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Deadly Premonition |OT| first real survival-horror for X360

S

Son of Godzilla

Banned
This is the first game I'm buying on pure blindsight and GAF hype reserved interest. I better not regret buying a bottle of something with this $20.
 
N

Not a Jellyfish

but I am a sheep
Son of Godzilla said:
This is the first game I'm buying on pure blindsight and GAF hype reserved interest. I better not regret buying a bottle of something with this $20.
Click to expand...

Interesting choice to be your first purchase based on GAF...
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
Just got the 'car wash' from Jack the Raging Bull at Heaven or Hell gasoline stand. :lol Now, the sheriff's patrol car is back to 100% condition and I've got a full gas tank. This game is officially fucking awesome, and Alan Wake has some creepy weird mountain community-based murder thriller competition. Seriously, for a low low budget game, this one is really ambitious in scope and has relatively well-translated/written and acted dialogue. Lots of out-of-nowhere weird internal monologue (who the fuck is Zach? the player?), constant movie references, some truly inappropriate-sounding music and, basically, bizarre everything else. Also, pretty creepy in an overall sort of sense during the Japanese-style warping creepozoid zombies sequences in the 'other world.' Again, awesome despite the mediocre DC/PS2/XBOX-level of visuals...just fucking awesome.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
Played through a bit more...man, this game is far more appealing than it seems on to be on the surface, in both the rather great localization job and based on the scope and overall sense of atmosphere achieved by the sheer force and consistency of its Japanese-flavored adoration of David Lynch stuff and other non-mainstream horror-mystery thriller flicks. For twenty bucks, this is fucking steal if you like old-school 'survival horror' and always wanted one with a full and large scale location to drive around and explore and decent cast of quirky characters to meet. Love love this. Good on whoever it was at Ignition who championed bringing this sucker over. It's a rare title that feels like an antidote to the never-ending waves of overly-formulaic and overly-serious cinematic and too-streamlined big budget console releases. Flawed, but forgiven rather easily for its crazy ambition and entertainment factor.
 
R

randomwab

Member
Your killing me here, guy. Why does this have to be region locked? I mean, a Euro release doesn't look close at all. I'd import a damn Core console with this if I had the cash this month.

That being said, keep the impressions coming. :D
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
This is oficially my personal sleeper hit of 2010, yeah I didn't played but the impressions make it sound like the type of game I love. There's aren't many old school survival horror games out there, and much less as ambitiuous and totally crazy like this one....please come to Europe.

(I think Mangod said that a EU release was due to this summer, it's a MMV game so the chances of Rising Star bringing the game to EU are pretty high)
 
I

iammeiam

Member
MightyHedgehog said:
Played through a bit more...man, this game is far more appealing than it seems on to be on the surface, in both the rather great localization job and based on the scope and overall sense of atmosphere achieved by the sheer force and consistency of its Japanese-flavored adoration of David Lynch stuff and other non-mainstream horror-mystery thriller flicks.
Click to expand...

At this point I really, really want to know the behind-the-scenes on this game. I'm assuming the localization is exceedingly liberal at this point (unless the Japanese studio had an extremely bizarre fixation with 80s American cinema, I guess), and am starting to wonder if the thing started life as a PS2 title and then got moved up a generation after getting stuck in development hell ("Dr. Johnson is in the computer room." "A computer room? In a hospital?" "It is where the doctors go to share a computer."--even by PS2 era this conversation makes no sense, but I have to think it'd be weirder these days for a hospital to not have some sort of IT room.) Then, while it was delayed they just sort of started adding shit at random, which is how we end up with fishing and racing and trading-card-collecting.

I do have to give them a ton of credit for going for the Silent Hill-style "otherworld". You know exactly when the creepy stuff is supposed to happen and you know exactly when it's over, which makes it easy to seperate the open world stuff from the freaky ghost stuff. The second dark world encounter was a lot more effective than the first, although I really think the lack of variety in enemy phrases ("I dooon't want to diiiiiiiie!" THEN STOP TRYING TO SHOVE YOUR ARM DOWN MY THROAT!) will wind up getting grating.

On the bright side, I now know way more about flying squirrels than I ever wanted to, and I'm pretty sure I'm more qualified to be a doctor in Greenvale than the actual doctor, since if I see somebody cut wide the hell open (a la opening cutscene) I'm not going to assume the cause of death was suffocation.

Given the genre-standard clunkyness of the combat, and general bizarreness of the story, the open world aspect is great because if the main game gets boring you can bugger off and participate in a pointless race, or catch some fish, or just go peep through the diner window at patrons if you want to be creepy.

I'm going to go ahead and call the game a must-buy for fans of Disaster Report/Raw Danger. Or at least those who really appreciated being able to kill a guy and take his chef's hat, because that sort of sensibility seems to be guiding Deadly Premonition so far. I'm still iffy on its ultimate success as survival horror, but as entertainment it's pretty great.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
Yeah, there's a definite feeling of lots of layers of adaptation going on between what might be a protracted and heavily-evolving development cycle that ended up incorporating so many different elements, cobbled together as a sort of value-added angle to the design and what does seem to be a lot of liberties taken with the original writing. Then again, maybe this game and its creators are just that crazy inspired. Raw Danger is good comparison for its low-budget, no-frills feel and willingness to ignore typical gaming conventions and their well-understood paths and bounds. It's like the strange love child of D2 and Blue Stinger (rough around the edges self-aware low budget action-horror, Climax Japan/Kenji Eno-Warp-style) and Silent Hill with a lot of more overt Twin Peaks, CSI/police investigation procedural influence and a pre-GTA sense of roaming.

Being able to tool around town with rather forgiving windows of time to get from one place to another allows you the opportunity to just soak in the strange Japanese-flitered vision of small-town America, like a more bizarro Narita (and other smaller Japanese communities) with its American culture-influenced names of some restaurants and loosely-adapted minor customs and possibly misunderstood but still faithfully replicated visual elements. Again, the dialogue and characterization, in a relative sense, is surprisingly clever. These aren't your average game characters who seem completely oblivious to the stereotypical roles they tend to fill in a horror-mystery thriller nor are they annoyingly cognizant of their cleverness, like a 'too-smart' Kevin Williamson Scream-like character. Whatever happened to the original writing of the Japanese version, the characters' dialogue is translated/rewritten to be capable of quirky and entertaining banter, with a surprisingly strong sense of being self-aware of themselves as intelligent people who will make clever defensive statements about their roles relative to the player character. They aren't the cold fish/impossibly fiery and spirited, form-pressed characters that usually inhabit a Japanese title.

The random and tenuous feel of consistency in the game makes me think that this can all fall apart at any moment...and that's precisely what I love about this game...it's just so precarious about its own place in things if you have to put it somewhere on that mental shelf of games between its closest peers. Intentionally or not, it's sort of defying altogether easy classification. Again, though, I'm still early in the overall scheme of things, I assume. Great ride so far.
 
R

randomwab

Member
Hearing comparisons to the Disaster Report/SOS/Raw Danger series is really giving me the feeling that Deadly Premonition will end up being one of my favourite games this generation, in the same way that SOS and Raw Danger were some of my favourite titles on the PS2. I started to follow the game after seeing it back when it was still Rainy Woods because, at the time, it looked like another Japanese interpretation of various western horror and thriller sources, the same stuff that Silent Hill tapped into all those years ago.

Hearing now that Deadly Premonition seems to be following in those same footsteps; a fascination with all things western, combined with the bizarre style and mechanics of Raw Danger; crazy gameplay that's entirely more interesting and original than almost everything else out there despite clearly having little budget, really is just driving me crazy with anticipation.

Please let a European release come soon, I'm now dying to play this all the more now.
 
P

PetriP-TNT

Member
This game sounds awesome, I love obscure horror games and this seems to be some sort of Alan Wake-lite with incredible scale. Damn, I need to try this one out.
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
I haven't played all that much more but man this game is so fucking weird but in a good way. The thing is, when this game does some things weird, or odd, you just feel like it was the devs purpose the entire time.

As for issues I have with the game. A lot of the music repeats, granted I enjoy some of it, it just repeats far too often. Also I wish every time you picked up a item it wouldn't change screens, just seems too much of a time killer.

All that aside, game is still fun and any game that talks about Kevin Bacon and Tremors is alright in my book! :lol
 
V

Vrakanox

Member
Yeah I gatta say. I just picked this up from Gamestop a few hours ago and have been playing it. Incredible game for $20. I mean the graphics are kind of weak but the main character is hysterical. The music is good, the storyline is pretty intriguing it's even moderately scary. I'm sure it will get more frightening as it progresses.

I can certainly say with ease I've spent much more money on much worse games.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
Is there a way to make the map not suck? It won't zoom out far enough to be useful, I can't apparently set waypoints on it, and even the full-screen map rotates so that the direction the character is currently facing is at the top of the screen meaning it can be really, really hard to locate where you're trying to go since the map's orientation is always different. Missions automatically mark themselves for you, so that's not an issue, but given that I had like 20 in-game hours between finishing one mission and starting the next, I was kind of planning to go collect some cards and body parts.

I think I'm in for a big jog at this point, since the gas station was closed and my car ran out of gas (and I left all my flares in the toolbox, because I did not foresee running out of gas.) This is the hugest video game small town ever.

Edit: I have a new car! As it turns out, your out-of-gas car will actually stalk you around town, respawning every time you enter/leave a building. Still can't drive it, though. Wound up running to the grocery store and grabbing a flare; shiny new car. Hope I don't regret that later.
 
M

Mar

Member
Not region free... :(

I wonder why some games do this. It's like saying "no, we don't want to sell more copies". Utterly odd.
 
C

Clevinger

Member
I don't like horror games that much, but I loved Twin Peaks, so this looks awesome. I hope someone brings over the PS3 version as well.

edit: Some sites are saying the ESRB rated the PS3 version, so there's some hope, I guess.

Oh, and one of those trailers was hilarious. When that jazzy music is playing as he's driving, then he skids and goes off the road and the record screeches off. :lol
 
T

Takuhi

Member
Mar_ said:
Not region free... :(

I wonder why some games do this. It's like saying "no, we don't want to sell more copies". Utterly odd.
Click to expand...

Pretty clear why they're doing it this time.

US retail price: $20
Japanese retail price: 8190 yen ($89)

And who knows what price point they'll settle on for Europe. It would be a gray-market massacre if this was region free.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
So I just now, reading the play-asia listing, realize the game takes place in Canada, not the US. This explains some random dialog reference to something being "in the US, in Washington", but now makes me wonder if York is in the FBI in Japan, too, and Japan doesn't fully understand that Canada isn't a part of the US, or if York is supposed to be from the US FBI and that's why George is so pissy about him being on the case, and not just stereotypical cops vs FBI hate.

This somehow makes the whole thing even weirder.
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
Alright, for the god damn price I am checking this out. It looks like a surreal piece of madness. And hearing any comparisons to Raw Danger/Disaster Report seals the deal for me.
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
Ok so I just did a area in Episode one (shit I'm still in episode one, I wonder how many episodes there are?) in the lumber mill. I gotta say the end of this area brought memories of Clock Tower! Wow!
So I had been chasing the hooded raincoat killer guy with glowing eyes throughout the level, he ran into me and a small quick time accured before he scuddled away. Same as the begining of the game no biggie. So I get to a room and turn something on when suddenly the screen size shrinks a bit, and I can now see in the bottom right corner throughthe killers eyes at the door to the room and he is breaking it open with his axe! At this point the game tells me to hide. I find a spot out of a couple. He walks around and asks "Where are you?" while searching some hiding spots. Finally he leaves.
Thank GOD!
So I'm leaving the area to backtrack (and mind you this area of the level was like a maze of halls that cross paths. Suddenly he is behind me and I'm playing a chase mini game with him right on my ass.
I was like HOLY SHIT.
After that ended, I was done and now off to explore at night. At which point my guy started talking randonly about Ferris Buellers day off, Pretty in Pink, Fast times at Ridgemont high, etc!
This game has issues but damn, its a guilty pleasure and rather unique!!!!
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
This is going to be one of those games that will slowly catch on because of its maddening storyline and Raw Danger bad-but-so-fucking-good gameplay/presentation. The similarities to Twin Peaks are there, but I think it's more along the lines of just how strange that show was visually at times. Anyway, so, once everyone starts to realize that this game is fucking awesome, and a steal at $20, the game is going to vanish from retail store shelves and will be incredibly hard to find in a few years.

So glad I've got this coming with Heavy Rain.
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
Does anyone know how many episodes there are? Or at least tell me what episode your on and your playtime. I'm just still on episode one and have played 3 hours already.:D
 
indigo-cyclops

indigo-cyclops

Member
Those that have the game, would you say that the "art style" is similar to cel-shading/Persona/Digital Devil Saga. It almost looks like one of the SMT games in terms of the characters.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I just started playing Cursed Mountain on the Wii, which is closer to bad-bad than good-bad, so it'll probably be at least a month until I get around to Deadly Premonition, but if someone could rank the following games, it'd really go a long way to help me understand if the game is any good:

Kuon
Haunting Ground
Clock Tower 3
Disaster Report
Raw Danger
Deadly Premonition
Echo Night
Escape from Bug Island
 
Y

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I think Haunting Ground is probably much closer to good-bad than any of those. Maybe even good-good.
 
C

Clevinger

Member
INDIGO_CYCLOPS said:
Those that have the game, would you say that the "art style" is similar to cel-shading/Persona/Digital Devil Saga. It almost looks like one of the SMT games in terms of the characters.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get that vibe, too. The main character looks kinda Kaneko-esque.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
The only one out of that list that I've put any amount of time into was Kuon.

Kuon is pretty good-looking when you can see what's going on but the game feels very much like an update to the classic style of Resident Evil. Limited saves, awkward control setup, useless melee weapon, limited ammo, and so on.

I read a Let's Play on Clock Tower 3 and it sounded quite abysmal. Haunting Ground I never saw past the boobs, Raw Danger I haven't seen past the intro, and Echo Night (Beyond?) I haven't even seen in my PS2 though I own the game.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
PepsimanVsJoe said:
The only one out of that list that I've put any amount of time into was Kuon.

Kuon is pretty good-looking when you can see what's going on but the game feels very much like an update to the classic style of Resident Evil. Limited saves, awkward control setup, useless melee weapon, limited ammo, and so on.

I read a Let's Play on Clock Tower 3 and it sounded quite abysmal. Haunting Ground I never saw past the boobs, Raw Danger I haven't seen past the intro, and Echo Night (Beyond?) I haven't even seen in my PS2 though I own the game.
Click to expand...

I've played everything on that list except Raw Danger which I only played the first half of, so I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the low budget horror genre from bad-bad to good-bad to good-good.

Anyone who could slot Deadly Premonition into this would be doing me a solid, because it being good-bad rather than bad-bad would bump it up my list by like six months :p
 
A

ArjanN

Member
Stumpokapow said:
I just started playing Cursed Mountain on the Wii, which is closer to bad-bad than good-bad, so it'll probably be at least a month until I get around to Deadly Premonition, but if someone could rank the following games, it'd really go a long way to help me understand if the game is any good:

Kuon
Haunting Ground
Clock Tower 3
Disaster Report
Raw Danger
Deadly Premonition
Echo Night
Escape from Bug Island
Click to expand...

EDIT

EDIT

EDIT:
I totally misunderstood your question. Sorry.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
sorry, to reiterate my question, i've played all those games and i want to know where deadly premonition fits in in the continuum of quality there.
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
sorry, to reiterate my question, i've played all those games and i want to know where deadly premonition fits in in the continuum of quality there.
Click to expand...

If I had to list those game in order from my favorite to least favorite. Here ya go! Granted remember I have yet to complete Deadly Premonition... but this is its standing so far for me.


Haunting Ground -(loved this)
Deadly Premonition -(Really liking this alot)
Clock Tower 3 -(Enjoyed it though had some issues.)
Disaster Report -(Really liked this, finished it multiple times)
Raw Danger -(Enjoyed it a ton BUT never finished)
Echo Night -(Slow but moody, never finished it)
Escape from Bug Island - (This was really bad but in such aa cheesy 70's scifi, I liked it)
Kuon -(Did not really enjoy this whatsoever. I wanted too though but didn't happen.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
Stumpokapow said:
I just started playing Cursed Mountain on the Wii, which is closer to bad-bad than good-bad, so it'll probably be at least a month until I get around to Deadly Premonition, but if someone could rank the following games, it'd really go a long way to help me understand if the game is any good:

Kuon
Haunting Ground
Clock Tower 3
Disaster Report
Raw Danger
Deadly Premonition
Echo Night
Escape from Bug Island
Click to expand...
I haven't played Kuon, but Deadly Premonition, IMO, is better than anything else on that list for overall interesting experience and entertainment value even if it fails to be quite as refined and polished as something like Haunting Ground and Clock Tower 3 from a audio/visual, general production-values standpoint. At $20, I'd pick it up before it becomes more difficult to get. I can't imagine that there are all that many copies floating around in the first and probably only North American run.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
slasher_thrasher21 said:
Does anyone know how many episodes there are? Or at least tell me what episode your on and your playtime. I'm just still on episode one and have played 3 hours already.:D
Click to expand...
I'm still on episode 1, but the achievments screen indicates
five episodes, with episode two possibly being extra long as it's got separate achievments for 2-1 and 2-2.
 
S

SlasherJPC

Banned
iammeiam said:
I'm still on episode 1, but the achievments screen indicates
five episodes, with episode two possibly being extra long as it's got separate achievments for 2-1 and 2-2.
Click to expand...

HOLY SHITTTTTT!!!!
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
So I wander into Gamestop and boom a copy of Deadly Premonition.
I buy it and then find out that Amazon has shipped my copy of Deadly Premonition. They told me March 1st was the estimated date the fuckers.

Oh well guess I'm doing Ignition a favor.
 
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