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    Deadly Premonition

    Game » consists of 11 releases. Released Feb 23, 2010

    An open-world action-adventure game following an eccentric FBI agent as he investigates a series of bizarre murders in the small rural town of Greenvale.

    ratfoot's Deadly Premonition (Xbox 360) review

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    • ratfoot wrote this review on .
    • 0 out of 0 Giant Bomb users found it helpful.

    A one of a kind of experience wouldn't you say Zach?

    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.

    Other reviews for Deadly Premonition (Xbox 360)

      Deadly Premoniton: Highly Flawed, Yet Highly Loveable 0

      For a game with a development cycle as long as Deadly Premonition's, it doesn't necessarily have a lot of excuses for being what it is. Jankiness in most every department is typically the name of the game and in the few fleeting moments where it does actually shine for legitimate reasons, its problems quickly humble it and bring it back down to Earth. Deadly Premonition is therefore not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination. A quick glance at its box art and $20 price tag in the US is...

      39 out of 39 found this review helpful.

      Spoiler free review: Deadly Premonition 0

       I was on the fence about getting Deadly Premonition, I hadn't heard anything about it, in fact no one I knew had heard about it.  However every time I walked around my local game store something just stood out to me about the game.  Also the budget price of $19.99 helped a lot. Deadly Premonition is a game that you absolutely can not take serious.  If you want your games to have thrilling and fast paced action, if you crave intricate storytelling with interweaving plot lines, if you need your g...

      17 out of 17 found this review helpful.

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