Deadly Premonition (Xbox 360, 2010)

Don't even THINK of buying Deadly Premonition if you're easily offended by M-rated content (it's NOT for kids!), expect a standard survival horror game or want something you can show off to your pals as some sort of new graphics benchmark on the 360. What's here is one of the most outrageously offbeat games of any genre I've played in years since Illbleed on the Sega Dreamcast.

Deadly Premonition will absolutely push your buttons if you're a graphics hound or demand perfection from every game you buy. On the other hand, you'll spend a wild amount of time either laughing your head off at the game's dialog and more off-kilter moments while some of the scarier moments will have you under the couch with the cat or dog. What's here is part B-movie, part pure genius and part crazy on a game disc. In other words, DP is so bad, it's great.

The plot has you as FBI Agent Francis Morgan out to investigate a particularly hideous murder, which is standard genre stuff, right? Except here, you're quite nuts for someone investigating any type of crime. Morgan has an imaginary friend called Zach he chats with (often with others around!) and at times, the game feels like a mash-up of lost episodes of Twin Peaks and The X-Files with the added bonus of zombies attempting to eat Morgan's face off.

To try and pinpoint what the game plays like is tough without a full video presentation, but here goes: Imagine an open-world game where you drive or walk around a fairly large town trying to solve a crime while events mostly play out in real time. Add the craziness of the lead character, the aforementioned zombies, NPC's with many lines of dialog and their own side missions that affect your case and more and you only get about half of what's here.

DP is often bizarre beyond belief and has some issues in combat (moving and shooting is a no-go) and driving (it's not the fastest cop car on the planet, that's for sure). Nevertheless, it's an amazingly long game and once it has its hooks in you, time will bleed out all over the place as you spend yet another hour in the world Access has put together. No, it's not GTA IV, RE5 or some other bigger-budgeted release. The less time you spend comparing and the longer you play, the game will grow on you.

Yes, the game looks as if it's only slightly upscaled from a PS2 or late Dreamcast release, but this makes it all the more enjoyable in my opinion. the game is definitely more about substance, but it has a truly outrageous style all its own. The writing is great and very often laugh out loud funny, but there needed to be some serious editing/grammar policing in a few too many areas. On the other hand, this actually works in favor of the loopy goings on that most will overlook the errors and keep playing just to see what happens next. The voice acting is suitably campy, but the music and sound effects are fantastic. the scary music fits perfectly, but the jazzy stuff and a few other tunes will have you cracking up and/or shaking your head in awe at how well its integrated into the game.

For $20, not only is this game well worth the price, it will make you want more games to have as much bang for the buck as what's here. That 5/5 score above isn't for the barely acceptable visuals or occasionally clunky gameplay at all, but for the overall amount of laughs, scares and just pure FUN Deadly Premonition delivers. Just don't let the kids near it and you're all good. Highly recommended for those who want it weird.

I got this game because I heard last year that it's one of those "so bad, it's good" games. Which is very true. I enjoy this 360 horror game (with what looks to be ps1 graphics, haha). Only issue I personally had were the controls. Took a while for me to get used to using the right trigger to aim and the left analogue stick to move where I'm aiming at. Also is weird to use X to run and A to shoot. But whatevz

great graphics lots of zombies to kill not a bad game for the price although i wouldnt pay more then 35 for it not good for young kids lots of blood my wife loves the game great 2 player game and xbox live game. Good for kinda has a story mode to it not so much it bores you though. can get frustrating but theres always walkthroughs for it.

this game has a bad rep but i gotta say its great if you like ps1 style horror Feels like a blast out of the box i guess its a love it or hate it game


i love it

crazy amount of S T Y L E Killer7 feel i guess very japan...?

This game looks good and scary, if you are into horror or scary games like resident evil 5, than this game you will like.