Horror

Lynchlike

HIGH The feeling of truly playing a detective let loose in a small town.

LOW Combat doesn't belong in this game at all.

WTF Moments are too frequent to pick just one... in a good way.

I just finished Deadly Premonition about a few hours ago, and I have to say that it was one of the most interesting and satisfying experiences I've had all year.

It's time to take a look at Deadly Premonition's claim of being the first true "open world" horror videogame. A claim that, while technically true, may mislead people about what kind of game they're going to be playing.

What you Don't Know Will Kill you... Twice

HIGH Every moment a spider is on the screen.

LOW A puzzle near the end that relies on a blind jump.

WTF The danger-free puzzles feel like they belong in another game.

Welcome to Still Creek, Population: You

HIGH Killing zombies with the broadsword is a gory good time.

LOW Trying to guide an injured survivor back to the bowling alley only to have her defect at the alley's entrance.

WTF Watching a female zombie take a giant chomp out of Chuck's crotch.

Lost (and Found) in Shadows

HIGH Seeing the game in motion and realizing it's not a cutscene.

LOW The post-zipline area at the end is the game's only "cheap" puzzle.

WTF With that ending...

The amazing thing—and I'm almost sad that I'm trying to keep this spoiler-light for the time being, because I'd love to expound on the psychological element right now—is that there are clear reasons offered by the game's story for both York's psychoses and the clear delineation of roles between the two personalities.

With the first interminable combat sequence left in the dust, it's time to a actually start meeting other characters in Deadly Premontion. But before that, let's take a look at a detail that captivated me the first time I played the game, and interests me still—a sequence of no seeming value or consequence.

Is that Deadly Premonition features combat. Any combat at all. Everything bad that has been said about this game’s combat is most likely true—even the farthest-flung flights of exaggerated embellishment. Yes, killing enemies in this game is as unbelievably frustrating and painful as trying to extract your genitals from a saw-toothed vise made out of acid.

This is York Morgan—he'll be our Agent Dale Cooper for the remainder of the running time. That's not to say he's entirely derivative of Twin Peaks' hero—while it's true that the basic idea of the character (lone FBI Agent sent to solve a brutal crime who's unafraid of using metaphysical reasoning when faced with mysteries) owes its existence to Twin Peaks, his specifics, and the degree to which he embraces the bizarre demonstrate clearly that the game's writer was also a fan of the X-Files. Over the course of the game we'll definitely bear witness to some of Fox Mulder's characteristic glibness in the face of the bizarre and obscene, as well as Albert Rosenfeld's famous lack of social niceties.