Deadly Premonitions is a trailblazer. The genre is a new medley: open-world horror. I'd say the medium was No More Heroes driving and Laura Bow (or Sleep No More) adventure games voyeurism on a bed of a Shenmue style of world. The feel was David Lynchian, I think; I'm not actually a big David Lynch fan. I saw Inland Empire with friends for much the same reason I played this game and I'm glad I did but I haven't felt any desire to repeat the experience.
So why play the game? Well, it's more fun than the one David Lynch film I've seen. That doesn't compel you? Well try this on for size:
So who should play this game (or more likely wait until March 2013 to play the director's cut)?
First off, you should have enjoyed that video. Second, you should be reasonably mature and able to handle horror, although if you've a weak stomach the terrible graphics will help. Third, you should probably be a somewhat jaded gamer with a few horror/mystery titles under your belt and a fondness for new things. For an actual review, see this piece by Kevin VanOrd over at Gamespot. I'd agree with what he said.
Ultimately, I'm fond of it because this is a game that commits. It's low budget in most every way but you can bet your five minute driving sequences that this game will tell the story of a crazy town and an even crazier protagonist: Francis York Morgan. I do mean literally crazy: he talks to an alternate personality, Zach, a.k.a. you, the player. That said, he's also a pretty fun guy if one fairly likely to put you off your lunch.
Some praise the story. I don't. A pivotal scene either has an incredibly creepy theme or the one of the least appealing metaphorical arguments for euthanasia I've ever seen. Similarly the sexual politics of this game are just terrible. If the main characters, and I believe the creator, didn't feel genuine compassion for one old school in a bad way LBGTQ character, I might have just put the controller down at the three quarters mark.
Instead what's fun are the tonal shifts in the scenes and the twists in the plot. The main twist made me feel a little dumb. I managed to miss it by trying to be too clever and putting weight on the wrong pieces of evidence. The thing that most pleased me about the twist was that if I had put more weight on traditional detective work and less weight on the profiling I think I would have got it.
What other games should steal from Deadly Premonitions:
Procedural details: Fill your world with subtle clues that appeal to different ways of thinking. Players and even creators will have some missteps and misinterpretations; that's fine, let them weigh competing evidence. For me, one of the biggest failings was load times. They made it painful to look in windows and see what people in locked locations were doing. Even though these elements are unscripted, unlike the Laura Bow games, just seeing what people are doing when they aren't around you can be quite insightful.
Successfully inspiring fear: The bits where you're running from the killer with their viewpoint as picture-in-a-picture are quite frightful. While the combat is widely panned - for good reason - the enemies are genuinely freaky. The breath holding mechanic was clever and I suspect that it's key for playing on medium difficulty. To be clear, many of these ideas are basically gimmicks and lose potency when being overused. However, I think the use of humor and incidental details to establish an environment pre-horror is a wellspring of horror done right.
My tips on how to play it:
Both the combat and the passage of days can be a distraction. Putting things on easy may help there; it's how I was advised to do it. The main mechanic of the game is figuring out the map and the side quest system. Both are excessively obtuse, but key. I'd also say take your time, don't worry about the passage of days, and it's probably advisable to load up on caffeine rather than engaging in sleeping for reasons of convention. The back half of the game has a Xenogears Disc 2 linearity which may have resulted from running out of money feel, so take the time to do detective work at the start. Feel free to e-mail me for more details and some special item advice.
Origin: Loan from Matt R., thanks Matt.
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