Holy smokes! It's only three bucks on Steam!? Good timing, though unfortunate my PC probably can't handle it... Man, I'm tempted to just buy it anyways?

Edit - ... Sorry, a bit premature. I bought it. It was super cheap. That said, I may have to get it on consoles if this doesn't work, if I ever get it on consoles.

I've only watched the Endurance Run, but from everything I saw the gameplay (specifically shooting and movement) was dated at the time and just generally poorly executed. However, the world it builds and the story it tells are incredibly engrossing.

If the Director's Cut does actually make gameplay improvements I see no reason not to play that version, although I can't comment on if it affects the story. And, if you can get past the gameplay issues and struggle on with it I can't imagine you not enjoying it - I haven't seen Twin Peaks but everyone comparing DP to it nearly made me go out and watch it at the time.

Looks like it'll run on almost any PC with a dedicated video card...yes it reminded me of Twin Peaks quite a bit...it is very rough/janky, you won't like it if you're looking for a good AAA game. I thought it was a joke that people were into it, but if you're forgiving of mechanics and tech in games, it does have some high points.

For 3 bucks you might as well just try it. I personally will stick to watching the Endurance Run - more fun to watch than play ^_^

@bollard: There are a bunch of ways to watch Twin Peaks for 'free', they even put it up on Showtime recently along with the movie Fire Walk With Me (which is how I got to finally see it). I recommend you watch it. I'm downloading the Director's Cut now on Steam.

It's B-movie the video game. If you like that kind of thing, then you'll probably find a lot to like in Deadly Premonition. It's not a good game, though. Most of what I, and I assume others, like about it is the weirdness, not the gameplay. It's just as janky as it looks in the Endurance Run. Honestly, I preferred watching the Endurance Run to actually playing the game.

Its a really fun game to watch unfold, but the core gameplay mechanics are not good at all. So you will have to suffer through that to actually get something out of this. But if you are willing to actually do that, then you hopefully won't regret by the end of the game.

I only watched the endurance run but man the gameplay looked horrible, the story and voice acting seemed quirky enough to be entertaining though.

Playing the game is not that fun. There are big shooting bits and driving bits without much character interaction, and those aren't hot. The production values are also super cheap. But the writing is this wonderful, cheesy, likeable thing. I played through it with a friend, and she'd do the driving while I did the shooting just to share the monotony of those sections. She's also watched Twin Peaks and said it was pretty much that.

I mean, just check out the first episode of the VJ endurance run for deadly premonition and see it it looks worth it to you. For me, the lackluster gameplay was worth it for the charm and writing. I adore Francis York Morgan especially, he's wonderful.

It's a bad game, but it's one of the best games ever made.

To play, emphatically no. To experience, emphatically yes!

The story and characters are all the right kind of batshit insane. Unfortunately, the game play is painfully tedious.

You know, after all these years, I still give a resounding I don't know

Although I have never actually played the game it always comes off as a game that is more fun to watch than actually play myself.

It has the greatest weapon name of all time: Mission Knife

The rerelease on PC and PS3 a few years back is a great version to play. Fixed a lot of annoyances. It is a janky game but there is a ton to love in there.

Actually, I'm about an hour in now. The game mainly visually is mediocre, like a pretty good looking original Xbox/PS2/GameCube game. It runs well for me. There's no graphics option, not even a brightness setting (which is too bad, because the brightness is way, way too bright). There are some weird choices, like making most of the enemies once they spot you, turn around and then bend their backs facing you. That seems like it was intended to make the player scared of the enemies (similar to how horror films have demonic creatures crawl backward), which is just hilarious. The game is actually pretty good so far, an enjoyable one despite the not-so-good visuals, as well as including animations. One question, why is there infinite ammo? That seems weird. The animations remind me of what's seen on N64. I'd already recommend the game especially at the price it is on Steam for right now. I think while the gameplay isn't necessarily 'good', it's still enjoyable enough where I'm not bored of it. It also has awkward controls, but easy to get used to.

Edit - Oh, I was only 30 minutes in. Finished the first part, and now in the hotel. I like it! I'm glad I got it, and I'm certainly glad I got it when it was this cheap. Should have played it when it came to Steam in the first place. It does remind me of Twin Peaks, though York seems to like coffee even more than Cooper! At least, he mentions it more.

I have not played it, but I recently watched both Endurance Runs. I will probably write a blog about it when I'm finished with my Best Of series, but here's the short version:

I think this game is the definition of a bad game. Mechanically it is a slog, in addition to it being an ugly, stitched together mess. Still it has both genuinely funny moments and intrigue mixed in with "lol, this is so bad it's good" stuff. The story ends up being the main driving force, but even that takes a while to get going and the ending almost ruined it for me. It is interesting from an academic perspective and it's fun to answer the question "Just what the hell is this thing?" But is it any "good"? Nope.

I don't know. What do you think, Zach?

My stance is kinda complicated but probably closest to the last option. I really enjoy the total experience, but it is severely flawed. It is still one of my favorite games and the game that cemented in my mind that I will support Swery making games until I die.

It's terrible but I love it.

I heard the PC version is severely bugged and unstable though. Lots of crashes and errors.

The game part is not great, especially the combat (which is outright bad), but the story is so good that I consider Deadly Premonition one of my favorite games of all time.

If the game had better gameplay mechanics and better graphics, you would have seen this game being considered one of the best games of last generation.

The idea of an open world horror game, essentially, is sooooooo fucking good. I love the idiosyncrasies of the game, but sometimes playing it felt like fighting the software itself.

@petiew: Not sure, only 40 minutes in; seems fine, though. Unfortunately, the game seems to be a straight port of the console version, down to the fact you can't change resolution from what seems like 720, and no graphics options to mention at all. The only difference is performance, which runs pretty well. Cutscenes are only 30fps.

I watched the entirety of the Vinny/Jeff Endurance Run (I need to go back and watch the Brad/Ryan one, actually), and then immediately bought DP for the 360, played through it, and loved the insanity just as much the second time around. Everyone else has basically said what you need to know: some parts (e.g. shooting, driving) are abjectly terrible, but others (story, characters, heart) are legitimately great. I love Deadly Premonition, and I'm so glad the Endurance Run introduced me to it.

I did have some severe technical problems on the PC version, including crashes, corrupted save files, etc., so if I ever plan to play through it again, I will probably just pull out my 360 to play it on there. I hope your PC experience is better, OP.

@ntm: There's a DSFix-type thing for this game from the same guy called DPFix, but it didn't get updated much. I think it should at least let you change the resolution. Not that it'll make much difference, the textures make everything look low-res no matter what.

Playing it is bad. Experiencing it is good. Buy it for 3 bucks and watch the endurance run instead. :P

• It is not a good game. People certainly like it, but there is very little you can point to and say is objectively good. You'd be a jerk for recommending it to a stranger.
• Looks bad, plays bad, story is dumb.
• Elements, and characters are interesting, but not executed that well.
• You're just as good watching the endurance run.

Having said that I really enjoyed the endurance run after it was all said and done.

It's a bad game mechanically with a lot of heart.

@kingbonesaw: this

@teddie: Honestly, I'll settle for what it's at. I'm sure someone did fix it, but I like the frame rate it runs at now. Just got home and about to play it again!

Okay, an hour and a half in and this game is way, way more Twin Peaks than I expected, almost copy and paste in some ways. The way York talks, like the way he describes things he puts in his mouth (especially his love for coffee), or how he goes on a small tangent after a serious moment, asking what movie a character was watching simply because he wanted to know, and not because it has any meaningfulness to the task at hand; York talking to Zack is like Cooper talking to Diane on his recorder in Twin Peaks (except, from what I understand, York is actually kind of loopy in the head). Some of the quirkiness is similar, like the scene in the hotel where the old woman is talking to York as they sit across the long table, that kind of goofiness wouldn't be misplaced in Twin Peaks. Maybe it's a stretch, but the woman that's killed in this game that's hung on the tree goes by the name of Anna Graham, in Twin Peaks, Heather 'Graham' plays 'Anna' which is also a waitress and... well she comes into it late and things happen to her.

The story, at least so far, and the town are basically taken from Twin Peaks as well. Just now when I quit, the woman in the hospital basically described the premise of Twin Peaks, from a book she was reading, which is also similar to what's going on in the game. The characters are also very similar, but their personality is different, like the relationship between the sheriff and York; it's more antagonistic than Cooper and Truman's. Lastly, and it may be another stretch, even more than the last, but something tells me Swery is just a fan of David Lynch's work in general because Emily Wyatt looks like she's modeled after the actress Naomi Watts (similar name too now that I think about it), which was in Lynch's film Mulholland Drive.

It adds to the enjoyment, but I am just surprised. It's actually the games 'issues' that seem like it makes it stand apart. If you had, let's say the Uncharted 4 engine behind this game and better translation (it seems like translation may be a problem?), it'd feel like they'd just be making a Twin Peaks game with a different name to it and some differences here and there, and some of its uniqueness wouldn't be there. It's in some of the bad things that I'm not sure is intentional or not, like York's crazy looking smile. It contributes to making a weird character, but was that really the intention, or did it just come out bad and in so make it part of the quirkiness? If they ever remade this game with much-enhanced visuals, improvements to voice work and some dialogue, would the game lose something integral to the original experience that made people like it?

I'm guessing the game differs later on, though? This game is more Twin Peaks than Alan Wake, which I didn't expect. The biggest difference so far is that since it's a game, they felt they had to add some shooting. There's not a lot of that in Twin Peaks. It sounds like I'm being down on it, but this is actually exactly what I wanted. The game is really good; I enjoy it, and the gameplay isn't getting in the way. I saw the driving in the endurance run a bit, but I was still surprised now that I'm playing it, and thought to myself 'this is cool'. I think the biggest issue just comes down to visuals, so I wonder how well this game would have been received if it had come out during the time of the Dreamcast or early to mid PS2/Xbox/GameCube.

I realize you've already bought it, but:

I would say that it's a game that you're better off watching than playing, because the actual gameplay parts are atrocious

The story/characters/voice acting/etc. are 'so bad it's good,' but the actual gameplay is 'so bad it's bad.'

@ajamafalous: Actually, though I'm not far in, only played an hour and a half (but will play again soon here), the gameplay isn't so bad that I am hating the experience in that regard. Like I said, I feel like due to the visuals, and how things animate it makes it feel a lot worse than it could. It controls totally fine, though I don't know if that differs from the original release to the director's cut. Though I say I don't hate the gameplay, and I really am not bored by it itself, if the game had a worse story and less quirkiness that excites me to see what the heck is going on, or just what kind of crazy thing will come next, I would have been done playing it by now. Bad is a strong way to put it unless you consider how dated it is compared to other titles, but it's just not good either. The feeling can change at some point, but so far the exploring, shooting, and driving have all been fine. It is... Competent. I just look back to older games from the generation of the original Xbox/PS2/GameCube and even Dreamcast, that's what this reminds me of, and it'd be pretty good if it came out then I think.

I feel like I like Deadly Premonition for similar reasons people like Shenmue. It's a town full of people with routines that you can explore and find stuff to do like side quests. I really enjoy the story and characters as well, and if you get one of the infinite durability melee weapons early on you can trivialize the combat which is by far the worst part of the game.

Sooooo much this.

I bought the game on release in its pre-director's cut, 360 only form and bounced off it pretty hard. Didn't get beyond the opening area - It looked and handled like a budget PS2-era shooter and was clunky beyond belief to play. The game got traded within the week.

Then I had a few people say to me that I was being a bit harsh, and that I should give things another shot, so I did.

Over the next 5 or 6 hours I quietly became hooked. Yes, it's hugely janky and the combat just isn't fun but the game is overflowing with the intangible things which make games and movies memorable. Most of all I love Deadly Premonition's utter sincerity. Yes, it's a game made by someone who's probably watched Twin Peaks a few too many times to be healthy and who didn't have the time or budget to fully accomplish what he set out to (I'd imagine), but the game's got a warmth, a heart to it which I find disarming.

It's the best (deeply) flawed game I've ever played.

Thanks Swery.