Deadly Premonition

Having only more recently purchased an Xbox 360, I suppose that I find it interesting that one of my favorite games for the console thus far, Deadly Premonition, lacks a lot of what seems to define AAA titles these days. While its graphics won't win any awards, the game still manages to entertain with interesting directions it takes in terms of character development, music and storyline.

Deadly Premonition revolves around a murder investigation in the town of Greenvale. Enter our hero, Francis York Morgan, an F.B.I. agent who finds himself in Greenvale in pursuit of a killer who targets young women. With the most recent victim found bound to a tree with her chest cut open in the nearby park, York finds it safe to assume that he'll soon solve the mystery and bring the killer, whom you eventually know as the Raincoat Killer, to justice. Despite his confidence in the matter, however, York can't possibly imagine just what he'll experience during his short stay.

Graphics (6/10)

Pardon the tree pun for anyone familiar with the game's plot, but Deadly Premonition fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Honestly, the character models look fine, but everything else tends to look downright lousy. I honestly can't think of a game with worse-looking trees, and the geometry that comprises the environments looks like something you might see in a budget Dreamcast game. In fairness, the open world areas look worse than the more confined areas, but you generally won't find much of anything that'll knock your socks off.

The developers certainly knew how to optimize the game, so I remain baffled as to why the game looks so bland. For example, as other characters become more distant from you, their animation becomes choppier. I've never seen it used to this extreme, but little things like this just show how much thought the developers put into the optimization process. Furthermore, the draw distance really doesn't strike me as too short, although you'll certainly see a bit of pop-up as you make your way through the town.

Characters, as I mentioned before, really don't look too bad. They don't exactly jump out at you in terms of appearance, but they have enough detail to them to prevent them from detracting from the game's overall appearance any further. The facial expressions could use some work, although I wouldn't change York's creepy smile for anything.

Oh, you know...I realize that I said that you won't find much of anything that'll knock your socks off from a graphical standpoint, but I'd like to partially retract that statement. The death scenes for the murder victims in Deadly Premonition have some of the best art direction I've ever seen in a video game. They obviously show that the developers can impress when they want to. Of course, these don't take place during the open world portions of the adventure, so perhaps the majority of the in-game graphics took a hit solely in the name of optimization.

Music & Sound (8/10)

A lot of people seem to criticize the musical direction taken in Deadly Premonition. While I agree about the gripes surrounding the audio balancing issues, I can't say that the music, itself, bothers me at all. In fact, the music adds to many scenes, especially for comedic effect. Of course, the darker scenes benefit from the music, as well, so you can tell that the musical offerings serve more purpose than to come off as obnoxious. Sound effects won't necessarily impress you, but I don't think that they detract from the experience.

Regarding the aforementioned audio balancing issues, I can't stress enough how erratically the volume behaves. While you can, to an extent, remedy this issue in the options menu, you'll find that you'll never find yourself completely happy with the volume at some point. For instance, to make some of the spoken dialogue easier to hear, I reduced the BGM setting to 50% from the aforementioned menu. Now, while I could then hear spoken dialogue much, much better, I could then barely hear the in-car stereo during driving sequences.

Controls & Game Play (8/10)

Deadly Premonition has one of the best storylines I've experienced during this entire console generation. You'll find yourself wanting to get to know the quirky characters that the game has to offer, from the crazy old lady holding a pot to the effeminate police officer whose cooking completely blows York's mind to the wheelchair-bound guy in a gas mask whose servant speaks in rhymes. York's relationship with his two main allies along the way, George (sheriff) and Emily (deputy sheriff), gets off to a rocky start, but you'll find that they gradually open up more to one another and end up as far more interesting characters because of it.

From a game play perspective, Deadly Premonition offers up several different styles to form a very compelling package. You'll spend much of your time exploring the town of Greenvale in an open world style, similar to the Grand Theft Auto games. However, you'll also find yourself exploring building interiors, usually to gather clues to assist your profiling or shooting enemies to stay alive (or both). Now, this might sound a bit strange, but - in my opinion - the most enjoyable parts of the game tend to involve tasks that the vast majority of gamers might categorize as boring. How so, you ask?

Well, if you've ever heard someone gush about this game, then you might've heard him/her describe it as weird, albeit in a good way. These same people, while recognizing all of the game's faults, will still tell how just how much they enjoyed the game, primarily because of its weirdness. This weirdness makes these previously boring tasks more than tolerable. It doesn't just make them tolerable, actually; it makes them fun.

For example, you'll find yourself doing a LOT of driving in Deadly Premonition. The lack of a damage model, combined with the overly-sensitive steering and the fact that some of the cars almost come off as possessed, prevents the driving, itself, from entertaining the player. You can't even get into any trouble while driving, as collisions and whatnot merely result in you and the other car(s) involved stopping. I absolutely LOVE the driving in Deadly Premonition, though, primarily because York uses this time to speak with his split personality, someone only referred to as Zach for much of the game, about 80's movie trivia and women. I can say with confidence that most players will hold off on progressing the story in order to let York finish what he has to say. I've done it, and I've seen other people playing who did the same thing.

Seriously, when people put off storming a building in pursuit of a killer just to hear a guy with split personalities discuss Jaws and Superman movies, you know that the developers did something right.

As if I haven't convinced you of this game's depth already, I'll now describe the more relevant aspects of game play. As I mentioned before, you'll find yourself traversing the town in pursuit of a killer. However, along the way, you need to manage your hunger and "tiredness" to prevent yourself from dying (since you get hungrier faster as you tire, and getting too hungry causes your health to drain slowly). You can combat hunger simply by eating, whether you do so by stopping at a local diner or taking a pack of crackers with you on the go. You can keep your tiredness at bay by drinking caffeinated drinks such as coffee and soda, or you can take a nap. You can also change your clothes and send some of them out for cleaning, and you can even take time to shave. If you don't change and clean your clothes regularly, then you'll start to stink (and flies will follow you wherever you go). If you don't shave, then you'll grow a beard. While smelling horribly and growing a beard don't appear to have any serious consequences, you'll still find yourself experimenting with them to an extent.

Getting back to the car handling for a moment, while you can't completely remedy the touchy controls, you can make driving far more appealing by buying new cars and upgrading them, giving them better acceleration, higher maximum speeds and larger gas tanks. Sadly, that doesn't make navigation any easier, however, as you'll find that your only means of figuring out where to turn much of the time involves panning around on a map that simply doesn't let you zoom out far enough. While I appreciate the fact that a lot of otherwise hard-to-find items show up in plain sight on the map, I really do wish the developers would've made it more usable. As if the map's zooming issue didn't make things hard enough already, you'll notice that the map reorients itself automatically as you turn, leaving you with no way of even knowing which direction you happen to be traveling in. Still, you'll get used to the layout of the town the more that you travel it, so your reliance on the provided map doesn't have to weigh you down.

Thankfully, you generally have plenty of time to get from one place to another, even to complete your primary missions. Sometimes, you'll even find yourself with far too much time, time that you can spend completing side missions or going fishing in order to get better weapons...or even just finding collectible cards. Alternately, you can pass time more quickly simply by smoking, a tactic that can be very useful when you consider the fact that the game implements full day/night cycles, and you'll find that all of the people and places operate on their own schedules.

Occasionally, you'll enter "other world" sequences, usually centered around normal in-town locations appearing in far creepier forms. Even these sequences offer plenty of variety, whether you find yourself shooting zombies in Resident Evil 4-style segments or confronting/avoiding the Raincoat Killer in Quick Timer Events (QTE's). Since your enemies (including the Raincoat Killer) can sense targets based on breathing, you'll find yourself holding your breath to avoid enemies, especially during the sequences in which you hide from the Raincoat Killer. The presentation in these scenes accentuates the tension, with separate third-person views of both you and the killer causing your eyes to dart continually back and forth between them to ensure that you know exactly where you stand in the situation.

Last, and least, the straight-on combat scenes certainly add to the package, although not too significantly. The combat system does make things a bit interesting early on, and not just because the long-range weapons initially pale in comparison to melee weapons. Most players will wrongfully assume that you should use melee weapons and conserve your handgun ammo, but Deadly Premonition throws you for a bit of a loop. You start with a weak handgun that has infinite ammo, and you find melee weapons that - while far more powerful - break fairly easily. Until you get some stronger long-range weapons (especially the ones with unlimited ammo, which you can earn from side missions), your wimpy handgun will seem like your best friend, whether you like it or not.

Replay Value (10/10)

Just to put this game's replay value into perspective, it took me over 20 hours to beat the game the first time, and I barely scratched the surface of the side missions. Between all of the side missions and card-collecting, I can safely say that you'll get plenty of replay value out of this game. Better still, most of the side missions that you'll encounter will give you deeper insight into the people of Greenvale, so the side missions don't even feel tacked-on as side missions in other games do. I really feel that anybody can find something to do in this game, even after having beaten it.

As you can see, you'll find plenty to do in Deadly Premonition, with plenty of ways to do it all. Considering the fact that this game launched at $20, I find it hard to justify anyone NOT buying it. With just my first playthrough, I managed to get close to an hour of game play for each dollar that I spent, and - in case I didn't already make it obvious - I barely scratched the surface of what the game really has to offer. If you don't buy this game, then I feel sorry for you, because I have a feeling that you'll end up paying more for it years down the road.

Final Score (8/10)