Video Game Assessment: Deadly Premonition (2010)

Deadly Premonition is a fantastic survival horror video game, easily one of the best I've ever seen, seemingly heavily inspired by such great works as Silent Hill for the atmosphere, Twin Peaks for the setting and most of the characters, and Resident Evil 4 for its gameplay. It takes a lot from each and every one of those other horror-related media, but it stands on its own for its content, its plot, and its amazing way of telling its story from beginning to end. It gave me a reason to believe in video games and it gave me a reason to see that there can be quality in anything if given the chance.

This game is a cult classic, and don't mistake it for anything else. It has horror, suspense, unforgettable characters, and a plot that is like nothing else out there.

The game starts off with a murder of a young woman and an FBI agent named Francis York Morgan goes to Greenvale, Washington to investigate her murder. It sounds similar to Twin Peaks already, with a kooky FBI agent and a small town in the Northwestern United States... but that's when the game takes a turn for the weird. The FBI agent crashes his car into the woods and proceeds on a nightmarish journey through the woods to civilization. The player is left wondering if the nightmarish world actually happened or if it was all in York's mind.

Eventually after coming out of the forest, York meets up with some of the townsfolk, a gruff sheriff with the name of George, and his beauty of a deputy, Emily. After they all get acquainted, the investigation starts and more of the nightmarish sequences follow as York tries to understand how the young lady was murdered and who it could be that murdered her. As he delves into the case, he finds a quirky town full of very odd inhabitants each with ties to the case or each other, and a horror underlining everything in the town and its history.

The game starts out as a very different one than it ends up being. I could compare it to titles like Indigo Prophecy and Silent Hill because of the similarity in tones and settings, but really this game stands all by itself with its unique ideas, dialogues, characters, and settings. It has an open-ended world in which the player can do many things, go on many adventures, and chat with people who may or may not have anything to do with the case, all while trying to solve the case in turn.

Trying to figure out who the killer is and why the killer did it is the real point of the game. There are several early clues as to who is the murderer and who York can trust and who he should not. Trying to solve the case faster than York does becomes something of a challenge, and a challenge that I actually failed at. The game went a long way to pointing many possibilities for the murderer and tries to confuse both York and the player until neither are quite sure what is reality and what is fiction. And the murderer, the killer, in the end it is such a surprise, and a heart-wrenching surprise at that. SWERY made a beautifully unforgettable game that is both horrific and wonderful in almost every way.

Agent York, please stop smiling, you're terrifying the children.

The blend of a realistic world and a psychotic nightmare world where York kills demonic evil citizens and outruns the ominous Raincoat Killer is the best part of this game, becoming a very unique experience. Neither the player nor York are quite sure what's really going on until the very end and even then, the player is still left a little dazed and confused, wondering how much was real and how much was in York's head all along.

The ending was both disturbing and heart-wrenching. The story itself feels real, with situations so distressing that sometimes the player just doesn't want to look at the screen even when the game forces one to look lest the player misses something. The characters are both funny and lively, but also serious when they need to be. They feel like real people and act like real people, sometimes even to an alarming degree.

The music and sounds are surprisingly good. The vocal work is much better than I would have ever expected from such an inexpensive game, although none of the characters are fully voiced, which was a tad disappointing. The music makes the game though. At first it seems WAAAAAY out of place and you might be left wondering why the hell a happy song is playing right after some gruesome murder, but it works weirdly enough... and the tone is set. There is a dissonance in the game that can be quite jarring, and you really start to wonder after a while if you're going insane or if the game is just that peculiar and different.

I would say that I did not like the enemy sections though. Although the nightmare world was pretty awesome, fighting the same five or six enemies (not including bosses) throughout the entire game became tiring after a while, especially when it took so long to actually take them down... and the freaking things that come out of the ducts in the walls are by far the most irritating enemies... usually taking five minutes to take out and being a very popular enemy in the second third of the game or so. I dreaded those things showing up. They were incredibly easy to take out sure, but they were also just so annoying and time-consuming... and they made you waste an incredible amount of ammo on them... just an annoying enemy all around. Despite this though, the enemy sections (although annoying) had a certain amount of dread attached to them. The enemies did get progressively harder and sometimes they would just keep spawning forever... and you know once you get into a room that has the enemies just keep spawning that all you want to do is run away screaming like a scared, crying child. So, these sections really were quite effective at using scares, annoyances, and guile to move you to keep continuing the actual storyline.

I can't stress how good this game really was despite some of its flaws. It doesn't have the marketing of some games and thus is not as well known and will probably never be popular. Some of the gameplay is actually pretty terrible as well, and things like the driving mechanics (which make you feel like you're a drunk driver all the time) and the shooting mechanics (which are incredible tough to control in the beginning) can be very frustrating to a person who has never played a survival horror game. To me though, the survival horror fan that I am, the gameplay feels like a lot of the older survival horror games, some of which I dare to say are some of the best video games of all time. The whole game feels like a throwback to the pinnacle of the days of survival horror games with a twist of its own all the same. Also, this game... let me start a new paragraph because this will start a rant.

Well, I can easily compare this game to another game, A PSYCHOLOGICAL ACTION THRILLER game to be be precise. Yes, yes. Alan Wake. I hate you, Alan Wake. I revile you. I think you are a piece of filth that should be forced into the nether regions of Hell for all eternity, but Deadly Premonition was what Alan Wake should have been. It was exactly what I was expecting from that game. And if you tell me that Alan Wake with all of its resources, with its stellar graphics and lackluster everything else... if you tell me that that piece of excrement even compares to a gem, a diamond, a ruby like Deadly Premonition, then you are wrong, and also probably deranged and should be locked up for copious mental deficiencies. Where that game defeated me, hurt me, tore me apart, Deadly Premonition succeeded, becoming one of my favorite video games of all time in the process.

I can't help recommending this game to anybody who likes fun, survival horror, and intelligent games full of questions that you need to answer yourself. Check it out if you have the gonads for it... and it is best played whilst alone... at midnight... in the dark... on a stormy night... then you'll really understand just how much this game can mess you up. Check it out. I recommend it highly in these October Nights.

Video Game Assessment: BioShock (2007)

Okay, I'm seriously very sorry for doing this, but this is a game I've been wanting to review for a very long time and I only just remembered it existed while I was going through a pile of games I finished. I say that I'm sorry because I'm sure there are people out there who really like this game. There are probably even people (perhaps) reading this review who REALLY like BioShock. Well, I'm going to say something that's probably going to make me very unpopular to those people.

I hated this game.

I hated it with a severe passion I usually only reserve for Dark City, Finnegans Wake, and The Martian Chronicles.

I'm not even kidding. This is my least favorite video game OF ALL TIME. You may think I'm going way overboard with that statement or something... but I'm not. I cannot think of a single video game worse than this piece of absolute crap. I'd rather play anything instead. I'd rather play a freaking Barbie game, or one of those freaking Pet Vet games or whatever they're called where the vet goes and pets the animal a lot until it gets better, or whatever the hell those games have in them. How should I know what's in them? I don't play them for a reason and if I did play them I'd kind of know what to expect.

This game is a pile of turds. Why? Well, because of what it claimed to be and what it turned out to be, of course. I mean, if you tell me this'll be the game that innovates first-person shooters with many elements of horror for years to come, I'd understand what you're saying... then I'd play the game and slap you in the face for this affront to humanity.

Did I say "affront"? I meant blight.

Seriously, this game is terrible. And I'm sure all these people who are into "mainstream" games like the Halo crowd are probably slobbering all over this game calling it a masterpiece of horror, sci-fi, and video games themselves... but those people are idiots. They have no idea what's going on at the best of times, and even though I consider myself quite mad most of the time, I'm not mad enough to call a turd a piece of gold. I'm sorry, it's just not something I feel comfortable with. It goes against the basic rules of everything.

BioShock feels like a game that wants to be something better. It wants to be the older kinds of games with a great plot and some puzzle elements and a WHOLE LOT of horror... but what it comes off as is pretentious bullcrap.

I love great stories. Love great twists and turns. Look at my Silent Hill 2 review or my Deadly Premonition one if you don't believe me. Seriously. Those show that I love great stories, even when the game is ultra-hyped. Silent Hill 2 is often called the scariest game of all time, and you know something? Despite my insistence on hating most things well-loved by the populace, I love Silent Hill 2. I think it is the scariest video game of all time without a doubt in my mind. And saying that makes me hurt a little knowing that I agree with so many other reviewers out there... but it's true and I cannot deny the truth despite my obvious mental defects.

But this game... oh, this game... I can't even like it. Sure, I tried to like it. I played levels and had a little fun from time to time. I killed weird people stuck in the underwater city of Rapture, and I didn't feel anything. The scares WEREN'T SCARY! How can a horror game not be scary? How is that even possible? How can people like this game?

I'm so angry I could spit staples out of my teeth as hard and fast as my staple-gun. I don't think any game has ever made me this angry before... no, I know that no game has ever made me this angry. I can't believe how many people liked this game. I can't believe enough people liked it so that there was an even more terrible sequel made which I will never play even under threats of death and bodily destruction. I'd rather die painfully than play a game that hurts my pure visions of video games.

I played this game for about an hour on my first playthrough. It seemed a little tense from time to time and I didn't hate it. I thought it was all right. I thought that maybe I'd like the game even... but after a little time playing through the game, I found that instead of liking it more I was just bored. I knew what was coming before it came. I could kill everything without a blink of my eyes. I don't even like first-person horror games all that much because they make me nervous, but this game just made me sigh for the game to throw some kind of challenge at me... anything to keep me from falling asleep in front of my television.

I mean, there are some good ideas... like the plasmids and everything, but they're implemented so poorly. It's like a rip-off of the Fallout series or something with all the little cutesy 1950's era doodles. It just makes me angry. Nothing here feels original. Nothing here even feels good. It's like vomit in video game form and that... well, that just isn't right in any circle.

The big twist is stupid and happens way before the end of the game. I couldn't care less. I might not have seen it coming exactly, but I didn't care about these characters I never saw except when I listened to them talking over a radio at me and saw a little picture in the corner looking at me. How stupid is that? Show me a cutscene if you're going to try to be Half-Life... I mean, Half-Life did that whole playable cutscene thing perfectly, showing me the characters involved without feeling distant from everything. It made use of the special weapons (e.g. The Gravity Gun) and used them effectively. This game instead goes for the whole, "Yeah, go use this fire plasmid to melt some ice. Yay!"

Whoopdee-doo... A one-year-old child could figure that out. A dog could figure out that warmth is bad for ice. What the hell kind of game is this that treats me as if I have the intelligence of a one-year-old child dog thing? IT MAKES ME ANGRY!

And the worst part is the ending... well, that and the item collection to become a BIG DADDY, which has to be one of the most hyped up easy enemies ever. I mean, when I first saw the trailer I was all like, man those things are going to rock!And then they didn't. It was quite the let down. It was like somebody telling me they were going to give me a puppy, and then instead they ritually sacrificed the puppy there in front of me and gave me the poor thing's fur as a final gift. I don't want dead puppy fur, I want a living puppy that will make me giggle and be happy! BioShock, why did you have to give me a dead puppy's fur? (Yes, I'm going to go with this analogy as long as I can. Hopefully you're getting a fraction of the amount that I abhor this game.)

Why does this game exist? Why is it so popular? Has the mainstream become so hopeless that this is seen as GAME OF THE YEAR material? I can think of many better games of 2007 right off the top of my head: Assassin's Creed (which I didn't even like all that much), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, Lost Odyssey, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Peggle, even Silent Hill: Origins, which was absolutely terrible mostly! I can't even think straight... This game is making me so angry...

I will admit one positive aspect of this game just to calm my absolute rage. It has outstanding visuals. The graphics are outstanding mostly, and the water effects are beautiful. Okay, that's about it... and you know what? I guarantee that almost everybody who loves this game love it for its "innovative weapons" and "cool graphics" and that's sad. Games should be measured by more than just what they look like and how you kill the enemies. But no... stories don't matter... characters don't matter. The only things that matter are graphics and gameplay and if that's all that matter than yes, this game is a fricking gem among an ocean of gems. ALL GAMES ARE PLAYABLE OR THEY WOULDN'T BE GAMES! GOOD GAMEPLAY IS LIKE SAYING A MOVIE SHOULD BE WATCHABLE! OKAY!? AND GRAPHICS SHOULD BE TOPNOTCH ON NEW CONSOLES, BUT THAT'S NOT ALWAYS THE CASE, ALL RIGHT!? AND IF IT ISN'T THEN THAT GAME THAT DOESN'T SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING EXTRA SPECIAL LIKE A REALLY GOOD STORY! Okay... take a deep breath...

My point is that games should have all these things... just because this game has some decent graphics and gameplay doesn't make it GAME OF THE YEAR. What made it GAME OF THE YEAR are douchebags who consider it art rather than seeing it as pretentious bullcrap that should be flushed down the nearest toilet.

Video Game Assessment: Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004)

A room? Well, rooms are frankly terrifying. This must be the scariest game that there ever was! And a door! Oh, jeez, I'm frankly and seriously terrified and quivering over here! OH BOY.

Silent Hill 4: The Room was released in 2004 as the fourth game in the Silent Hill series. I'm not going to go crazy about this game and say that it's the best video game ever or anything, because it isn't. That being said, it's not a bad game either, and certainly not as bad as people tend to say it is. I think people like to throw hyperboles around all the time. This game is also quite different than the other Silent Hill games, so, of course, people are going to have a lot of issues with it. Now, getting all of that out of the way, I like this game much more than most reviewers tend to, even if it honestly pales in comparison to Silent Hill 2.

In saying that I feel like I should mention that I really never cared for the third game in the series. I never finished it. (EDIT: I did finish it. Not worth it in my opinion.) It was a direct sequel to the first game and I never played the first game... which is probably why I have no attachment to it. As for the other games in the series, the prequel to the first game is short and easy but has a few good moments, and in the fifth game of the series, I became stuck in a particular room and was unable to proceed. The fifth game is also quite bad in my opinion. It doesn't have the polish or the originality of the earlier games in the series. I know there's also Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, but even though I own it, I've never actually played it. I probably will at some point...

So, getting back to the game I'm supposed to be reviewing right now, I like it. It's nowhere near as great as the second game, but I think that this game is a much more experimental game, and I can respect that. And when I say experimental, I really do mean it. It changes a lot of staples of the original three games, having first person perspectives in parts, unkillable enemies that constantly pursue you, and a strange combat system that, although better than the earlier games, is still incredibly awkward. I will say that I find this game having both first and third-person elements really adds to the immersion though, and really let's you sympathize with the protagonist even if he's quiet and a little slow.

Also, just to point it out, the game is not incredibly scary either. I mean, sure, it has its moments, but it is nowhere near as scary as other entries in the series. On its own, its not a bad game, but when compared to Silent Hill 2, it simply isn't as good.

I'm not going to get really in depth with this review because this game's story is so convoluted that you'll never understand it in one playthrough without knowing everything beforehand. The story isn't bad exactly, it's more that it doesn't make that much sense, with as serial killer needing to kill a certain amount of people to do a ritual, all the while being dead himself, a victim of his own ritual. Kind of crazy, huh? Very Japanese in my opinion.

I also like just how much of this game is taken from horror and suspense culture. The main premise of the game is based upon Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, which just so happens to be my favorite movie of all time. A man is stuck in his room and can't get out. In that case it was because he had some broken bones and a wheelchair. In this case it's because the protagonist seriously cannot physically get out of his apartment. The real problem is that he shouldn't be stuck. As you can see in the first image, the door is locked from the inside and nothing Henry Townsend, the main character, does will open that door. And that's creepy enough unto itself. How the hell did the door get locked from the inside if it wasn't our pal Henry doing it...?

So, the plot is Henry trying to find out how to get out of the room while simultaneously trying really hard to figure out why he's stuck in his room to begin with. The game goes away from the Silent Hill series staples of mists ad Silent Hill itself, and goes on to focus on outskirts of Silent Hill and a little side story from Silent Hill 2. The idea of being somewhere other than Silent Hill is a big part of Homecoming as well, although I wish they hadn't done that. It did not work as well there as it worked here.

I enjoy this game a lot. I like how it takes elements from so many great icons of horror, like Jacob's Ladder, Hitchcock as mentioned before, and a novel called House of Leaves, which just happens to be my favorite book. It does the references well, making the atmosphere both creepy and a bit of an easter egg unto itself. I like that.

So, this game should be fantastic. Well, I think it is... or at least its imagery is. The plot is... well... it really doesn't matter, which is why I'm barely mentioning it. The characters are pretty terrible too, but they do have their moments, just not many of them. So, the imagery really makes this one... mostly because without that the game would be nowhere near as good... hell, it would probably be pretty terrible actually. With the great imagery though and interesting easter eggs throughout the game, I find this was a memorable experience that I'd love to have again. I suggest anybody who really likes horror imagery to really check out this game.

Anyway, it's 2AM and that's my review.

Edit: Cleaned up this crazy review because I wrote it at 2AM and parts of it made no sense.

Video Game Assessment: Silent Hill 2 (2001)

Silent Hill 2 is known to most people who have ever been into the survival horror video game experience. Made for the PlayStation 2 for the console in 2001, it has become known as one of the best video games of all time.

Video Games tend to have a history as having storylines that aren't amazing or plots that are very simplistic, but this game has much more than just a simple plot. You may be wondering why I skipped Silent Hill, the first game in the franchise, and while it is true that I've never played the game and thus couldn't review it, it's also true that Silent Hill 2 is very much a standalone game. No characters from the first game appear in this game (except arguably the town itself), and this makes the game even better. I know I started this paragraph off talking about storylines and I'm getting to my point slowly, but surely. This game stands alone on its own without the first game's help to hold it up. It's story, although slow, is stunning and creepy and drags the player right into the madness of the town itself.

I've played a lot of survival horror games over the years and I'm going to review some of them this month, but this game is the review I've been looking forward to the most. Silent Hill 2 is one of my favorite video games of all time despite the graphical limitations for an early PS2 title and the not stellar gameplay. Strangely enough though, these things don't take away from the greatness of the game. On the contrary they add to it. The graphical limitations and strangely squarish polygons along with the mist which is a staple to most of the series, make the game somewhat more terrifying, almost as if you've wandered into some strange and horrific land of misshaped everything. The story feels so real despite the terror which adds to it. And the controls being utter crap just means that running is always an option, possibly a preferable option and it lead to an atmosphere of non-confrontation.

I just spoke of atmosphere, so I'm going to go into detail. This game is all about atmosphere. That's a strange word to use to describe a relatively simple thing like the look and feel of the game, but the atmosphere of the game is done phenomenally, and I don't use that word lightly. You can pick any movie, any book, and I don't think they'd quite be able to draw me in the way this video game did back when I first played it, and it's all because I, and I'm going to guess we, can relate to the main character, or a character somewhere in the plot. We can relate to a crappy world of nonexistence, a mad place of confusion and fear. This game takes the deepest fears in our minds and turns them out for all of us to see. It's wonderful and terrifying to see what terrors reside within us all.

I guess I should mention the plot a bit, although I really don't have to. This game is good enough that being unknown to you should force you to look into it.

The plot follows one James Sunderland who has just received a letter from his dead wife, who has been dead for three years. I know the postage system is slow... but DAAAAMN... Anyway, she writes:

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised you'd take me there again someday. But you never did. Well I'm alone there now... In our 'special place'... Waiting for you...

Yes, James Sunderland, your dead wife is "waiting" for you. This is a bit of a problem... no, this is a huge problem. James wonders about this. He has no idea what to expect or what's in store for him, all he knows is that he wants to see what the letter is talking about... and maybe see if he can find his wife amidst a tourist town that the had a nice vacation in before she became ill and died.

The video game starts out in a dingy bathroom and outside is a dingy world. Silent Hill doesn't seem like the nice town everybody makes it out to be. In fact, the main road is closed and there's nobody around but strange noises in the mist...

Eventually James makes it into the middle of town through a graveyard meeting a young woman named Angela in the process. He comes to find that the town is... well, it's empty. There's nobody there and many roads are cut off through strange means. He sees creatures in the midst, some of which attack him, others of which want nothing to do with him. The player is drawn into the story just as James is. What could happen next? What's in store for our hero?

James wanders around the town until he finds an apartment building. He needs to go through it to find what he believes may be the "special place" Mary, his dead wife, speaks of. He thinks it could be a park. He goes into the apartments finding various empty rooms and some strange monsters and eventually a young heavyset man named Eddie who he finds vomiting into a toilet. The mood changes as James meets Angela again and she seems to be contemplating suicide. He takes the knife she is holding from her and is watched and later attacked by a monster known only as Pyramid Head.

Now, Pyramid Head is one of the most famous monsters in video game history. I won't say much about him yet. He torments James along the journey, as James goes from the park, to a sanitarium, to a historical society, to Nowhere, and later to a hotel. Along the way James meets two more characters of interest, a stripper named Maria who looks remarkably like his dead wife except for the stripper part, and a young girl named Laura.

James goes through Silent Hill focused on his one goal of finding his wife, but the game's strength relies on the other character's stories as well. We only get bits and pieces of who they are and what they're doing in Silent Hill, but their stories are every bit as beautiful and terrifying as the story of James and Mary.

James makes his way through the various places always with his mind set on finding Mary, but Pyramid Head has different intentions. He kills Maria in the basement of the sanitarium and James is forced to watch and unable to save her. The problem is that James meets up with Maria again throughout the story and every time she is killed again, but more and more quickly. She also seems to know an alarming amount about his wife and himself...

As it turns out, Maria is a dream within James' head. She was born from his desire for his wife to be alive still. Pyramid Head is the tormentor and punisher of James throughout the game and this is because Pyramid Head is James' guilt for doing the unthinkable.

I'm going to spoil the game here. Why? Because leaving this part out leaves out a large chunk of the story. James' dreams up this town of punishments because he has murdered his sick wife, smothered her with a pillow actually, just a little while before the start of the game. The letter is his own delusion he dreamed up so that he wouldn't have to face being her killer. He makes himself forget what he has done and the game is pretty much the town itself forcing him to remember and to face what he had done.

The psychological horror aspect of this video game is undeniable and visceral. It's a wonderful story that plays out in such a way that by the end you're unsure of whether to tremble or to cry. The atmosphere and the characters lead to something so believable, a prison of the mind, a trial of the mind... and it's a wonderful weaving of both story and character to make something wonderful out of both.

This game is frankly terrifying, especially if you're like me and played it blind the first time you ever played it. You don't know what's going to happen next or where the story will lead to next. You don't know where everything will lead and it makes the game horrifying. Will a monster jump out at you? Will the invincible Pyramid Head attack you around a corner? Where might the story lead to next? What the game makes is something fantastic, a great story, believable and sad characters, great and meaningful monsters and enemies, and most of all, one of the best plots I have ever seen in any medium.

I could compare books and movies to this game, but most fall short. The only book I can think of with anywhere near the emotional story is House of Leaves which I may review this October... but I'm not saying now, and Jacob's Ladder which I already said I'm planning on reviewing. So, I may make some comparisons when I get to those reviews.

But anyway this game is great. If you have a PS2 (or XBox or PC since the game is on all three), pick this game up. You won't be disappointed, but you may be terrified. If you have a weak stomach or weak heart, just read this review and look at the images and have a good time thinking about how terrifying a video game can be. This is on of my favorite video games of all time, and I can't help recommending it to the populace. I'm actually currently replaying it and it's still terrifying.

Anyway, as I've said, this game is fantastic and wonderful, and you'll see me gushing about this a million times over as I compare and contrast it to other psychological horror plots and stories, because this one is at the pinnacle of the psychological horror genre and... well, it's at the pinnacle of plots in general.

All right, that's enough of me praising something. Let's just move on from here...