Deadly Premonition

[Snooglebum]

Did anybody either then me immediately start humming Life Is Beautiful when they saw the thread title?

Bronk-chick, a chick, doom chick, a chick.

[Roderick]

I borrowed Deadly Premonition from a friend to try it out and what people said in this thread is correct (though I dislike all of the gameplay instead of finding it charming or adequate). I'd like to add something however, which I don't know if it's been said yet: this game features a ton of smoky sax.

[Snooglebum]

I borrowed Deadly Premonition from a friend to try it out and what people said in this thread is correct (though I dislike all of the gameplay instead of finding it charming or adequate). I'd like to add something however, which I don't know if it's been said yet: this game features a ton of smoky sax.

The thing that took me completely by surprise was the excellent soundtrack. There's some excellent music on there.

[Snooglebum]

And that was an excellent post. Excellence.

[Thompson]

The best thing since Deadly Premonition.

http://www.giantbomb.com/gdc-2011-the-swery-experience/17-3866/

[twmac]

The uk Xbox LIVE servers now have this for 14.99:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Product/Deadly-Premonition/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024d5607d1

[Sno]

Poor Swery.

[Murdoc]

Damn, that's a shame. I've never played DP and never will, but the amount of entertainment I received from that endurance run made me really want another game from him.

[shammack]

Maybe he should set up a Kickstarter fund.

[miffy495]

I'd contribute. I'm actually halfway through re-watching the DP endurance run, just because I felt like watching some balls-crazy game stuff lately.

[Noyb]

If anyone's planning on playing this game and not just watching the Endurance Runs, for the love of god don't read the trading card descriptions. (Or, erm, the last few pages of this thread... )

Light spoilers.

I picked up a trading card corresponding to a certain character I just met. The card's description says that this character was the third victim. There hasn't even been a *second* victim at this point of the plot. I'm guessing that other cards might have even worse spoilers.

[Raff]

Yeah that's silly. Luckily I never look at that kind of stuff anyway.

In other news, I love Swery's twitter. http://twitter.com/#!/Swery65/status/95415828748566528

Also, since I don't think I've posted in this thread before despite finishing this about 6 months ago: Deadly Premonition is genuinely one of my favourite games. In addition to being a well written, captivating story, the real-time open world stuff and all the unnecessary fluff is right up my ally. It's full of stuff that I want but always gets cut from games in this current era. Hardly anybody tries to make ambitious stuff like this anymore and none of it makes it to release. It's like a forgotten game from the 1997-2000 golden age.

Edited July 25, 2011 by Raff

[Roderick]

I just watched the final few episodes of the endurance run and have to say: I'm glad that I saw it, but soooo glad I didn't have to play through all of that! My brief experience with the first few chapters of the game were more than enough of that gameplay for me.

I do appreciate that it's weird and unique, though I wouldn't dare to say how much of the story is really good and how much is thrown-together bullshit. I am glad that this exists.

[Raff]

The supernatural stuff is dumb and many of the already atrocious 'gameplay sections' mess with the scenario making it come accross a lot camper and more incoherent than it needed to be, but overall the mystery concealed and revealed itself in a satisfying way. The characters, their interactions and some of the themes surrounding them are great and way way above a lot of highly regarded video game tripe. I've not heard of many people who start playing DP and get fed up of it half way even in spite of the terrible gameplay sections, the story somehow manages to pull you through all that.

I also think that a lot of the stuff that people percieve as wacky and hilarious might not be as bizarre in the grand scheme of things, just in the context of the incredibly limited body narrative video games with more than one good idea or source of inspiration.

If it could ever be remade without the bad stuff and some more polish here and there it would be really special.

[Noyb]

Goddamnit, I think Deadly Premonition spoiled one of its own major plot point again. Not quite as explicit as the last one, but it planted a major suspicion in my mind that, hours later, turned out to be correct. The game itself gave this spoiler outside of the actual narrative delivery methods, making me feel a bit cheated since it wasn't a conclusion it let me arrive at naturally.

I'll refrain from naming names, but major spoilers if you're considering playing it:

I received a certain character's car by completing a certain side mission. While driving around, it's hard not to notice that the car's license plate reads "HES THE 1," or "He's the one!" Hours later, when the identity of the serial killer is revealed, guess who it is?

Damnit, Deadly Premonition, that's not how foreshadowing works!

And in this case, I can't even warn people not to pay attention to this game element. Since it's not something you expect to contain spoilers, the mere fact of saying it contains spoilers gives credence to this clue, where most players might just happily overlook it.

[Tanukitsune]

I only noticed that when I say someone else's Let's Play, when I pointed out, very vaguely, without saying exactly what it was... People actively looked for it and then got angry at me for being spoiled.

[Noyb]

So, I finished it last night. Still trying to reconcile my thoughts about the game.

I guess "appreciation" is what I feel towards Deadly Premonition. It did enough things right in terms of narrative and characters to leave me with a positive final impression. It also did its best to undercut these positive feelings with shameless combat padding.

On one hand, I appreciate that it's an honest-to-goodness implementation of the mythical open world game that takes place entirely in a small town. Early on in the game, I found myself buying into that fiction, planning my virtual day around York's physical needs (food, sleep, gas), visiting the various witnesses and suspects around town, and making sure to meet all my plot-related appointments. And although the dialogue sometimes sounds like it was written (or at least translated) by someone observing humanity from a distance but not quite human themselves, it was often charming enough to make me care about some of these characters. The chapter where

York finds himself confronting his feelings for Emily while he's in captivity

was surprisingly effective emotionally.

On the other hand, the gameplay was quite the chore. Driving around town was interesting at first, but the game didn't dole out enough amazing in-car conversations fast enough to break the monotony of driving from remote location to remote location. There is a teleport item, but it's hidden in such an obscure quest that I don't think I would have found it without GameFAQS. As for the combat, it was serviceable throughout, but horribly repetitive and monotonous. If I didn't do the side quests to get infinite ammo guns, I'm not sure how much more painful the combat would have been.

The ceiling crawler enemies were some of the worst designed encounters I've played in games. They're punishing if you don't know their pattern, but monotonous if you do.

Wait for them to crawl around to face you. Run past them. Do a quick 180. Shoot them when they're visible.

Repeat 6-12 times depending on difficulty and the strength of your gun. Pray the level designers weren't lazy enough to throw two more of them in the same corridor, bringing all sense of progress to a screeching halt.

Similarly annoying are the Chase Goose-style waggle-your-stick-to-run QTEs which repeat throughout the game (and are often interrupted by other QTEs), and the parts where you must

hide from the Raincoat killer by holding your breath

. The first is inherently annoying to perform mechanically. The second repeats so often that it lacks any sort of tension, which undercuts the intended feelings of dread and fear.

And just a note about the sound. As everyone has said, the music is surprisingly good. The sound design, not so much. In a number of cutscenes, it's difficult to hear the characters over the music, and a number of lines sounded like they were recorded in rooms with completely different dynamics than the others. A little distracting, but nothing the subtitles didn't fix.

The twins at the start of the game [...] are the only characters to share the same first letter in their names.

To be pedantic, Brian the Insomniac and Becky Ames share the same first letter.

I only noticed that when I say someone else's Let's Play, when I pointed out, very vaguely, without saying exactly what it was... People actively looked for it and then got angry at me for being spoiled.

I can see why. It was irritating enough when I spoiled myself, I'd be very irritated if someone led me on the path to doing so. Like I wrote above, it's the kind of spoiler where you can't say "The

license plates

contain spoilers, don't look at them," since the mere fact of saying that that they do would likely bring attention to them, when they might have remained safely in the background. Also, don't think about pink elephants.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Noyb

[Noyb]

Just dropping this here. Might be Heavy Rain spoilers in the last section of the video, so be warned.

WDqg1-21IiQ#t=26s

[brkl]

Nice idea, but they mixed the music way too loud

[Noyb]

According to the creator's comments, that was intentional. See my complaints earlier in this thread about the sound design.

[Lu]

This game is finally coming to PS3! Which means I'll finally get a chance to check it out!

[Salacious Snake]

I wonder how significant the changes will be. I'm a few hours into the game on 360 and wondering if I should wait and start over on the PS3. Word is it has better controls and stuff.

[Sno]

I don't think a more accessible control scheme would really be fixing the problems that game had. Moreover, I'm not sure fixing the problems that game had would make it a better experience. I mean, people basically love it because it's a b-movie, it's a charming and lovable failure of a game.

There's that one hallway enemy though, they should give that thing less health, because fuck that thing.

[Salacious Snake]

I'm playing on easy, because I figure combat is the least interesting element of the game. I just want to fart around Greenvale and harass people.

[Sno]

The ceiling crawler or whatever it is, it's not even a difficult enemy, it just has a ludicrous amount of health.