Dead Head Fred for PSP Reviews by Gamers

Life sometimes isn't particularly fair, especially when it starts throwing a ton of curveballs your way. Imagine that your best friend moves from a reliable business partner to a raging alcoholic. Your girlfriend's father, who just happens to the one of the leaders of your town, mysteriously vanishes. Even worse, when you try to investigate his disappearance, you find yourself at the top of a mobster's hit list, with a bad case of amnesia and a jar for a head. It's enough to make you rail against the world and the inhabitants of your town for such a raw deal. That's the basic premise behind Vicious Cycle and D3 Publisher of America's twisted noir action game Dead Head Fred, one of the most creative and enjoyable titles to come to the PSP.



Dead Head Fred is set in Hope Falls, a town that's definitely seen better days: radiation from the nuclear power plant has caused rampant mutation in the livestock and population, the dead have risen from the grave and the city's government is extremely corrupt. Fred Neuman is one of the few good guys left: a detective following leads that point to Ulysses Pitt, a supposed philanthropist who's actually a mob boss. Fred gets too close and Pitt has Fred killed, cutting his head off and dumping his body in a sludge dump behind the nuclear plant. Fortunately for the gumshoe, a mad scientist, Dr. Steiner, finds his body and resurrects him, albeit with two glaring side effects. The first is that Fred's brain and eyes have been placed in a giant glass jar with a mysterious liquid that helps keep the undead private eye alive. The other problem is that as a result of his decapitation and rise from the grave, he suffers from amnesia. Seeking revenge on Pitt, as well as his head, Fred takes off to enact his own brand of justice.



While there are some negative with Fred's head loss, there are some advantages as well: he has the ability to switch heads at will. Initially, he'll start off with his jar head, but he'll acquire eight other craniums that he can use to accomplish his goals. Each head comes with their own abilities, such as expelling noxious fumes, tossing birds or creating decoys. Most of these bestow physical changes upon Fred, such as being immune to fire or allowing you to inhale substances like gasoline or large quantities of water. For example, you may find that there's a power generator that you need to illuminate a barn, but it's out of fuel, forcing you to siphon some from a gas tank. Other heads are more passive; for instance, seeing a guy running around with a skull for a head can be somewhat frightening. Wearing a mannequin head allows Fred to communicate with the denizens of Hope Falls without scaring them to death.



The various heads also provide different attack moves and combos in the middle of battle. For instance, the skull moves provide a lot of fast slashing attacks, while the stone idol head lands slower but more powerful blows. For the most part, you can pull off most of your moves with the Square button, although you can follow up some strikes with the X button to interrupt enemy attacks or get around their defenses. Once you've landed enough damage on an opponent, you'll stun them, which gives you the opportunity to land a finishing blow with the Triangle button. Frequently, these involve some harsh decapitation attack from Fred, such as twisting off someone's skull or smashing them into the ground until their head explodes. The Triangle button is also used to counter enemy attacks provided Fred is wearing the right head, setting them up for a button mashing sequence where you have to fill a meter before landing a killing strike. Pulling off any finishing move provides you with rage, which can be used to pull off either area or hand to hand special attacks that are much stronger than standard punches and kicks.



Unfortunately, combat is one of those areas where Dead Head Fred loses a bit of its luster, partially because of the control scheme for the title. Don't get me wrong - much of the game is excellent when it comes to moving Fred around environments or solving puzzles. But part of the combat is somewhat hampered by the reliance on the R button as an all-purpose modifier in battle. By itself, it's supposed to block attacks, although Fred still takes quite a bit of damage from defending himself. However, the R button is also used in combination with the analog stick to move the camera around as well as trigger focused and area rage attacks. Players can easily rotate the camera away from their current target, which then forces you to readjust the view of the game action so that you can see where you're being attacked from. Considering that the camera will sometimes choose some horrible angles for you in battle or during puzzles, it's annoying to have to fight it as well as mutants that want you dead.





The combat system can also degenerate into button mashing, particularly when you're surrounded by three or more enemies at the same time. However, considering that the jump button and the follow up attack button are the same, you may find yourself inadvertently leaping straight up in the middle of a combo because the game doesn't register your initial strike. Since you don't really have the ability to attack in mid air, you frequently set yourself up for a free attack from an opponent that you were pounding into submission. Combined with the other battle issues, and fights, while not atrocious, can either become tedious or annoying.



What does make Dead Head Fred stand out is that the game encompasses a large number of game elements that have been included in the game. Initially, the game might seem like your standard action title, but it also features a number of platforming and puzzle elements, as well as some adventure aspects, all of which are well done and nicely balanced. For instance, since you're a private detective, you'll receive various side jobs along the way, which you can choose to accept or completely ignore. If you take the task and complete them, you'll gain money and a random assortment of items. For the most part, many of the items are useless bits of junk with hilarious descriptors, but Fred can trade or sell these items for things that he really wants, including enhancements to his heads that give him new powers, like more projectiles during a ranged attack or the ability to regenerate his health. You'll also be able to acquire items and cash through some of the various mini-games in the game, such as pinball, pool, fishing, and even mutant cockfighting rings.



Players will always have access to their inventory and a notebook that points them in the direction that they need to go in the game, as well as how to hints to perform specific actions or head icons to gain a sense of which skull is needed for certain actions. This can frequently come in handy when you're trying to solve a particular puzzle. Considering the incredible amount of depth and quirky character that all of Hope Falls demonstrates, having this help at your fingertips is rather appreciated. The town encompasses eight unique "areas," all of which can be quickly traversed once Fred has visited them via manhole covers. But once you've progressed through areas like Creepy Hollow and Freak Farms, you know that you're not in your typical action title or platform game. Need I even mention the twisted little district known as Zombietown?



The visual flair of the title is incredible on the PSP, with large character models. Fred and his heads really pop off the screen, particularly with the different animation sets that each equipped head imparts on his body. For instance, the corpse head imparts a shambling walk, while the dummy head provides a stiff, bolt upright walking stance. Every character, from the smallest kid crying over his toys to the boss battles, are beautifully rendered, and stand out on the detailed environments. In-engine cutscenes are excellent as well, and transition nicely between game action and plot development. The only downside that crops up when it comes to the visuals are the continual loading times on just about every single area. While they're not horrible, they're pretty frequent - each time you go through a door or enter a new area, you have to wait for at least a good five to seven seconds after a preliminary cutscene. Although you can skip the cutscene, you won't bypass this load time, and after you go through it multiple times (for instance, Doctor Steiner's mansion with multiple doors), you'll notice those extra seconds start to add up.



The sound for the title, however, is fantastic. The majority of it is centered around the voice acting, which is anchored by John C. McGinley of Scrubs and Office Space fame. McGinley expertly brings his dry, sarcastic delivery to Fred's lines and consistently delivers humorous lines across the entire game. Even better is the fact that the dialogue isn't censored, so McGinley could launch an insult without being worried that he was held back. The resulting vocal venom is comedic gold, (particularly as you're reloading after accidentally killing Fred during a game) and it will frequently have you laughing out loud. However, you will definitely want to have some headphones around if you play the game in public, as some people may object to the number of F-bombs dropped by most of the characters.

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