![]() I went into Deadly Premonition 2 hoping to have my mind blown, but all I got was a mild headache. It’s honestly choppier than an overcaffeinated lumberjack and genuinely uncomfortable to watch for long periods, and performance is poor whether you have the Switch docked or in handheld mode. Things are pretty tolerable inside any one of its interiors, but the minute you step out onto the streets of Le Carré you become the star in what feels like the world’s sloppiest attempt at stop-motion animation. “However, it’s the stuttering frame rate that’s the real serial killer in Deadly Premonition 2, routinely snuffing out any enjoyment to be found exploring its New Orleans-inspired setting. Although there’s a subtle cel-shading technique employed that helps the character models pop, reflections look like they’re being rendered on a Nokia N-Gage and the majority of the environmental textures feature all the definition of a coffee stain on a tablecloth. The bulk of the story may take place in 2005, but Deadly Premonition 2’s visuals appear to be set a few years prior to that. As a result, there are considerably fewer potential suspects in Deadly Premonition 2’s central whodunnit plot, which means the mystery has less room to swerve in as many unexpected directions and thus feels more predictable. These characters each facilitate some hilariously bizarre exchanges with York, but it soon becomes glaringly obvious that there just aren’t as many residents to meet in Le Carré as there were in the original Deadly Premonition’s Greenvale. Then there's the pint-sized Patricia Woods, who acts as the eye-rolling foil to York's more indulgent anecdotes. Crawfish farmer Chuck Thompson is short in stature but disgustingly long in nasal hair. Melvin Woods operates a local food truck and also happens to be the town sheriff. David Jawara is a hotel owner who poses as a chef, concierge, and bellboy like some kind of bayou-born Basil Fawlty. The cast that’s introduced in the 2005 Le Carré setting is thankfully a lot more kooky. However, these interrogation scenes drag on for far too long, and I never really warmed to Davis, whose po-faced disposition and penchant for Nietzsche quotes quickly become a bore compared to the younger York’s childlike enthusiasm and endless spouting of pop culture fun facts. Play It’s an interesting way to frame Deadly Premonition 2’s roughly 20-hour plot, and the episodes set in 2019 allow you to play as new character Aaliyah Davis, who’s charged with interviewing the sickly, disheveled modern-day Zach (whose pot-smoking is hilariously and repeatedly referred to as his “stinking indulgence”). It inherits many of the technical flaws of its now decade-old predecessor, but its story never manages to disturb or captivate to quite the same extent, making for a much more forgettable follow-up.Director Hidetaka ‘Swery’ Suehiro has apparently shelved his Twin Peaks box set in favour of binge-watching season one of True Detective, because Deadly Premonition 2’s story structure is highly reminiscent of that of the HBO series flitting back and forth between a videotaped interrogation with Francis “Zach” Morgan in 2019, and his 2005 investigation of a series of murders as his split-personality counterpart Francis “York” Morgan in the fictional deep south small town of Le Carré. Sadly its sequel, Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise, does not enjoy that same saving grace. The original cult classic Deadly Premonition featured terrible combat, graphics that were dated on arrival in 2010, and an erratic audio mix that rendered much of its dialogue unintelligible, but it was easy to look past or even embrace its low-budget shortcomings because its eccentric cast of characters and utterly bonkers story was like no other game that many of us had ever played.
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