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Categories: Review
Tags: david lynch, deadly premonition, red seeds profile, survival horror, xbox 360
Deadly Premonition
Developer: Access Games
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Platform: Xbox 360
Released: February 23, 2010
Test Freaks’ Freak Score: 6.6/10A teenager’s brutal murder brings the FBI to the small town of Greenvale. FBI Agent Francis York Morgan believes the murder is connected to a series of killings he’s worked across the country, but locals fear it’s the work of the Raincoat Killer – an urban legend who’s keeps citizens indoors on rainy days. To solve the crime, Agent York must convince the local police force to follow his unorthodox methods and he’ll need to survive terrifying encounters with Greenvale’s paranormal underbelly.
One of the joys of PC gaming was that I could buy a game I’d never heard of for $20 and have a fun gaming experience. However, development costs for consoles make budget titles a rarity. When I heard a survival horror game was coming out for the Xbox 360 and it would only cost $19.99, I was sold. Deadly Premonition is a quirky, compelling and scary horror game, held back by PS2-era presentation and a few odd design choices.
Agent York
Among the many things established by the opening cutscene is that Deadly Premonition isn’t Alan Wake. The graphics are substandard; the draw distance is short and there’s a glaring lack of detail. Combine this with low resolution textures and a limited palette and everything looks muddy. I put this upfront because graphics can be a deal-breaker, but I encourage you to get past this.
33% of Deadly Premonition is an adventure game – its strongest element. Greenvale is an open world, letting you explore the town, visiting suspects at work and home – and peeking in the occasional window. Citizens keep to a schedule, so you’ll learn when they go for a morning hike or head home from work. But there’re some nuances: Emily goes to the bar after work, except on rainy nights when she stays in to make dinner. While not Oblivion’s Radiant AI, this system creates a living world.
The core of the adventure element, and Deadly Premonition’s most compelling feature, is its wide cast of characters. There are at least 30 voiced characters and Agent York will have meaningful interactions with all of them – either in scripted events or during one of the optional side quests (which are essential to appreciating the game’s narrative). It’s a small town so everyone knows (or is related) to each other, but what really comes across is how these people are connected to each other – and how, what becomes a series of deaths, truly shocks them.
33% of the game is survival horror. Mirroring Silent Hill, Greenvale takes on a nightmarish façade with red vines suddenly overgrowing parts of the town. Monsters – somewhere between ghosts and zombies – rise up from inky pools, and Agent York can either gun them down (with a growing arsenal) or sneak past them while holding his breath. Greenvale’s undead are disturbing humans who grotesquely contort their body seeking to ram their arms down York’s throat while moaning, “I don’t want to die.” The survival horror sections are eerie, but their effectiveness is undercut by having the best scares take place during cutscenes instead of in-game.
Zombie Attack
34% of the game is spent driving between the adventure and survival horror sections. Greenvale is a small town on a large map. It takes serious time to drive from one location to another and the locations are so spread out you’ll often spend five minutes just driving along a twisty forest road. In-game conversations make this more palatable, but while Access Games probably strived for realism, it just feels like padding.
To its credit, Deadly Premonition plays like you’re living in this town. With day/night cycles, weather effects and an in-game clock which often feels like it’s real-time, Greenvale has a living, breathing vibe. Speaking of living and breathing, the game throws food and sleep meters at you, so picking up food at the Milk Barn, eating at the A & G Diner, and calling it a night at the Great Deer Yard Hotel becomes part of your daily routine.
Deadly Premonition draws comparisons to Twin Peaks, but I found it Lynchean in a greater sense. The game nails quirk with Agent York, who reads his fortune in mugs of coffee, spouts movie trivia and carries on conversations with his imaginary friend Zach. But the quirkiness is offset by increasingly brutal crimes and nods to small town S&M. The game plays with dreamlike imagery and recurring symbolism, hinting at multiple meanings from something as simple as a red seed.