Game Review: Deadly Premonition

Deadly Premonition is a title that has been getting a notable amount of publicity in the video game world. However this attention is for less positive and more humiliating reasons. The title features a convoluted story, atrocious dialog, and audio and gameplay problems all stacked on top of a generally lack luster graphics engine. However, none of the aforementioned flaws stopped me from playing through the game and realizing that despite it's obvious limitations the game itself is enjoyable if you appreciate how humorously broken it is.
The story of deadly premonition revolves around homicide detective Francis York Morgan and his stay in the town of Greenvale, a small Midwest american town. As the story unfolds Morgan finds that the town houses an evil entity that manifests itself as red vines and produces evil "Shadow creatures" of the towns inhabitants. The majority of the game is split between investigating the town and speaking to it's quirky( to say the least) inhabitants and their role in the story. Both of these parts of the game can be very entertaining if you can get past the shoddy, linear level design and the lack of unique character models for enemies. On a design note, Deadly Premonition oftentimes operates in real time, meaning that time is accounted for as it is in real life, time in the game passes by at the same pace. This is both bad and good. The real time aspect is an interest injection of realism into the game, be it an unneeded one and is one of many strange quirks that make Deadly Premonition what it is.
This game is strange, be aware if you make the decision to purchase it for it's very affordable $20 price (Standard full scale games cost $60) be ready for one of the oddest and campiest experiences in all of video games. Giant dogs, zombies, mistranslations, completely incorrect audio swaps and cultural crossovers that are more disorienting than anything else, these are just a few of the numerous factors that make up the experience that is Deadly Premonition, but for twenty dollars this game is worth it. I can truly say that the saying "So bad it's good" applies perfectly to Deadly Premonition. From a technical standpoint this game couldn't be more off, but I would be a liar if I said I wasn't thoroughly entertained from beginning to end.
4/5