Deadly Premonition

We now live in a world full of games with multi-million doller budgets (not unlike their movie cousins), hype machines and massive amounts of product placements. It is truely a rare event for a suprise to occur in this industry. Every bit of data like web domains, job postings and more are gone over with a fine tooth comb searching out any sort of information that is to be had. Before a title makes its way out to store shelves you can read about it on your favorite website, watch some dude play it (sometimes beore streetdate) on youtube and have someone tell you if it is worth the price of admission. All without the game even being out. So once again it is suprising to find anything that is really comes as a shock. Isn't that right Zack?

Ok promise that is the one and only time that I will pull that stunt. "Deadly Premonition" was unleashed to the US market to no fanfare whatsoever. In fact so little was known about this game that the guy at Gamestop sold me one a week early. Released in the same time period as countless other titles (including "Bioshock 2" and "Heavy Rain") it was a game destined for obscrurity. Hell most publications didn’t even bother to review it or if they did it got a very poor score. But even though I was playing all of these triple A games I keep coming back to "Deadly Premonition". The weird thing was that when I first started playing it I was playing because it was so bad that I had to see what was next, but sometime during the game I started playing the game because I was enjoying it. I was caught up in the narrative and was really interested in what was going to happen next. Before I knew it I had done something that I rarely seem to do… I had finished the game and further more really enjoyed it. I spoke the praises of the world of Agent Francis York Morgan (call me York everyone does) and Greenvale, but no one seemed to want to believe me. So here are my two cents about the best/worst game I have ever played.

First and foremost "Deadly Premonition" isn’t a great game. It isn’t really all that good of one, but what it is, is a fantastic piece of entertainment. You play as Agent Francis York Morgan, who has been sent to the town of Greenvale to investigate the murder of Anna Graham. During the investigation York talks to his imaginary friend Zack. These conversations often take place in front of the townsfolk, who don’t seem to notice the crazy man talking to himself in front of them. Oh yeah, did I mention that there is a good chance that the main character very well may be insane?

During his stay in Greenvale York will uncover the truth behind the death and the secrets of his own past. He will also give a flower to the sheriff, let the local gunsmith checkout your collectable cards that you find throughout the game, play a brutal game of darts and push crate around the local supermarket. All while coming to know the diverse and odd cast of characters. An exotic business man who never takes off his gasmask, his rhyming right hand man, crazy pot lady and many, many more inhabit the town of Greenvale. So the story is great, in fact in a weird way this was one of the best stories I have played in years. Mostly because never strays to far from its internal logic, a very bizarre and sometimes twisted logic to be sure. And the aforementioned cast is terrific.

Now no matter my love for the game I would be remiss not to talk about the short fallings of the game. Combat is horrible. Now nothing is completely broken, but nothing really works the way it is supposed to either. Melee weapons break and ammo seems to run low when you need it. The developers have added side quests that will unlock unlimited versions of these items. Sometimes it almost feels as if the things in the game that don’t work right were put in there on purpose, Almost as if there was a large amount of self awareness during the development.

Then there are the graphics. I have heard someone state that this is the best Dreamcast game never released. I tend to agree with that thought. That being said the character models, despite being very last gen, do have a personality to them. I never got the cast mixed up.

The music is great. I dare you to listen to "Life is Beautiful" aka the whistle song and not whistle along with it. But this brings us to another problem with the game. Often there are parts where you can’t even hear what the characters are saying the music is so loud. Once again it seems like this could be intential on the game makers part.

For a title that cost me 20 bones I couldn’t have asked for more. Sure there were things fundamently wrong with the game (driving I am looking at you). But for what it tried to do it accomplished and did it fairly well. No only that but this game is finding a place in gaming history as one of the first titles to straddle that fine line between bad and bad. We might, as gamers, finally have our "Plan 9 from Outerspace" and with the director, Swery, our Ed Wood.