[quote name='RollingSkull']Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I liked Deadly Premonition but there is no way in hell I culd see someone knocking SH:SM for that while turning aroudn and recommending DP. In every conceivable way, DP is worse than SH:SM.[/QUOTE]
And yet more people like DP than SH:SM, as evidenced by higher user reviews at Amazon and various other places. SH sucks because it stays within the standard survival horror framework (with some very minor innovations), and executes everything blandly. No reason to waste much time on a game like that when it's already been done before and done better so many times. On the whole it's boring, which is the worst thing a game can be. With a good story it would have been a decent game. Add in some combat with twisted enemies creeping out of the dark and into the flashlight's view for you to bludgeon with a pipe and it starts to sound pretty good. Then throw in some hellish environments to create tension and you've got the makings of a great game. Ironically, the list of things that would make this POS better reads like a description of the older SH games, which were in fact better.
Most of the individual elements of DP are bad, but the open world murder mystery investigation/survival horror structure hasn't been done before, and as a whole is an excellent game design. DP also has a great story, which is the most important part of a game like this. Being a peeping tom is entertaining, moreso because of the great characters and how some of the clues you can piece together from their routines fit into the story/plot twists. An extremely obscure budget release doesn't get to be popular without doing a lot right. In the end, DP's flaws don't make it any less fun of a game, with the caveat that it's mostly for older gamers who grew up on NES/SNES and then saw the evolution of survival horror on the PSX, and thus experienced the classics. I doubt the mouthbreathing Xbox live Halokids would like it much.