession for a good cup of coffee. And just like any David Lynch joint the broken parts are as necessary as everything else. For instance Agent York’s cheesy animation for whipping out his badge is overused just enough in the beginning to allow the townsfolk to make fun of it. This game is more or less the equivalent of a B-movie, which ironically the protagonist often discusses in the car.

Normally such glaring issues would have made me overlook this game completely, yet there is something about it that reminds me of many PSX survival horror games I was so fond of in the late 90′s. Perhaps it’s finding and then eating a a can of pickles you got out of a broken crate,some of the odd translation choices, or even the that York grows a beard in real time. If you have any love for the survival horror games of old, pyschological thrillers, or even just wondering what in the hell you just saw then you need to play Deadly Premonition.

Rating

For starters, you should be aware that the game developers are asking their Facebook fans to post reviews for Deadly Premonition on Amazon and Gamestop so be prepared for alot of [over-inflated]5 star ratings.

With that said, DP is not as bad as some reviews have made it out to be. Sure the graphics are terrible (I personally think it adds to the charm of it all) and the controls are archaic and somewhat unbearable during combat- to say the least. However, the story is very intriguing and the game definitely has a Twin Peaks feel, if that floats your boat, definitely does mine. Sure you can probably score a used game with better graphics and controls at your local game store but nothing out there is quite like Deadly Premonition; which warrants a rental at least for anyone who is in the mood for something a little out of the ordinary. I urge Twin Peaks fans to check this game out, you should be able to deal with the flaws as I am sure you used to play old RE games and the like. Heck for 20 bucks you could do worse so why not just buy this game; it’s quite long so a five day rental period may not suffice.

Rating

wow… proof that wacky and good still cooexist…. amazingly unreal.

try for yourself!!!

5 stars, fun and amazing!

Rating

I bought this game based on good reviews but when I actually played it I was hugely disapointed and shocked.

I didn’t care about the graphic and was willing to overlook the control issue but the game design was very crude and rough. For instance the mostily Japanese game designers used bizzare concepts as the ugly and crude looking in game icons that you could interact with and collect for points and items. The main chracter you play is very unlikeable and he annoyed the hell out of me by running like a girl. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The aiming control was bizzare and unintutive. This game is reatiled for $20.00 for a reason. It will be on the Gamestop shelf for $5.00 in few months.

Rating

this game sucks flat out sucks. the graphics are from the ps1 era and the controls suck waste of time and money

Rating

Instead of writing paragraphs and paragraphs defending or hating on the game, I’ll just sum up what you need to know.

The Good:

- It has a pretty interesting story. Nothing amazing, but it’s fun and entertaining. It’s very B-Movie plot, but it doesn’t make you feel bored.

- The characters are fascinating. The main character has an alternate personality he talks to all the time, the rest of the cast is fleshed out, despite some of them being stereotypes.

- The graphics are not as bad as everyone is saying. I’d call them very late generation Ps2/very early generation 360 graphics, really. Before people got the hang of it.

- There is a lot to do. Collect cars, collect cards, solve a murder, side-quests. There’s even fishing. Kind of.

- If you’re an achievement person, they’re easy to get.

The Bad:

- The controls SUCK. Seriously. They will drive you nuts. They aren’t bad, exactly, but they are slow and unresponsive. Luckily, the combat is plain enough that it doesn’t really matter.

- The enemies are pretty boring. The story around them isn’t, exactly, but the enemies themselves just…never really stuck in my mind. They’re not zombies, exactly, but they sort of act like them.

- Some of the sidequest are painfully random. It’s just very ‘why am I doing this? I have a murder to solve!’

So, basically, it’s fun, the story is worth the visit, and it’s only 20 bucks.

Rating

This game is very good because it is weird, strange, and crazy. It even has a real time night and day cycle. what else can you ask for when it comes to weirdness? Also The main character talks to him self about old moves, that is also a plus.

Rating

After reading a few mixed reviews of this game, I decided to take a chance on it, and I am really glad I did. First off, this is NOT a survival horror game as a lot of people have described it – it’s more about gathering clues and information than just killing ghosts or zombies.

You play as an FBI agent who specializes in catching serial killers, particularly those involving the murders of young women. You arrive in a small town after a local girl is found murdered and tied to a tree. You meet up with the local law enforcement, and start trying to solve the case, which may have ties to other murders you have been assigned to.

As you progress, it becomes clear that there is a supernatural element to what is going on. It’s almost as if all these years later, someone decided to make a Twin Peaks video game.

I don’t want to say too much about the story, because that is what really makes this game great. This game is a perfect example of how an interesting story, and actual character development can overcome technical limitations. I really don’t think the graphics are as bad as most have said – they don’t look like a PS2 game or an early XBOX game – they look like early XBOX 360. However, it really doesn’t matter when the story keeps you coming back to see what happens next. Having played some pretty violent games over the years, I was surprised when a death scene actually shocked me. It wasn’t because of the gore, it was because the writing was good enough to make you care about what happens to the characters.

To be honest, there are a couple of minor negatives, but nothing game breaking –

1. The control scheme is like classic Resident Evil – it’s like controlling a tank, and the aiming mechanism can take some getting used to, and the steering during the driving sequences is kind of touchy.

2. There are boss battles, and they can be infuriatingly cheap.

This game was good enough to keep me away from finishing Red Dead Redemption (another game with excellent writing and story if you haven’t played it)

This type of low budget effort needs to be supported if we ever want to get away from annual sequels to existing franchises. I think most people who give this game a chance will be pleasantly surprised. If you are looking for something different, I highly recommend this game.

Rating

Deadly Premonition is one of the best games I have played in a while. You might think it isn’t any good by the price, but it is. It’s VERY good. I will admit, the graphics are really bad, compared to today’s standards, and the controls are clunky and can be VERY annoying at times (quick-time events and driving especially), but the story is great, scary, funny, and as soon as you start to play, you WILL be addicted. I know I was. You have absolutely no reason not to buy this game. Come on, it’s $16! Go buy this game NOW!

Rating

Trust your gut.

My review will be short. I will not waste time with words you need a dictionary for, nor will i impose my beliefs in a game upon your person. What i will say is this; reviews whether from a video game game rag or from pages such as Amazon are a waste of your time. Cut back to title. “Trust your gut”.

When you see a title that looks promising you “know” it. When you read the back cover of said game you “know it. What is it you are “knowing”?, you know by the quickening of the pulse and the desire to be the character of the story that this is the game you want to play. This is honesty to ones self. You are not led by the nose, not steered towards or away from a game you may or may not have purchased. You have just done what is known as, “trust your gut”, a first step towards severing the umbilical cord of “let me decide for you” and initiated ” I will decide for myself”. Trust your gut.

As for the game?. This game would be an excellent purchase at $39.99, long, crap your pants good.

Rating

Let’s get to the bottom line. This is a great game. Those who have scored it low or made negative comments need good grapics (eyeball candy) to enjoy a game. Aside from the dated-looking graphics, this is an amazing story with engrossing gameplay and some of the best and most original characters I have ever come across in a video game. I have spent the last months playing Modern Warfare 2, Bad Company 2, Mass Effect 2 and more recently FF XIII. Deadly Premonition is a breath of fresh air to me because it is so different from the many titles that safely cater to the mass market. Do yourself a tremendous favor, and visit the town of Greenvale for a spell. Buy this game!

Rating

This game is dated and would of been just as bad had it been released ten years ago. The graphics are lacking and the sound is cheesy! Perhaps that’s the point if you like cheesy games, go for it!

update: I gave it another try, still cheesy but kind of funny and a bit entertaining.

worth a rent but not a purchase.

Rating

Deadly Premonition is obviously not a big budget title, and as such it cant compete with other games in terms of graphics or polish. If you give the title a chance however, you are likely to find that its quirky characters and story will engage your attention in a way that other games with their multi-million dollar budgets simply cannot. With that much money on the line, no mainstream studio would ever greenlight a project as weird as this game.

The graphics are far from terrible, and in a way they have a certain charm that requires you to use your imagination to fill in the blanks. Deadly Premonition reminds me of the sort of bizarre japanese games that were de rigueur on the Dreamcast, games like Illbleed, Maken X, and D2. The investigation is over 20 hours long and there is an abundance to see and do in the town of Greenvale. Gamers with an open mind who would like to see something different, or maybe just to revisit an earlier era of far-out gaming that is now all but dead, should not hesitate to give Deadly Premonition a shot.

Rating

I love this game, this game is nothing like the good ol’ linear silent hill series, there’s lots to do, you can drive, explore the city, change outfits, customize your vehicle and many other things, this game has become my favorite game right now, I love games that make me feel scared and uncomfortable.

5 STARS!!

Rating

Please, do not listen to anyone that rated “Deadly Premonition” 5 stars; one even compared it to Heavy Reign.. Deadly Premonition is un-comparable to such a game. The “Ignition” label alone should be a fair enough warning for you to stay away from this title. These reviews are terribly in-accurate. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were “plants” by Ignition to possibly boost sales of this game. Deadly Premonition is one of the worst games ever made, hence the games title.

Rating

Deadly Premonition: Fun Budget Open World Exploration

Here’s what’s great about Deadly Premonition for the Xbox 360, released February 2010 for a budget price.

1. If you’re a fan of Sega’s life-simulation games like Shenmue, with a focus on patient exploration, then this game is a close match in many ways: From eating/getting hungry, collecting, buying stuff, shaving, sleeping, changing clothes to exploration of an entire rural town including interiors complete with vending machines, a grocery store, bars, a hospital, a large hotel, to expansive outdoor locations, rural highways, and more.

2. A day/night cycle with a very large world to explore. How big? It takes a car or van to really get anywhere, but you’re free to walk on foot, though it may take you an hour or two to get from one end of the map to the other. The day/night cycle is on par with the speed of Dead Rising’s, in that it’s closer to real time. There’s times to be at a location, but you can let that time go by and ignore the missions and go back the next day. From 12 to 6 AM, the town turns evil, but you can sleep through it.

3. Very nice looking interiors with some nice details and graphics. I’ll discuss the exteriors later… The character models are very basic but have decent expressions. Some of the female characters are attractive.

4. Nice 3rd person behind the back view of your character indoors, which zooms out to a GTA medium view when outside, but can be zoomed in with a melee weapon like a knife while walking, though when you equip the gun (unlimited ammo on easy mode), you stand stationary like in Dead Rising 1. The camera only rarely switches to a RE 2 view, where you’re steering the character from a fixed camera view, but mostly when using stairs. Otherwise, 99% of the game is behind the back view, which brings you up close to the details. You can zoom in unequipped as well, getting a nice view of the food and character faces.

5. Useable controls on foot, similar in feel to Resident Evil. The left stick controls left/right/forward/backward. The right stick is almost useless, but controls the camera so if you want to look left while walking/running, you can. You can walk, speed walk or run. Running requires holding the run button, and has a generous meter for stamina. You can crouch, but a meter determines how long, as it’s main focus is to hold your breath to avoid zombies. No jumping, but action zones for climbing stuff. Guns are nice, including handgun, machine gun, shotgun… Fun melee weapons such as crowbars, rusty metal bars, knives, etc.

6. Interesting storyline and gameplay no doubt inspired by Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and more.

7. Vehicles anytime you want. What’s truly innovative is the use of a generous fuel tank (drive for about 30 or more minutes before it gets near empty, ability to refuel at a gas station). The fuel meter requires careful planning, though if you buy a flare, and your car stops dead out of gas, light the flare and instantly get a new vehicle delivered to your location. Damage meter too, which is repaired with a carwash. So far, a police car and SUV are available to drive. Best of all, there’s 3 camera views including an interior dash view, a close behind the rear view and a distant 3rd person car view.

8. Some nice options to adjust to your play style. Creepy atmosphere at times too. And the dialog between the hero and yourself is fun, with plenty of real world facts about popular movies like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Jaws, Remo Williams, Tremors, etc. I really enjoy this feature while driving a lot. Respect to the creators.

Here’s what’s Bad or not so good about Deadly Premonition:

1. Very slow, deliberate pacing. If you have plenty of patience, this won’t be an issue, but even buying goods takes too long as you wait for the menu’s to move along. Dialog boxes, opening doors, waiting for people to talk, all take longer than necessary.

2. Vehicle controls are too sensitive and sloppy, on par with Big Game Hunter’s ATV’s and Trucks, so if you can handle that, you’ll be fine.

3. Exterior graphics straight out of a poor generation one PS2 game, not kidding at all. The resolution is blurry, lo-res and not anti-aliased, so you’ll see every pixel twitch in the distance. Bland, flat looking textures overall, this is the game’s biggest flaw in my opinion. The interiors looks great compared to outdoors. I’d guess this was first developed with PS2 in mind, but delays held it till the 360. Again, the indoors are miles better. Outside, quite ugly to play through. Draw distance is decent.

4. Repetitive enemies. If you don’t mind blasting the same zombies whenever they show up, this won’t be an issue. Eventually, things change up as you advance.

5. Can’t think of much else thankfully. Other than the “living, breathing world” barely has anyone in it. Traffic is sparse, pedestrians almost non existent but for the main characters, most of whom are indoors. The fishing is automated but for button mashing. You can’t even aim or determine when to draw in your line. Terrible.

Overall, you’ll have to slog through the first half hour, but once through the mandatory, linear prologue, you’re free to explore the giant open town with miles and miles of open, rural country roads. It’s not a bad game, the voice acting is tolerable, characters mildly interesting, the story is mysterious, though I do wish the pacing was faster. I love the open world freedom and day/night cycle, and the interiors are a real treat with some great every day locations like deli’s, bars, hotels, houses and more. If you like to explore, Deadly Premonition delivers, though admittedly, I can think of quite a few better looking open map games for the 360.

Ratings out of 10 being the best.

Graphics: Indoors: 8, outdoors: 4. Overall, 6

Controls: On Foot: 7, In-Vehicle: 4, overall, 5.5

Fun Factor: Exploration: 8, Pacing: 6. Overall 7.

Sound and Music: 6.

Voices: 6.

Story: 7.

Options: 8

Style: 8, very unique and quirky. Some nice touches in dialog and character.

Overall Game: I’d give it a “Fair”, 6.5 out of 10. And for a budget title, I’ll round it up to a 7/10. I like it, but there’s room for improvement. The outdoor graphics really hurt it a lot. Considering the price, 6.5 is a good thing, and it was probably made by a very small team, if not one person, so much credit for such a unique game being released for the 360.

Rating

I have to be honest first. This game is not for everyone. I will say again, it is NOT for everyone.

I want to say if your under a certain age you just wont “get” this game at all, but I know there are some kids with eccentric tastes and a love for actual gaming (meaning gaming is fun, not a chore or something that hinges on supreme graphics, or fast gameplay mechanics). I cant say games like MW2 arent fun, but if all you want is a quick thrill, or some misplaced affection for current gen graphics only STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME. This game is not for those who dont “get it”.

I cant explain this well because this type of game is not common place anymore, and actually I’d go so far as to say this way of story telling is also largely gone as well. There was a time bad acting, FMVs, and not so great controls were prevalent in games. It wasnt about that though; it was about the experience, and in that Deadly Premonition delivers.

As I grow older I find myself wanting more from my games then the norm. Lately I’ve been getting game after game, only to not finish it because it doesnt keep me interested for whatever reason. This isnt to say the games are bad, but as an adult my time is limited so I cant waste any of my time if I’m bored.

That being said theres a certain charm to the way Deadly Premonition lays itself out. You’ve already heard it all about this game, the game has bland graphics (although they are bad its not so bad its game breaking if your not caring about it, but it is obvious). The sound is pretty bad, the music and the diaglogue are in constant competition and there isnt much variety in music either. For most this will be intolerable and I would suggest turning the music way down if so or off if you need to but seriously if you are already disinterested by that thought please do not buy this game.

The controls are old school. To me, though, in this game it fits. I dont know why, either, as its not a good control scheme and never has been. One of the things I always hated about RE was the planted shooting. I will say though, as no one mentions it, you can strafe while shooting in this. So there is that, and I really havent had a problem with it. It is old school, though, and the pacing is slow when it comes to movement, even cars dont go particularly fast. Not that you’d want them to, they drive like your on an oil slick. Again, if this disinterests you and you find that intolerable, DONT BUY THIS GAME. Me, I play my old games all the time, so this kind of stuff is not unknown to me and the game never gets so bad with the controls I want to chuck it through the TV, so I have no issue with that.

That being said though, the story is one of interest. I’m sure by now you’ve read what the premise is a million times, and all I can say is there’s more to it. This game is deeply weird, and the further down the rabbit hole you go the weirder it gets. If you dont like not knowing whats going on, having to think about the purpose of finding keys for a nit wit deputy, or dont find it hilarious when the main character you play speaks to his second personality about cartoon shows from the old days, DONT BUY THIS GAME.

I will admit, I have a liking for bad movies. I find a charm to them that isnt really there, but I watch movies for entertainment so I dont take them as serious as some. This game has Z Grade acting at its finest. It’s not as bad as the original Resident Evil or Night Trap (oooh OLD REFERENCES; Google it) but sometimes it gets pretty close. I think the best thing about this game is the main character though. He’s so eccentric it kind of makes sense sometimes that he doesnt seem all that taken aback by the weird crap thats going on around him. If you dont like the thought of any of that, or the thought that some characters voices dont fit the character, DONT BUY THIS GAME.

Theres more to it, but I’ve said alot already and I doubt anyone will read this but I had to say something because theres to many people complaining they bought the game because of player reviews and didnt agree with the reviews. Im telling you straight up, yes I THINK THIS GAME IS 5 stars, but if the things I mentioned are not your cup of tea; dont buy this game. This game is my taste, and I enjoy every minute of it, but its not for everybody. I think the old school gamers are the easiest to target when I say they will enjoy this game. Younger audiences are more likely to not like it so I cant say if you’ll like it unless your willing to deal with this game being, for all intents and purposes, old school graphically and mechanically.

This game is gonna tide me over until Alan Wake comes out, thats for certain.

Rating

Let me start by saying that at $20 this game is likely worth a shot, you may love it for the crazy story and interesting characters, you may hate it because it looks and plays like something from the Nintendo 64… that being said… i hated it. The gameplay is terribly… that graphics hurt my brain… and the story wasn’t even close to enough for me to come back for more. Also, the driving sections are the worst i have ever played in a game… Other people love it, so don’t take my work for it… different strokes for different folks i guess.

Rating

This game has terrible controls, sound, and graphics. It opens with some of the worst Resident Evil-style shooting gameplay I’ve ever seen. But once I powered past all that, I found that I’ve had more fun with this game than with many recent releases. If you’re tired of playing as yet another bald space marine and you want to try an open-world adventure game with charm and personality, buy this! It’s only $20!

Also, this is the first game I’ve played with real-time beard growth(tm), thus making it the most innovative release of this console generation.

Rating

Awesome game! believe me, this games is a unique piece of entertaiment.

I bought it because of the price, and because i’m a survival horror fan. I was expecting a silent-hill-wanna-be game or something like that. But i wasn’t expecting one of the most interesting and engaging games that i’ve played in years. You must trust people when they say it’s difficult to explain what exactly kept them playing for more than twenty hours.

It could sound cliché, but actually you have to give it a chance, so you can understand how unique this game is.

Am i right Zach?

Rating

Graphics are PS1 era, game play and controls bad to dreadful at times. Sound is Deadly bad. I will say it was a great idea, but it does not make up for how bad the game is. If you want a 20 dollar game there are plenty of awesome games at that price point. The orange box, halo wars, dead rising, ect……………

I read these reviews on amazon a bought the game, big mistake

Rating

If you’ve played and enjoyed offbeat Japanese horror games such as Siren, Kuon and Rule of Rose, you’re in for a treat with Deadly Premonition. I bought this not expecting much, and ended up pleasantly surprised. In what’s clearly an homage to “Twin Peaks”, you play as an FBI agent named York, sent to investigate the murder of a young girl in a remote Oregon town.

The story is episodic, with a number of fixed tasks you need to complete to advance the plot, but the open world allows for free roaming and exploration a la Grand Theft Auto or Oblivion. Gameplay alternates between investigative segments, in which York must drive somewhere to investigate a crime scene or talk to witnesses or suspects, and more traditional survival horror areas where he’s attacked by zombie-like apparitions and must shoot or fight his way through. In addition to the standard health meter, York also needs to manage his hunger and sleep. The game passes mostly in real-time, so this never becomes annoying or distracts from the story elements. You can also have York smoke a cigarette to advance time more quickly, if you don’t want to wait for the right time to talk to someone. Most of the time you’re guided along so you won’t get totally lost on what you need to do, but it never feels like hand-holding.

I had a lot of trouble getting used to the driving segments. The vehicle controls always felt hypersensitive, and a simple tap of the analog stick would send me swerving into the opposite lane. It’s also frustrating to figure out where you need to go until you learn the town. There are markers that count down the distance to your destination, but because you can only zoom the map out so far, I had trouble determining which long, winding forest roads I needed to take to get there. Also it’s frustrating to be running low on gas early in the game, but the gas station isn’t open yet. The driving segments can take several minutes and are mostly uneventful, but the conversations between York and the other officers help keep things from getting dull and provide some characterization.

When you’re on foot, the game controls pretty well most of the time, borrowing Resident Evil 4′s behind-the-shoulder perspective. In a few spots the camera switches to a fixed perspective, and then the game takes on the clunky tank-like controls from the earlier Resident Evil games. I do wish I could reload a weapon while simultaneously backing away, and it always seems a bit strange to have to make eight headshots to kill an enemy when a metal pipe only takes two good whacks. But you do have unlimited ammo whereas the melee weapons break quickly, so I suppose it’s a reasonable trade-off.

The game is chock-full of endearing strangeness. Agent York is a quirky and likeable character who loves 1980s films and constantly has one-sided philosophical conversations with an invisible “partner” named Zach, who may or may not be you the player (reminiscent of Twin Peaks’ Agent Cooper and his “Diane”). None of the other characters ever react to him doing this. York can choose to shave or let his beard grow, and to change clothes or wear the same one for days (which attracks flies). When a bent-over-backwards zombie attacks you, it will jam its entire arm down your throat (!), and you’ll be prompted to shake the left analog stick to “Get it off”. There’s a can of pickles whose label simply says “The Pickles”, and some hilariously incomprehensible “Engrish” on signs in the local hospital. (Trust me, be sure to stop and read these.) Despite all this, localization of the character dialogue is excellent. I never once felt like something was lost in the translation. Most of the voice actors do a decent job as well, although there are a lot of awkward pauses and stiff character animations during the cutscenes.

Which leads us to the weakest part of Deadly Premonition. I hate to say it but the game’s graphics are probably the least impressive I’ve seen on a commercial Xbox 360 title. Textures and character models look like something you’d see on the original XBox, and object pop-up is common during the freeroaming driving segments. But the game nails the atmosphere during the creepy investigative segments, tapping into something psychological with that “OMG it’s gonna get me!” vibe. The glowing-eyed raincoat killer is memorable and scary as well, dragging a spark-throwing axe on the floor behind him wherever he goes. The sound design is excellent during the horror segments, with eerie and disturbing noises and low-key, effective music. The rest of the time, the music is… strange, never quite matching the mood of the scene. But it is catchy, I’ll give it that, particularly one whistling, vaguely Andy Griffith Show piece that plays a lot.

So. Deadly Premonition is an ambitious game, one that takes a lot of different elements, doesn’t always nail all of them, but manages to combine them into something unique. The best-looking and best-playing game on 360? Absolutely not. Sleeper hit of the year? Quite possibly. A future cult classic? More than likely. Worth playing? Beyond a doubt.

UPDATE: I’ve hit a snag in Chapter 2, Part 2, where after killing a particularly tough and frustrating enemy, the game consistently freezes up. I tried playing directly off the game disc and installing to the hard drive, no difference. Contacted Ignition but they had no helpful advice. So I’m exchanging my current copy for another. If that doesn’t fix it… Well, I guess I’ll just have to return the game as defective unless Ignition announces a patch. It’s a shame, it was fun up until this point. I can forgive, even enjoy, all the other little flaws, but not this one. Buyer beware.

Rating

Deadly Premonition is the type of game that starts to come out later in the life cycle for consoles. Where a small game development group can buy a graphics engine on the cheap that is three or four years out of date, and then just make the game that they want to play (in this case an homage to Twin Peaks), and sell it for a fraction of what a modern triple A title would go for. Deadly Premonitions has virtually nothing about it from a technology standpoint that is impressive, it uses a graphic engine that you have seen before, and it isn’t even all that finely tuned. But what Deadly Premonition lacks in cutting edge tech, they make up for with an entertaining story, solid (not fantastic there are occasional problems) gameplay, and a wide variety of gameplay mechanics that really keeps you hooked in through the end.

I did not give Deadly Premonitions a 5, mostly because of the occasional gameplay problems, and because it clearly does not have the polish of a triple A title, but for $20 or less, you can’t go wrong with this game.

Rating

It’s nice to know that there are still developers out there willing to take chances and make niche games like Deadly Premonition. The game has obvious influences from the show Twin Peaks. Being a longtime fan of the show, I find that this adds a certain charm and sense of nostalgia to the game. The writing in this game is top-notch, and is by far some of the best dialog I’ve heard in a game or movie in years. I couldn’t help but become engrossed by the story and eccentric characters of Deadly Premonition.

While I think the idea of “good graphics” should be of a subjective nature, people tend to focus on this more than they probably should. We could make a generalization about the people that play games for their graphics, and refer to them as philistines. It’s completely asinine to compare the visuals to the likes of a PlayStation 2 game. I will however admit that the graphics are not on par with some of your more recent blockbuster titles, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. But like I said, this is all subjective. I would go as far as arguing that Deadly Premonition is far superior in these respects due to its aesthetics and personality, something that most games lack these days.

Deadly Premonition manages to be much more captivating than a lot of the generic shooters they keep flooding the market with. There are those who will fail to appreciate the subtle beauty of Deadly Premonition and there will be those who are opened minded enough to appreciate this game for what it is… simply amazing.

…I don’t mean to undermine everything I just said about Deadly Premonition by mentioning the price, but come on, it’s only $20!

Rating

I really tried to like this game. I’ve been playing for the last hour and a half and doubt I’ll finish it (which is very rare for me). The ending/twist is more predictable than Shutter Island and the graphics ARE really poor for an Xbox360 game. They are on par with 10 year old + PSX games. The narration is cheesy and the enemies are all exactly the same. Oh.. and the sound is pretty poor as well. I’m a big fan of the originals, like Res Evil, Silent Hill, and Fatal Frame, so I figured I could get into this one.. no way! Seriously.. don’t waste your time. Go play SH2 or RE2 for a more enjoyable experience. — AlxSTi37

Rating

Deadly Premonition was released right under the radar. It started off as a game called Rainy Woods back in 2007, and finally made it’s way to North America as an Xbox 360 exclusive.

The game takes place in a town called Greenvale. Much like the series of Twin Peeks, Greenvale is a quaint town with quirky inhabitants. Agent Francis York Morgan (just call him Agent York) is a schizophrenic FBI agent who has another “being” who basically talks to him on a regular basis. He refers to him all the time throughout the game, including with other characters. Some of the time, you actually play as this “Zach” that he has become good “friends” with, and you answer his questions and help him solve mysteries.

The plot to Deadly Premonition is the murder of a young girl named Anna, who is brutally ripped apart and strung across a tree in a crucifix-esque position. York, who is an FBI agent that likes to specialize in the murder of young women, investigates this crime. Little does he know, that it will completely change his world, and send him through a ride of mystery, humor, cheesy/awesome dialog and basically hell. A purple fog covers the town and turns it’s inhabitants into zombies that would fit quite well into the Silent Hill franchise. York solves crime scenes, traverses dungeons invested with creepy ghoulies, and discovers himself and his past.

What was the most fascinating part of this game, is that almost every aspect of it is incredibly cheesy and poorly made. What’s best though, is that the game is completely aware of this. It constantly makes fun of itself in the greatest of ways. The controls are clunky. The graphics are sub-par. The voice acting is a B-grade movie with cheesy one-liners, a silly soundtrack that is constantly louder than the dialog, and characters that are practically insane. Yet, there is not a single aspect of this game that I would change. It’s one of those games that where if any element of the product were to be better than another element, it would destroy this product. This game is so silly and poorly made, that all of it’s faults are completely irrelevant due to the fact that this title is a truly fascinating piece of art. It’s story and characters, while very bread and butter, become INCREDIBLY well-made, and it really sucks you into the experience. It’s apparent of how much love was placed into making this title. It’s something truly magnificent, and may never be recreated in another title for as long as we live. It’s one of the most unique titles to ever grace the gaming world.

The game features a 20 hour story of mystery, suspense, fear, love and most of all, humor with 50 side missions and 64 collectible items strewn across a MASSIVE open town, all for the price of 20 bones. It’s not a hit or miss situation here. If you have the money, go to your local store and pick this up immediately, because you’re in for a fascinating treat.

Rating

A lot of people are saying this game is amazing for 20 dollars.

Well, would you rather sleep with a 100 dollar hooker or one who charges only 10 bucks but is porportionally pleasant, attractive, and talented? Sometime, the cheaper option is not worth it.

I bought the game because it has a big cult following as you can tell by all of the five star reviews here. I sold it after 5 hours of game play, because…well…the game play is broken. I don’t mind the poor graphics but the shoddy camera controls wre just unbearable.

Rating

Deadly Premonition is not a survival horror game. It is a mystery thriller with horror elements. While it’s budget development has produced sparse graphics – which aren’t top of the line, but hardly atrocious – and fluctuating sound quality, the game manages a feat so many big budget hype machines have failed to do: It maintains a compelling story with well developed characters, and never makes the mistake of forgetting it’s a video game, not a movie.

The game is mostly split between two types of segments. The first is the normal world, where as York, you are free to traverse the town of Greenvale on foot or by car. York has to maintain his hunger and fatigue by eating and sleeping or drinking coffee, a mechanic which manages to be urgent enough to take a place in the back of your mind, but never becomes a nuisance. In fact it almost guarantees repeat visits to the local convenience store to stock up on food, which in turn further solidifies your familiarity with the town and it’s characters. Not shaving will lead York to grow a beard, and not changing and cleaning his suit will attract flies and annoy people.

Like Dead Rising, York has to meet time based appointments. Time passes fairly slowly in the game, and usually you’re met with a lot of downtime to wander and complete sidequests or explore. Smoking cigarettes or sleeping can advance time quickly however, so you never have to wait if you want to move through the story. Unlike Dead Rising however, missing appointments simply schedules them for the next day, you never fail the game. The open world is persistent, other residents of the town travel around and go about their own business, all of them can stop and talk to you. You can go to their homes and peek through their windows to spy on them if the mood strikes you. You can learn a lot about them by doing so.

The other half of the game is action horror segments in ‘the other world’, parts which most likely draw comparison to Silent Hill. However, the game controls nearly identical to Resident Evil 4, with additions like a lock on mechanism, weapon quick-select, and an array of melee weapons. In the other world, York is usually investigating a crime scene and must gather clues to proceed. Here he fights zombie-like enemies and solves puzzles, and also usually encounters quick-time events and chase sequences. He will use the clues he gathers to apply his profiling skills, and solve parts of the mystery which advances the plot.

Deadly Premonition is like a lot of things, actually. But instead of feeling derivative, it takes these best parts and blends them together for something unique. Traveling around Greenvale and becoming accustomed to it’s citizens gradually pulls you into its world, makes you feel bad when bad things happen. The story is flawless and magnificent, it teases you with solutions to the case and then you realize they’re red herrings. It gives you hope, then takes it away. It’s a tragedy. But it’s also hilarious, it will make you smile, and at the very least, make you care about the characters. It never wastes time on simple plot twists, never runs out of ideas, and never loses focus. It’s a marvel. It’s unique.

It is a game that needs to be given a chance. It has a rough presentation surely; dated graphics with sparse environments and patchy shadows, very stiff animations, voice work that can be very hit-or-miss at times (except for York who is consistently amazing with his monologues about pop culture, and his soliloquies about the investigation), the stock gunshots sound terrible, a town map that doesn’t zoom out anywhere near enough, among other things. It is a budget game, but it never feels like they ran out of money half way through making it. It’s criminal that this is being sold for only $20, when it’s worth much more. Do yourself a favor and buy this game, and let the mystery take you.

Rating

I bought this because of other reviews comparing it to Twin Peaks. It wasn’t the homage I expected, but there are signs of inspiration from the show: The Northwest setting, an unusually optimistic FBI agent, quirky townsfolk, the black lodge, and a few look-alike locations such as the town diner.

The game’s major weaknesses are low-budget animation and sluggish control (buttons respond immediately, but analog stick movements are a split-second slow, which makes driving and gun aiming difficult). However, the voice acting and the story are both high quality. Every major clue leads to more secrets about the town, and the story’s twists are what you might see in a high-concept slasher movie.

You are allowed to explore the town freely and question people. There are many non-story rewards and items hidden throughout the countryside for completists. You get around by driving cars (you can proceed on foot at any time). There is day and night, and some locations have specific open hours (you can fast-forward to avoid waiting). You also must survive creepy dark-world versions of some locations to find clues about the killer.

The game tries to give you a sense of really being in the town. You drive/walk, talk with suspects, you have to sleep and eat, keep gas in your car, and even change clothes and shave. If you’re not into these role-playing details, you might find them frustrating. If not, then you will be more invested and satisfied by the story and its twists.

Rating

I got suckered into buying this piece of garbage by the high reviews and the promise of finding a game with a quirky, creepy Twin Peaks-type of atmosphere.

Don’t believe the Amazon-reviewer hype. The 5-star ratings have got to be plants. Nobody who has played a video game since 1995 could honestly give this game 5 stars. Even if you overlook the bad graphics and the awful controls, the gameplay and story are NOT THERE. And the feeble attempts at Twin Peaks quirkiness are such blatant ripoffs that it’s offensive if you were ever a fan of the show.

I’ll concede that I didn’t finish this game, so I can’t give it a full and fair review. I only lasted a couple of hours before I had to yank the disk out of the tray in disgust. I’ll concede that out of (steps away to count the games on my shelf… okay I’m back now) the 93 XBox360 games I have bought, this is the only one that has made me ANGRY at having supported the developers.

Rating

Survival horror returns with the campy Deadly Premonition. Since the game is cheap you have to give it some slack. You have to wonder though about some of the design choices. The graphics are sub par but not too distracting. The menu system is confusing and really bizarre. It opens with you peaking through some bushes and then you have to sort through what looks like a yard sale. They also hand hold you throughout the game with items and interaction points. They practically send up a flare and wave a flag telling you what to do or see next. The pop up text is really annoying but thankfully you can speed it up. The dialog and voice acting are bad but it does move the story along. You get a over the shoulder view of the character similar to RE4 and a camera that snaps back into place. The creatures you meet up with are kind of creepy as are the environments you walk through. You get a gun with unlimited ammo but you still can’t walk and shoot(bummer). This is no RE or SH but it gives the latest Alone In the Dark a run for its money. AITD has better production values but it has more frustrating game play. If you like survival horror give it a try but if you don’t have a very open mind you better rent first.

Rating

Yes, the game has crappy graphics, and to be honest, I thought the combat was inane and hard to deal with – like they stole the old RE controls or something. Surprisingly though, it doesn’t detract from the game at all.

The story and gameplay itself are awesome. It’s funny at the right moments, has characters you love, is a great mystery, and even does a good job of creating suspense/paranoia during the combat scenes. It’s like Twin Peaks meets Silent Hill, except the ending doesn’t make you want to kill David Lynch. Quite frankly, its one of the best games I’ve played and we need more like this. And to top it all off, its as cheap as a single movie ticket. I would totally recommend this.

Rating

this game has offered me over 20 hours of mystery, craziness, suspense and fun. it has a VERY unique and interesting story line. the humor in the game is perfect. true the graphics are not 3rd gen, it’s more like a PS2 game, but i’m about 85% sure that the makers of the game did this on purpose. i once thought that if graphics in a game were lacking then it would be horrible to play, but this game pulled it off big time. the sub-par graphics for me somehow fit perfectly with the personality of the game. once i got into the story of the game i didn’t want to stop. i would recommend this game to anyone, especially with the low price… some of my other favorite games include -uncharted 2, gears of war, halo, bioshock, mass effect, god of war, fable 2, call of duty modern warfare…

Rating

Quite the oddball i must start by saying this. This game i have heard nothing of when i first bought it. 20 dollars come on i could not say no and the cover art was just interesting. Being thrown into this game after hearing nothing about it at all was quite interesting. It starts off very awkwardly the main character is one that i will never forget in a game he is well done in the aspect i have never seen a character done. Trying not to throw any spoilers out and write this is hard but the game has actually decent puzzles that threw me off they actually took some brain work.

The Enemy’s are very different and attack you in awkward motions that is pretty creepy and make this god awful sound that i hate hearing i know they are around but i dont know where… It has so many little things thrown in it to lighten the mood and the music is completely beautiful as in they throw in the most unexpected tunes at the best times!! Boss fights are completely utterly insane and you will never expect the same thing again.

The game world is also huge i must throw in and has a time system, its set up kinda like majoras mask as in everyone has set things they do everyday and some of the side quests involve you needing to know when people will be at certain places. You drive a car as well and the world just becomes a really freaky place at night.

Oh by the way this is the only game where you can Grow a beard and shave it off.. come on that alone makes this game completely worth the buy i give this game a 5 stars as in it will hold your time greatly and it will entertain you.

Rating

I purchased this thinking that perhaps it was the 360′s answer to Heavy Rain. After playing now for about 3 days, I would have to say that it really isn’t. This really is not a complex morality/decision making game, it is straight up survival horror with an emphasis on story more than shooting etc.

Controls take some getting used to, they went with the deliberately slow and methodical feel like Resident Evil 5, no running and gunning here. That is OK, I understand that it helps create the atmosphere, but the controls are choppy and the camera is not very cooperative, but still you can overcome it….it is only a $20 title, what where you expecting? The graphics are generally ok, not next gen for sure…compare to a ps2 title. That is ok too….its a $20 title. The story is good…sometimes very chilling and engrossing, other times very Japanese cheesy and falls flat. It is OK though, it is a $20 title and the story you get is well worth the money. The battle sequences are just OK, there are some unexpected QTE’s which actually will lead you to death on more than one occasion. You can save only at ‘telephone’ locations, so sometimes when you die there is some replaying…not too much, but enough to get annoying…..but hey, its a $20 game. There are some normal survival horror puzzles, you know– pushing crates, figuring out patterns and the like, nothing new, but kinda fun….especially for a $20 title. There are things to collect, infinite respawning zombies, a decent story, and most of all…only $20.

Releasing this game at the $20 price point certainly allows it some leeway when trying to be critical. NO, this game is not a masterpiece….it sometimes feels a little silly calling it ‘good’…it truly is just OK. What I like is the idea to release a sub-blockbuster game at a sub-blockbuster price. Honestly even releasing this for $49.99 would send that message, and it might have still been worth it. I hope people give this game a shot, and hopefully other publishers will see its success and consider the idea…not likely I know.

Rating

I’ll give with the other reviewers and say the graphics were definitely not a selling point for this game but the story line and game itself more than made up for that. The controls took me some time to get used to and I sucked at driving the car, my husband was watching me and laughed at me through the entire game because I kept crashing into everything but that’s not because of controls that’s just me. That’s beside the point though…they could have dealt with a little less on the cut scenes throughout the game, they did tend to be a bit lengthy but if you enjoy more story line that shouldn’t be a prob. There is so much to do in this game. Even after beating it, I still hadn’t completed all the things there are to do just because there’s so much. And I never expected the ending to be the way it was, it was a total surprise. Also, how many times have you beaten a game and been so ticked because it just kind of drops leaving you wondering about a few things? Not on here. It ties everything up before cutting to the credits which was a huge, huge plus for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that. Odds are if you are left guessing about something it’s because you weren’t really paying attention. All in all, this is the best game I’ve played in a long time (graphics aside). There’s a good story line, a lot to do, and an ending worth seeing. Even my husband, who never played a second of the game, enjoyed just watching it.

Rating

PROS:

-an unforgettable experience

-amazing atmosphere

-well developed and memorable characters

-great narrative

-very ambitious

-great voice acting

-comical and weird but never to the point where it makes the game any less cool than it already is

-you can spend an entire year completing all the side quests in Greenvale if you’re so inclined

-amazing game for such a low budget

CONS:

-clunky controls for shooting and driving

-map system is laughably horrible (the director of the game even mentioned this in a interview)

-ending may or may not leave you satisfied

-freezes and glitches, but nothing to the point were it happens to the degree that it ruins the game

-game was made on a low budget and it shows, looks like it was made in mind for the PS2 and not the 360

-boss battles and puzzles are laughably easy

-starts off very slow but the world soon opens up

CONCLUSION:

Deadly Premonition is a video game that tries to be nothing more than what it is, a low budget horror/mystery game with an open world environment, unique narrative, deep characters and an unforgettable experience playing it. For $20 you can spend months playing this game to get the most out of Greenvale and its inhabitants. I would suggest and recommend this game to anyone who can look past the low-res textures and is willing to spend $20 on a video game that isn’t a AAA release. After playing this game I can firmly conclude that just the experience alone is enough to put it in my top ten favorite games of all time. At first you may feel buyers remorse as the game doesn’t exactly start out strong but as you continue to play though the game you’ll grow to love living in Greenvale and most importantly Special FBI Agent Francis York Morgan, so says Mr. Stewart.

Rating

i don’t write reviews that often, but it’s titles like these that make you want to spread the word about the goodness that publishers like Ignition is doing.

Deadly Premonition may be a bit slow at times, the controls a bit clunky (just a bit) here and there…

but this game not only is greatly written; its plot navigates the line between scary and funny beautifully

it keeps things entertaining being an action mix between a detective game and a survival horror game.

a lot of inside winks at movie culture, videogame culture, and 80′s culture

it has a nice Dreamcast glory days smell to it, which I personally love.

It definitely rivals games that are three times its price and manages to do it all while still being its own thing, having its own vibe, story and pace to it.

Do yourself a favor and check this sleeper hit out!

Rating

Just got this today, Ive been playing it for 3 hours striaght so far. The story is amazing. The graphics are kind of “last gen” but in the end graphics dont make a game enjoyable…gameplay & story do. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes these kind of games, resident evil, silient hill etc. This game deserves alot more then its gettting. Dont mind the magazine reviews. You must play this for yourself. 5/5 stars

Rating

I really don’t know how to describe this game, not to mention I’m not done yet so I can’t say for certain my over all feelings about it, but this is a fun game. I’ll keep it short because there are plenty of review on here already, but the graphics are the only real shortcoming (and considering it retails for a third of what most games charge I can live with that). It plays like an older game which I like and there is plenty to do. All in all I’d say a great value…I picked it up on sale for $15, amazon trade in value was $9 so I’m only out $6. Easily the best $6 I ever spent.

Rating

This title has been met with a number of bad reviews. It occurs to me that of them, they all seem to follow a similar thread. Allow me to demonstrate: “THIS GAME IS AWFUL BECAUSE OF THE GRAPHICS, AND SINCE THE GRAPHICS ARE AWFUL, IT MUST THEREFORE BE ASSUMED THAT THIS GAME IS AWFUL. TOTALLY WEAK GRAPHICS ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TO A GREAT GAMING EXPERIENCE. ONE STAR! ALSO, I SHOULD NOTE THAT I AM NOT RATING THIS GAME FOR THE GAME ITSELF, BECAUSE I HAVE NOT PLAYED IT.”

I have played this game. I sunk around 50+ hours into the whole experience and found the game to be engrossing and easily worth the twenty dollar asking price. So how could I be so wrong, having played the game and all? Because I didn’t know the truth. The ineffable yet utterly obvious fact: good video games didn’t exist prior to Modern Warfare 2. There was no such thing as a good game for the NES or Dreamcast. There was no system seller title for your Nintendo 64 or Playstation. Forget what you thought you knew about Perfect Dark or Symphony of the Night or any of those games you thought were “good.” Childish thoughts, those. Those games could not be good. Have you seen the graphics? They’re SO bad, guys!

Please disregard the negative reviews for this title, as you’ll find them almost totally useless. The drawbacks to this title are obvious, so there is no point to spend so much time hammering them (never mind making them the entire focus of your ire). Graphics are not “next gen.” Controls take some getting used to. Translation sucks sometimes. Audio is a little out of whack. Got it? Good. Find me an overly negative review that finds flaw with a non-superficial aspect of the game or suggests the reviewer having even played the title for ten minutes. I will assure you that despite these shortcomings, they are not egregious enough offenses to kill what is a very unique, enjoyable, if unpolished gaming experience.

The goal of this game is to provide a solid narrative and a set of quirky, Lynchian characters that they will grow to care about in some capacity. And it works. This rubs some people the wrong way, because they feel the goal of a video game should have been to give them visual wanking material and plenty of loud explosions to scream over when they’re calling some kid in Tulsa something vaguely homophobic or racist. The argument that this game “could” have been great or fun had it come out on a console a generation ago is absurd, because last I checked, a good game is a good game. Bottom line. And Deadly Premonition, for all intents and purposes, is a pretty remarkable gaming experience.

Rating

I bought this game because of the reviews here on Amazon which averaged out to about 4 stars. After playing it for a while I can say I definitely don’t agree with them. Yes, the game is only $20 and if your Amazon order is over $25 it will ship for free, but even so it’s probably not worth it for you. Unless, like the title of this review says, you are really in to this type of game.

A lot of these reviews say the graphics are sub-par, which I agree with. They don’t stand up to other titles which are being released at this point in the 360′s life. But that wasn’t really a problem with me. While the environments are somewhat blocky with low poly counts and not much detail, they are ambient. The graphics aren’t great but the artwork behind them is good. The character models are decent most of the time which is nice.

Many reviews also note that the controls take some getting used to. I didn’t have any problems with the controls, although the camera is too close to you character and you can’t change the perspective at all. The controls are a little different from your average game but they work. I even thought driving cars was easy. You can run in to anything at full speed and nothing gets damaged, but the actual driving is no problem.

The reasons I will probably end up putting this game down without finishing it are the pace and the immersion level. First there is the overall pace of the game. There are a LOT of movie style cut scenes with extensive dialog. They are all subtitled which is nice, but they move so slow. You can skip the entire scene but not move ahead to the next sentence like most games. I don’t want to skip the entire scene unless I’ve been through it before, but I would like to be able to get through it a lot faster by just reading the subtitles and skipping through sentences. While this is an annoyance, I could deal with it if it weren’t for design problems that kill the immersion level.

The game does a great job of creating a tripped out Twin Peaks-style feeling in the beginning. Unfortunately this doesn’t hold up for very long. The first objective of the game once you get past the creepy twins is to turn on a bunch of generators so you can open a series of security gates. The thing I kept asking myself is, “Why are there all these security gates in the middle of a forest?”. They serve no real purpose and the whole area seems contrived. While you are on this mission to turn on the generators, there are also blockades that you must smash or shoot through. You will probably be asking yourself “Why are these blockades even here?”. You’re walking down a wooden path and then for no apparent reason there will be multiple wooden blockades to smash through. I love games that make you forget you’re even playing a game and immerse you. There are so many things about this title that keep reminding you that you’re playing a video game. And some of them are so stupid.

For instance after your first night in the hotel, you go to the lobby on the way to the cafeteria. You meet the owner of the hotel who looks like a 70-something year old woman. That’s fine, but the voice actor for the character sounds like a middle aged woman, not a granny. Then when you’re talking to her at breakfast, you can ask her about the town. She’ll tell you about some stores and she also mentions that the town has two bars. For some reason the people who made the game decided to name one of the bars after the producer of the game who’s name you’ve already seen TWICE in the opening credits. It makes it really hard to suspend your disbelief when they do things like that. Why keep reminding the player that they’re playing a video game? The license plate of the sheriff’s car reads “VIDGAMES” for Pete’s sake. Also, all of the other police cars have license plates which read “SPYFCTN” whatever that means. They didn’t even take the time to make up different license plates. When you’re driving your police car, the top speed is 55 MPH. Not realistic at all.

There are a lot of other little incongruencies such as these that really take what could’ve been a great game and pretty much flushed it. I could go on and on as these types of things pop up every five minutes but I think my point has been made. If you are big on immersion this game probably isn’t for you. But if you don’t care about immersion and are fine with long cut scenes that can’t be sped up you might enjoy it.

Rating

I think this game is different than any game i have played. I like the game because i get a little creeped out but i am not too fond of the graphics. I think its pretty cool how the main character is affected by how much or how little sleep or food he gets. I have to play some more to figure out what else i liked. But i have seen that there are mini games that you can play that I cant wait to get to.overall, i think its a pretty cool game.

Rating

After seeing a clip of the main character having breakfast with the elderly woman who runs the inn I had to buy this game. I’m still playing it now and it’s one of my favorite games on the 360. It was worth every penny.

Rating

Deadly Premonition

When I first saw trailers for Deadly Premonition, I was quite intrigued (I love adventure and survival horror games)-so I was going to get this game regardless price or quality (there are so few games in those genres these days that it’s hard to get my fix)… and when I heard that it was going to be 20 bucks, I got even more excited (most budget games these days cost 40… which is 20 bucks more than what a budget game cost one console generation ago). I have to say, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with this game.

Graphically, it’s no showboat, that’s for sure, but it’s competent–especially for the price. The character models look like high-end original XBOX models, but the environments, especially texture-wise, are rather lacking. I had seen the previews and the price tag, so I wasn’t going in expecting Crysis; but if you’re a graphics whore, you will be quite disappointed. Regardless of the low polygon count and texture resolutions, I really liked the game’s atmosphere–the environments are intriguing and surreal which really helps maintain the game’s mood.

The story is captivating and very well done with a competent cast, especially for a budget title, to help keep you engaged for the 20+ hour campaign. It’s an odd blend of surreal horror and quirky humor that manages to work well together. It’s quite unlike anything you’ll experience in a big budget title… the game takes a lot of risks, which is probably why it ended up being a budget title (ie. if they produced the game with a larger budget, if it flopped, the loss would have been much greater–so, they managed to take risks with a low budget to see if it was a formula that worked).

The gameplay may feel a bit dated, but I grew up on games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil and I honestly think it works well for a horror game because it adds a layer of intensity instead of making your character an indestructible superhuman space marine. You’re placed in a free roaming town with plenty of places to explore and things to do… like more things to do than a lot of 60 dollar games these days. The vehicle segments can be a chore because they handle like bricks on square wheels, so that’s a bit disappointing, but not an entirely game-breaking experience because they’re not really a huge part of the game. Some really creative things were done with the time cycle and character management–your character will grow a beard as time progresses, so you can shave that to keep your image more appealing to those around you… if you don’t change your clothes regularly, flies will gather around you… stuff like that. It’s quite fascinating and is something you don’t normally see in games.

The sound design would be my biggest complaint… it’s like watching an old movie where the music is so loud and the dialogue is so quiet that it’s almost hard to pay attention to what’s going on. I turned the bgm music down to 30 and have the voices volume at 100% and it still had issues, so I put on subtitles. The music can also be a buzz kill with only a few songs that cycle during character interactions and key plot points… some of them feel really out of place (there’s one happy little diddy with whistling that is just odd to hear when you’re investigating a murder… and it WILL get stuck in your head).

If you can muscle through some torturous tunes, the game is really a treat. It has an engaging story with a lot of charm of its own that you won’t find in most mainstream games, a lengthy campaign, and a very affordable price. It may not be a looker, but even had this game been released with the standard $40 budget price, it would have been well worth the cash–so, $20 is quite the steal.

Rating

This is the only game i have bought in months and it is so worth every penny so much fun. already 12 hours into it and still loving it. So fun So strange no other game out there like it

Rating

Overall, I enjoyed the game. I can go on and on about what I really liked about it and with the same breath I can tell you how much I dislike it. I am seriously torn between placing the game among my favorites or shattering it with a dull axe. A very dull axe. Maybe it is love?

When I review the aspects of this game, I am torn by very good praise and downright disappoint. I think there is enough comments out there about the graphics, audio issues, and controller mechanics, so I won’t even go into it. I would like to say that the poor graphics work for this game whereas it wouldn’t work so well in others.

My greatest enjoyment of the game is the storyline. The eerie mystery story has substance that keeps you curious and entertained. You play the role of an FBI profiler that has arrived to this small town on a hunch that this town’s murder is linked to other murders across the country. The townsfolk cover just about all the stereotypical personalities you would expect to find. To solve the murder of a young woman, you will need to uncover the secrets that lies behind the false grins and uneasy looks, but more importantly you need to discover the demons within the protagonist. I was highly entertained by the suggestion that the profiler had a second personality by the name of Zach. It was a nice way to make you feel like you were part of him and at times he will ask you for your opinion. This really sets the stage in seeing the town in two different worlds. The real world and the mystic one. The real horror is seeing the town through the eyes of Zach. The dead rise and the myth of the raincoat killer comes to life.

In some cases you are carried through the storyline and at other times you have big gaps during the day and night that you can explore the town and accomplish side missions. If you miss your appointment, you can always catch it the next day without any penalties. The side missions are pretty simple and can give you more depth into the characters. I like to think of it as the difference between watching a movie or watching a tv show. If you just want the theatre version, don’t bother with the side missions, but it you want the tv show version, complete all the side missions and learn more about the town and the people in it. A major character is the town itself and you will find this out soon enough when it starts raining.

My major disappointment in this game is consistency. Just like the main character having two personalities, this game appeared to be made in two different styles and it didn’t even try to pretend like it wasn’t. You can notice this with the ballooning storyline and with the controller mechanics. Most of the game is very simple in terms of controls. You move around finding clues and have an action button that shoots, jumps, climbs, etc. On occasion, you will need to evade (tapping a button based on what is shown on the screen), reload, and run away. Progression is based on learning more about the murderer. There isn’t any bosses along the way to close a chapter in the story. Simple enough. Since the ghosts and spooks come out when the agent is alone, you start to believe that it is only happening in his head. Towards the end of the game, you can throw all the fundamentals out the door. The game turns into a shoot’em up, eat lead, you apparently have nine lives, but that’s ok, you are a character in the game known as a boss. This isn’t happening in Zach’s crazy world, but what you considered as the normal one. I need to hit multiple button combinations to evade and for a short while I felt like I was playing an earlier version of God of War. Only I am not a god, but a mental patient. It felt like another game entirely. I don’t know. Maybe I’m nuts. What do you think Zach?

I don’t think 20 dollars is a steal for this game. You are basically paying for only the good parts. Enjoy.

Rating

Deadly Premonition is getting a bit of a reputation for being “so bad it’s good;” actually, it’s so good it’s great. The other five star reviews speak for themselves, but I’d like to add that I haven’t played a game this entrancing since killer7, and for those of us who are attracted to paths not taken by most people, Deadly Premonition is like a gift. This game is fearless, and I hope it does well, because SWERY 65% has some kind of genius thing going on.

Rating

…or at the very least my evening’s entertainment. I have not laughed this hard in forever; this game is… well, from a purely technical standpoint it’s kind of bad and there’s really no getting around that, but somehow it manages to make you forget all that. It’s so weirdly compelling that I found it impossible NOT to like, despite what should have been a laundry list of flaws.

Total cult classic in the making and everyone should play this at least once. For $20 you are getting your money’s worth and then some. If you ever at any time were fond of the old TV series Twin Peaks, I doubly recommend this game. It’s not only a sardonic absurdist lampoon of the survival horror genre (some might even say an elaborate trolling job), it’s a 30-hour long homage to David Lynch’s work.

Rating

I actually waited to write this review until I had beaten the game, which occurred at right about the 24 hour marker. (To put that in perspective I have played this game 21 hours more than Final Fantasy XIII.) All I can say is “WOW!” I am really thoroughly impressed by this little title. This game won’t impress everyone that much is evident but if you’re a more sophisticated/older gamer, someone who enjoys a unique experience or just a person enjoys a good Detective/Horror story I would recommend this title to you without hesitation.

For some reason this game clicks with me very strongly and a lot of people have said ‘it’s so bad it’s good,’ or ‘I laughed through it lolz’ and I have to disagree. There is a good healthy and might I add a refreshing dose of humor for about the first half of the game. Then it shifts into a much more serious tone and managed to draw me in even more than I thought. This transition happened so smoothly that I actually ended up caring about how the story was progressing. Thanks to this little technique of ‘character building’ I was actually riveted to my seat. I kept pressing on just to see what was going to happen next. So here we go, here’s the rumors and the truth.

“The graphics suck!” – Well I still play Atari, NES, SNES, DOS and PS1 games. I had no problem overlooking the fact that these were PS2 era graphics. If anything I think it added a bit. It lets your imagination fill in where the graphics engine leaves off. (Trust me your mind can fill in more texels-per-second than any computer ever will.) As far as I can tell ‘poor graphics’ hasn’t effected Silent Hill 1 at all. So why should this be a problem now?

“The controls are clunky!” – The controls do take some getting used to, and I did find driving to be a little cumbersome. With that being said though the game never asks you to do something that you can’t.

“The story is stupid and filled with awful one-liners” – I actually found the voice acting to be very well done, and the dialog 99% of the time was spot on for the situation. The story is really more akin to a Stephen King novel even right down to the classic “Stephen King Ending.” e.g. You don’t know whether to be happy or sad. I’m still up in the air about that one myself.

This game does shine in other areas such as game play and creativity. Over all the experience is something that I will never forget. Think of it as a mash up of Metal Gear Solid attention to details in a Grand Theft Auto free roam environment with Silent Hill like atmospheric sequences, Resident Evil like controls and a Clock Tower like mystery and events. Truly they have taken a little something from all the pertinent genre leaders and made it their own. The huge amount of things for you to do, plus the different and varied ways that the designers break levels and actions up keeps this game from ever getting stale. You can tell that the designers, directors and testers were very proud of this game and put a lot of love and effort into it and it does show. This game was never a chore to play. It was simply unencumbered fun. Side quests that mean something or give you an actual valuable item. Great cast of characters and personalities, and so much more. This has worked it’s way to a very prominent place on my very short favorite games list. I just wish more game publishers and studios would pay attention to why this game works so well.

F.Y.I. I’m told this game was heavily influenced by the TV series Twin Peaks. I’ve never seen the show but I think I will now, and if you’ve already seen it I would seriously think about getting this title. I’ve been told by fans of Twin Peaks, that it’s a lot like playing the series.

I could go on for at least another 10 pages on all the good things this game does spot on but I won’t. All-in-all an excellent game, the way games should be made.

Rating

I can really say this is in my top 3 favorite 360 titles to date, along with “The Orange Box” and “Gears of War” with “RE5″ following that. I hear alot of complaining about the controls, there is really nothing wrong with them its kind of a flashback to classic games like “Alone in the Dark” old school gamers would actually appreciate these, and reconize them from many games they played on PC. In my opinion this may be the best story and cinematics ever in any game for any console. Its amaazing that a 20 dollar game could be this perfectly packaged, and the people behind it are just amazing. They are on facebook and are very in touch with fans, so if there happens to be a sequel I’m sure it will be even better as much as the pay attention to the fans. If you love survivor horror and mysteries you will love this game. It is a great who done it? You will want it to end to see who done it, but be upset that it is over, good thing there are so many side missions and cards to collect that it will keep you busy for hours after.The music is amazing as well. If I was you I’d pick this up what ya got to lose for 20, I know i was so surprised, and that it will be in my collection forever.

Rating

This was a game that was, in some ways, disappointing. When I bought this game, I was expecting a horror game like Silent Hill. Of course I was wrong.

Francis York Morgan, the schizophrenic protagonist of Deadly Premonition. Constantly having Zach, his other self, tap on his shoulder. hunting down the obvious source of the red seeds and reading coffee and milk like a clarvoyant with tea leaves. The game was probably one of the strangest I’ve played yet.

With a horrible soundtrack, it more than made up for it in hilarity. Of course I was laughing at all of the wrong times. The voice acting was the worst I’ve ever seen in a game. That is, of course when there was even a voice over at all. There were points in the game when all there was was subtitles, bad music (which sounded like whales mating, and that’s no joke),and characters shaking their heads for about two minutes straight. The game was not scary in the least. It did, however put to use some very stunning environmental graphics, as well as some very interesting monsters, however many of the same you had to kill. I believe there were about five different monsters, including bosses to fight.

One thing that the game put to use was the reality of York being a person, and the fact that he needed to eat and sleep. Not only that, but you could also pass time smoking cigarettes. I’d say that the best part of the game was the twist in the ending… which was pretty dumb and kinda drug on and on and on and on…