This will come as absolutely no surprise to readers of Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra. The team, especially the author of this article, has been enamored with Deadly Premonition since its Xbox 360-only North American budget release. The game is now available worldwide (PS3 is only in Japan at the moment), and delighting and horrifying audiences everywhere.

The game has clumsy combat, PS2-level graphics, and maddeningly long sequences of driving from nowhere to another, slightly differently textured nowhere. But lift the curtain a bit, and you see a living, bizarre game world, where people go about their daily business regardless of player interaction. You’ll see a deeply bizarre story, with the main character (expertly voiced by Jeff Kramer) discussing necrophilia, drinking urine from skulls, and B-movie film errata in alternate breaths.

The game’s dialog is so perfectly imperfectly written that it feels as though it belongs in a category all its own. It also has one of the most intelligent narrative framing devices, allowing the main character’s multiple personality to take life in a way that other games have certainly attempted, but never succeeded (if I say more, I feel I may spoil something).

Once you get past the clunkiness of it, even the combat can become fun – but perhaps I have an odd perspective as someone who obtained every secret card, every weapon, and every automobile in the game. Subsequent fights through the game’s “dungeons” turn into speed runs once you get some all-powerful weapons, that allow you to revisit frustrating areas and simply mow through enemies and pick up collectibles that are laid out for you as though they were on a racetrack.

Reviews were perhaps the most amusingly polarizing external aspect to the game. IGN provided the first review, rating the game a dismal 2.0. Destructoid followed suit with a perfect 10 review of their own, and 1up followed with a solid “B” rating. While IGN couldn’t see past the clunky controls that they felt kicked them out of the experience, the others saw the ultimate cult classic of a game. The final laugh came when the game was released many months later in Europe – only to receive a 7.5 from IGN UK.

Deadly Premonition took 5 years and as many near-cancellations to put on shelves, and is the kind of game nobody makes anymore – and as the industry changes and shifts, who knows if they ever will again. For now though, the game has amassed a rabid following, so we can only cross our fingers and wait.