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oh man, it even plays a thinly-veiled Mayberry theme in the background!
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I'm totally going to get this game. Even though it looks like it has some elements I won't like, it sounds like it has plenty of other stuff I will like, and other stuff that's just so damn bizarre that I want to experience it regardless of whether or not I think I'll enjoy it.

Guys, it really sounds to me that this is the game Heavy Rain wanted to be. Someone with both a PS3 and an Xbox should play these two games simultaneously, switching back and forth between them every few hours.

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shiren I love your pixelated animated Saturn avatar! Where did you get it?
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toups: gamestop has it, but it is not listed on the xbox website, so it seems to have sort of fallen through the cracks...

ronnoc: I don't understand what that clip has to do with the Galaxy of Terror maggot rape scene.

EDIT: Oh, that is ronnoc's one and only post. He is a troll or a spammer. :(

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Hastings also has this game.

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I think I'm finally getting to the point in the game where it stops railroading me through one combat section after another (the combat is not very fun, and it's interspersed with a lot of drab QTEs), and I can finally start to do my own thing. I went fishing in the middle of a thunderstorm (and caught some fish, some ammo, some crackers, and a pitchfork) and then I passed out from hunger in the middle of a breakfast buffet because even though I was surrounded by food there was no option to eat any of it (and it had been established earlier that this was a complimentary breakfast buffet since I was staying in the hotel). So, on one hand I appreciate the absurdity of the situation, but on the other hand it was pretty annoying.

So far I would NOT say that this is "the Twin Peaks of video games". It's almost this generation's Chulip, though.
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Oh man... I played some more of this last night, and now I'm definitely ready to "officially recommend" it to people.

On my previous session, I'd just finished the saw mill, did some fishing, and then went to bed. This playthrough started in the morning. I was up too early for breakfast, so I tided myself over with some crackers. Then, while I was waiting for the diner to open so I could get some breakfast, I drove around looking for trading cards and human bones, and also did a little fishing. (I discovered that each fishing spot has one "pink present" that is a unique item, usually a card.) When the diner finally opened, I had some roast turkey with onion rings and corn bread for breakfast. Mmm... Then I did some more driving around, swapping cars when I started running out of gas. At one point I noticed I was pretty close to the gas station when I was low on gas, so I got some gas from a Daisy-Duke-style character, and also got a card of her sponge. Then I went to the convenience store where I bought a map to a spooky place from the rockabilly clerk, and he proceeded to tell me a bitchin' ghost story about the spooky place (complete with ghost story lighting!). I put off going to the spooky place for now, and did some more fishing, and then I went to the town meeting at the community center. Harry (the man in the wheelchair and the skull-shaped gas mask who speaks by whispering to his aide) told me to come visit him "when the signs are right", and I also got to meet the log pot lady. She told me her pot was getting cold. I also met Wesley, the town gun dealer, who told me to swing by his gun store, The Panda Bear.

After the meeting, I went out to dinner with the cops, and told them a delightful tale of a man who killed young girls and used their skulls as cups and urinals, interchangeably. We finished dinner around 10pm, and it had started raining, so I drove around some more, visiting the Galaxy of Terror bar for a couple of drinks, harassing Anna's best friend Becky at her home in the middle of the night, and then going to another bar to play some darts and eat some spicy tacos. When I left the darts bar, it was after midnight, and apparently after midnight the zombies come, and there were zombies popping up everywhere, but I had a car, so I could just plow through them (for cash!). Despite the zombie hordes, I swung by the Panda Bear, where Wesley informed me that in addition to selling me guns he would also give me special rewards for SHOWING HIM MY POKEMANS. So I did that for a while (I'd collected quite a few Pokemans trading cards at this point), and then I drove back to my hotel, merrily plowing through zombies and thinking how awesome and invincible I was in my car, when all of a sudden this GIANT BLACK DOG DROPPED DOWN OUT OF THE SKY and I crashed into him, and had to maneuver around him to continue on to the hotel.

Back in the hotel I wrote up my report, complete with little quizzes on various aspects of the case to make sure I was paying attention and remembering all the little details. And then I went to bed. What an awesome day.
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Who's got two thumbs and a flamethrower with infinite ammo? THIS GUY!

Episode 2 starts by looking like it's gonna railroad you into going to the art gallery, but if you immediately get out of the car then George says "OK, fine, if you wanna dick around all day, then just meet us at the art gallery before 1700." So, I was free to dick around all day. I got the rest of the bones, and found the side quest that actually uses the bones (and lucked into finding another side quest that requires you to HAVE some of the bones), and I did the "spirit map" side-quest that I got from the convenience store, because a friend told me that it gets you the infinite SMG. So now I have the infinite SMG and the infinite flamethrower, which I think will make the combat sections a lot more fun but I don't think they'll be so unbalanced that they'll make combat boring. I also got a sweet new car that handles a lot better than the police cars. I also got a lot more cards, mostly from fishing at various spots, and started a few more quests that I need to be in certain places at certain times to complete. By that point it was finally about time to go to the art gallery, so I did all that stuff, and went to the diner afterward, and now I'm free to do other stuff for about five hours before I have to meet someone somewhere at 2100.

Oh, I also figured out that the badge icon means "you can start a side quest here", which is probably totally obvious to everyone else but took me a long time to realize.

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PROTIP: The numbers at the top of each side mission page indicate the chapters during which those missions are available. If you miss a side-mission by going beyond its last available chapter, you can just choose to replay a previous chapter from the main menu. When replaying a previous chapter, phones won't work, but when you finish the chapter it will save and kick you back to the main menu, at which point you can resume from where you left off and also have the benefit of any side missions, items, cards, and other things that you got while replaying a previous chapter. This also means that if you get stuck somewhere without any ammo or health kits, you can just go to a previous chapter and stock up, and then come back, which totally defeats all of the arguments made in that terrible IGN review. But I don't ever expect IGN reviewers to actually PLAY games, anyway.
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Everyone's a suspect until you meet them. Just like real life!

What IS kinda racist is that that guy is one of the only two black people in town, and he sells guns out of his garage in the middle of the night. But his primary purpose in the game is rewarding you for collecting trading cards, which isn't racist at all. It's also kinda balanced out by the fact that the other black guy is the town doctor.

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ah, OK, thanks diplo. Still, very slow for an in-game clock!
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I can't think of anything important in the game that's text-only without accompanying spoken dialogue. I guess you'd miss out on the names of some of the menu items at restaurants, and you'd have to figure out how to play darts on your own.
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