Deadly Premonition -- Initial Impression.

With major releases a little over a week away, I'll be filling in the time with Deadly Premonition for the Xbox 360. Deadly Premonition was developed by Access Games and published by Ignition Entertainment for the budget price of twenty dollars. Access Games have developed Spy Fiction and The Dodgeball: World Championship Dodge Baller. Yeah... so I'd never heard of them either. Deadly Premonition is their third effort and it went under the name of Red Seeds Profile in Japan with the PlayStation 3 version going by Rainy Woods. Deadly Premonition can best be described as the Japanese take on sandbox titles like Grand Theft Auto meets survival horror. You play as an FBI profiler who has come to investigate the murder of a young girl in a small north western American town. The game features an eight kilometer square game world to explore. A full town and surrounding wilderness with day and night cycles and townspeople going about their daily lives. From what I've played so far the game has a pretty decent combat system. The controls are certainly workhorse at best. The graphics are well below the standard. The voice work bad. The story is insane. The main character is insane. Everyone in the town is insane. The music is inappropriate to the setting. They've also seemingly taken from every survival horror game in existence. There is a bit of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, D2, Clock Tower, Siren and more in this game. But with all of this I have to say there is something intriguing. You can clearly see the parts are bad, but somehow the whole is feeling fun and worthwhile. This might be one of those I'm glad to have in the collection years from now. We'll see.