Celebrating 10 years of Lost Levels

I meant to mention this anniversary--of one of the few blogs/sites I've been following since I first discovered such things existed way back when--a couple of weeks ago when it actually happened, but I was still completely obsessed with creating (and publishing) cushion designs for Animal Crossing: New Leaf at the time and as a result forgot to do so.

So, I'm mentioning--and celebrating--it today. (With the "it" in question being the 10th anniversary of Frank Cifaldi's LostLevels.org.)



If you've never visited Lost Levels, I'd obviously highly recommend doing so now (right now, in fact)--especially if you like reading about old video games that never made it to market.

I'm pretty sure this post about Final Fantasy 64 is what first brought me to Cifaldi's site, by the way. Even if it wasn't, it's unquestionably my favorite of all of Lost Levels' posts, as I obsessed over that not-meant-to-be title far more than I'd like to admit as a teen, and the writer's insights into its existence (or lack thereof) thrill me even today.

The question is: Will I like Deadly Premonition as much as Frank Cifaldi did?

When 1up.com's Frank Cifaldi reviewed Ignition's Deadly Premonition early last year (read it here), he called the game a mixture of The Last Express, Resident Evil 4, Shenmue and Twin Peaks.

He also said, "a lot of the graphics would look right at home on the Dreamcast." Admittedly, most gamers would consider that to be a negative, but I'm such a big fan of Sega's consoles that it served to further pique my interest in this open-world survival-horror title.

Hoo boy, this is going to be a weird game, isn't it?

Anyway, after reading Cifaldi's review, and a few associated comments he made about the game on facebook and Twitter, I added Deadly Premonition to my "to buy" list--despite the fact that I didn't yet own an Xbox 360.

Well, I now own an Xbox 360, and soon I'll own Deadly Premonition, too, since I ordered a copy of the game late last week for about $15. While I wait for it to arrive, I think I'll waste my time listening to this chiptune take on the title's "whistle tune."

See also: 'If Frank Cifaldi says a game is good, it must be so'

If Frank Cifaldi says a game is good, it must be so

Frank Cifaldi, the man behind the rather fabulous lostlevels.org (which means he's a man well worth listening to), has been trumpeting the recently released Xbox 360 title, Deadly Premonition (formerly known as Rainy Woods), via facebook and twitter.

For instance, a few days ago he tweeted that "Deadly Premonition is the best game IGN ever [gave] a 2 out of 10. It's a low budget David Lynch Shenmue with zombies and fishing and shaving. It just came out and it's $20 and I'm in love."

Later, on facebook, he added that "it looks awful (seriously, PS2 graphics) and is super low budget, but that all adds to the charm. Oh, and the soundtrack is genuinely great. It's like the best Dreamcast game that was never made, and may be one of the last grand Japanese console adventure games."

The promise of fishing and shaving and zombies certainly has me intrigued, as does the following screenshot (taken from the official Deadly Premonition discussion thread over at NeoGAF):

I don't know what's going on here, and I'm not sure I want to.

I don't (yet) have an Xbox 360, Frank, but you can bet I'll pick up a copy of Deadly Premonition as soon as I get one.

Buy: Deadly Premonition