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Dead Head Fred (PSP) Status: Stopped playing - Got frustrated I started playing this game on Thursday 5 November, 2009 // I stopped playing this game on: Friday 13 November, 2009
Current opinion of this game
Yes, the setting is interesting and kind of amusing, but in the end I simply found it too confusing to play.
November 13, 2009 04:18:25 PM
It's been a while since I've played a game with so many different ideas, many of them intriguing, yet ultimately so frustrating and confusing. I can't say I have any knowledge of how this game was produced, but I would hazard a guess that it may be a poster child for a game that was rushed out the door before it was quite ready. On the other hand, some of the issues I've had while playing it seem very "basic" or evident. If I had to summarize my experience playing this game in one word I would go with : confused. I was continually confused about what I had to do and how the game worked that it became more of an exercise in frustration than anything else. Here are a few examples: (a) You meet a character (Sam Spade?) who tell you to collect heads for him. For every five heads you take him he'll give you something new. Ok! So, I spent a significant amount of effort taking care to fight enemies without using special powers or counter moves because these usually end with you destroying their heads. By opting for the harder way of fighting, I was planning on harvesting skulls to trade. It turns out, and I learned this a while later, that you only collect skulls for you when he assigns it to you AS A MISSION. So, all my efforts went to waste. I had misunderstood what the character SAID with the way missions work in the game. Lesson? Don't listen to what the characters say... (b) I found a voodoo doll head that grants you the ability to become small. I tried to equip it via the standard head-swapping interface only to find that the voodoo head wasn't available. What? I spent 15 confused minutes trying to see where the head was so that I could try it out. I went into the help files, into the configuration screens, everywhere! It turns out that you can only swap into that head when you're next to a location that requires that you wear that head to enter. In other words, the stupid head was a key to let me in the door of small places. It wasn't "a power". Sigh. (c) While fighting, you have the ability to block. However it only seems to work against about half of the attacks dished out at you. Generally it's the "weaker" attacks. Why bother with a block then? (d) I spent most of my time collecting knick-knacks for no apparent reason. I can sell them or then buy them back. Why? About 6 hours later I learn that SOME of them can be used to create special potions/drinks. Oh. I wish I had known that earlier! (e) You start the game with three heads and then, for no apparent reason, two of them are taken away. Why? (f)What kind of game is this anyways? First I thought it was a fighting game, then an adventure game? Then an action game?

Dead Head Fred (PSP)