After having read some positive things about Deadly Premonition in some reddit comments, I filed it away in my brain as a game I might check out some day. I didn't know much about it, other than some people seemed to think it was unique, and worth playing in spite of its flaws. Then a few weeks ago, I spotted a used copy at Gamestop, and decided to bite. As I put the case on the counter, the clerk asked me if I had played the game before. When I said I hadn't, he gave me a friendly warning which went something like this:
"The graphics are bad, the controls are horrible, and the gameplay kind of sucks..., but the story is phenomenal."
His statement turned out to be mostly correct.
In Deadly Premonition, the main character is an FBI agent named Francis York Morgan, but please, call him York. That's what everyone calls him. However, you don't actually play as York. You see, York has a split personality called Zach, and though it isn't ever explicitly stated, it's implied that you are actually Zach. It's not the kind of split personality you see in movies, though; Zach is like a constant companion for York. York often chats with Zach about the investigation, people you meet, or York's favorite movies. It's a one-way conversation, though. Zach has no voice. However, York does let Zach take control occasionally. For example, when you manage to get a headshot on an enemy, York will say things like "bullseye!" and "amazing!" as though he has let you (a.k.a. Zach) take control, and is impressed by your shooting skills. It's a wonderful way to acknowledge the player as something outside of the game, but in a way that makes you part of the game. Very clever.
Deadly Premonition is billed as a psychological horror game. York heads to a small town to investigate a murder, but often finds himself jumping between the real world and the "other world". The other world is inhabited by "shadows" which are like possessed corpses, though they're never explicitly explained. Unlike zombies, shadows will sometimes phase from one place to the next, gaining ground on you quickly, or dodging bullets. It can add a burst of fear to an otherwise slow moving threat. They also move around in awkward ways that make them seem even creepier, and will occasionally talk. When you gun one down, they'll often cry out "I don't want to die!" or "Don't kill me!" in a low, slow voice. It messes with your head a little, and makes you wonder what exactly these things are.
When in the other world, the game plays like a lesser Resident Evil 4. When using your weapon, the left stick is used to aim, so you can't move and shoot at the same time. The exception is that you can use the bumpers to side-step one way or the other. Combat, for the most part, is determining when to stand your ground and fire off some shots, and when to run to safety. When you encounter the Raincoat Killer, however, it becomes a quick-time-event (QTE) fest.
The Raincoat Killer (RCK) is the main bad guy, and you encounter him several times throughout the game. When you see him, you'll often need to mash a button to avoid his attack, after which he'll give you a wag of the finger as if to say "you better stop investigating if you want to live" before running off. Other times, he'll chase after you, but instead of giving you back control of York, the game forces you to do everything through button mashing and thumbstick shaking. It's incredibly awkward to make your character run by shaking the left thumbstick left and right, and it's also incredibly tiring. Pretty much every time I died in the game was due to awkward QTEs.
Occasionally you'll need to hide from the RCK. As he hacks away at the door, you'll need to find a place to hide. For these sequences, you get a split view. One camera shows the room, and another shows what the RCK is seeing. You have to remain hidden (and quiet) until he gives up the search and moves on. It's an interesting idea, but produces no where near the level of tension that you get from hiding from the monster in Amnesia: The Dark Descent (which came out the same year). Part of the fear factor in Amnesia comes from the fact that you can't see what the monster is doing. The hiding sections in Deadly Premonition pretty much amount to another form of QTE.
Back in the real world, York works with the local sheriff's department to try and solve the murder (which quickly becomes murder
s). Out in the real world, the game plays like a very bad GTA. It's an open world, where you can travel on foot or by vehicle. You can visit different businesses to buy weapons, food, clothing, new cars, etc. There are side quests, and collectibles are scattered around the world that you can track down if you're into that. For me, the open world was basically "let's drive from point A to point B". But make sure you don't run out of gas in the middle of no where, because unlike GTA, you can't just hijack a car that's driving by.
Speaking of which, why even bother tracking my fuel level in a game that's about solving murders and fighting scary monsters? What does it add? The game has some elements of simulation like this that don't really add to the game. There are hunger and tiredness meters which are constantly depleting. You'll need to sleep or
drink caffeinated drinks to recover tiredness, and eat to recover your hunger. But beds and food are never hard to find. There's also a heart rate meter that - even after playing the game for about 23 hours - I have no
idea what it's used for. York also needs to change his clothes occasionally, and send his dirty suits to the cleaners, otherwise annoying flies constantly swirl around your stinky self. York can also shave, but it has no effect on the game. All these things could have been taken out of the game, and it probably would have been a better game for it. Although, I will say the beard-growing tech is something I've not seen in a game before.
Another small, but odd design choice comes in the form of loading screens. It sort of breaks immersion a little bit when you're in some scary other world location, and suddenly you get a loading screen about lollipops.
In terms of graphics, the game definitely looks older than it should (click on any screenshot to see a larger version). Deadly Premonition came out in 2010, the same year as Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and as mentioned before, Amnesia. In comparison, Deadly Premonition looks more like a Xbox game than an Xbox 360 game (there is a director's cut with enhanced graphics, but I played the original). Most of the environments and characters are pretty low-polygon, and some of the textures are pretty ugly. It seems more attention was given to York, Emily, and George (the deputy and sheriff, respectively), though even they suffer from stiff, robotic animations.
While York, Emily, and George are voiced well, several other characters make me want to punch the TV. Like this guy:
As for the soundtrack, it's equal parts awful and memorable. With the exception of the main theme (embedded below), most of the songs are pretty bad. There are about 4 songs that are most often played during cut scenes. They range from the sort of haunting theme, to a happy-go-lucky whistling song, to a mysterious saxophone shrieking, and a sort of love-sick piano tune. It can change between them at a moments notice, and several times during a single cut scene. It's sort of schizophrenic, but it's strangely appropriate in that it matches York's oddball personality.
As the Gamestop clerk had told me, the best thing about the game was the story. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle of the murder, and along with cryptic dreams, and other wordly happenings, it does a good job of keeping you guessing; not just about who the murderer is, and how all these things are connected, but also about York's past and who exactly Zach is. Unfortunately, in the late game stages, the story can take a turn for the outright weird. Particularly with regards to boss fights, where the game's Japenese roots really start to show. But if you can overlook that, the story does have some really neat ideas. The kind that left me thinking about it well after the game was finished.
In the end, I see Deadly Premonition as a game with some great and unique narrative ideas that's bogged down by poor design decisions, and mediocre gameplay.
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