Dead Head Fred | 2007

 Dead Head Fred is an action-adventure video game developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by D3 Publisher for the PlayStation Portable. It was released in North America on August 28, 2007, and is powered by Vicious Cycle's proprietary Vicious Engine. The game features a premise that combines 1940s-style noir with contemporary horror, dubbed "twisted noir" by the design team.

Dead Head Fred is a single-player game where the main character, Fred Neuman, is a private investigator with the ability to switch heads. Fred has been murdered and decapitated, and he has few memories of the events leading to his death. The plot follows Fred as he pieces together the clues of his murder and seeks revenge on the man who killed him. Fred has no conventional weapons; he relies solely on the powers available to him from the severed heads of fallen enemies.

The game received generally positive reviews, with critics praising its dark humor and noir-inspired motif. However, it faced criticism for its controls and lack of combat depth. In 2008, it won the Writers Guild of America's first-ever award for video game writing.

Dead Head Fred was designed specifically for the PSP, and Vicious Cycle intended it to be their "flagship" title for the system. However, the game's designers hinted that it could potentially be ported to the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live Arcade with a few months' work. As of March 2009, D3Publisher announced a sequel, but the designers stated that subsequent titles were discussed during the game's development. John C. McGinley expressed interest in reprising his role as Fred. However, Vicious Cycle was shut down in 2016, and its publisher D3 Publisher shifted its focus to mobile gaming, leaving the future of the game uncertain.

The gameplay is a third-person action-adventure experience that incorporates various styles, including combat, platforming, and puzzles. The core gameplay revolves around Fred's missing head and his ability to "switch" heads by defeating certain enemies. As Fred explores the city of Hope Falls, he can collect various heads, each with unique abilities. For example, the Stone Idol head can be used as a battering ram, while the Corpse head can suck up and spit out water and gasoline. Fred uses these heads to navigate the city, and certain areas are inaccessible until specific heads are found. The high radiation levels in Hope Falls have led to the proliferation of mutated worms, which players can collect to upgrade Fred's heads and enhance his fighting abilities. Players can also collect money and special items by defeating enemies or completing side missions. There are several unrelated minigames scattered throughout the city, such as pinball and fishing.

In combat, players have several attacks at their disposal, depending on the head Fred is equipped with. These attacks include combos, head-specific counterattacks, and ranged attacks. During a counterattack, players can complete a quick time event to instantly kill an enemy by removing its head, which grants Fred "Rage" points. Rage energy builds up over time, allowing players to unleash powerful attacks on multiple foes. Dealing significant damage to an opponent will stun them, during which time Fred can remove their head. Collected heads can be traded at "Head Shops" for usable versions.

The game is set in Hope Falls, New Jersey, a once-prosperous area inspired by American cities in the 1940s. The city has steadily declined since a business mogul named Ulysses Pitt began accumulating power. Pitt has a background in petty crime, and there are allegations that he was responsible for the disappearance of Vinni Rossini, an influential businessman in Hope Falls. Pitt's new "Nukular Plant" has recently been completed, causing high radiation levels in the city and leading to strange phenomena like mutated wildlife and undead monsters.

The main character is Fred Neuman, a private detective. He is the only playable character, but since each head gives him a different set of animations, he could be considered nine separate characters. Fred's mood is portrayed through his voice and facial expressions formed by his eyes and frontal lobes. He has a wisecracking, sarcastic personality and occasionally breaks the fourth wall. Ulysses Pitt, the game's primary antagonist, is a small-time hoodlum turned racketeer. Fred makes several allies throughout the game, including Dr. Steiner, who resurrected him, his girlfriend Jeanne Rossini, and his former partner Benny Salazar. Fred's enemies are generally employees of Pitt, like the skeletal "bone thugs," or creatures created by the radiation in Hope Falls, such as zombies and animated scarecrows.

The game begins with Fred waking up in the castle of Dr. Freidrich Steiner, an employee of Ulysses Pitt. Fred soon learns that he has been murdered and resurrected, and his head is missing. In its place is a liquid-filled jar containing his brain and eyes. Steiner explains that Fred is a private detective who had been investigating Pitt, but Pitt discovered Fred's investigation and had him murdered. Many of Fred's memories are missing due to the trauma to his brain, and before Steiner can explain further, Pitt and several of his henchmen arrive. As Fred hides in Steiner's lab, Pitt's thugs apprehend Steiner and announce that he is to be taken to the Horseman, a minion of Pitt's who resides in Creepy Hollow.

Fred leaves Steiner's castle and meets a blue-skinned hunchback in the cemetery outside. The hunchback introduces himself as Sam Spade, a gravedigger and "head merchant" who can help Fred by providing him with quality interchangeable heads. Fred continues to Creepy Hollow, where he defeats the Horseman and rescues Dr. Steiner. However, Steiner has little information regarding Fred's investigation and suggests that he question the residents of Hope Falls to learn more about his demise. Fred begins exploring Hope Falls, meeting many strange personalities along the way. He reconnects with his old girlfriend Jeanne, who is the daughter of a prominent citizen, Vinni Rossini. Fred learns that Mr. Rossini had been reported missing by Jeanne, who had subsequently hired Fred to find him. Fred eventually followed the trail to Pitt, who had bribed Fred's partner, Benny Salazar, into betraying him. Fred was caught by Pitt's henchmen and shot to death by Lefty, Pitt's right-hand man.

Armed with the knowledge of his death and the events leading up to it, Fred continues his investigation and recovers a videotape of Vinni Rossini's murder that incriminates Pitt. Pitt learns that Fred is still "alive" and kidnaps Jeanne to use as leverage against him. Fred confronts Pitt at his headquarters after shutting down the centerpiece of his criminal enterprise, the Pitt Nukular Plant, and defeating Lefty. However, Lefty, exposed to nuclear waste during the fight, mutates into a huge beast who comes to Pitt's aid in the final battle. Fred ultimately defeats both Pitt and Lefty atop the Pitt Building. Pitt is killed during the battle, but Lefty manages to escape and retreats to the remains of the Nukular Plant. After the battle, Fred's head, which had been held hostage by Pitt along with Jeanne, is shown tumbling into an open manhole near the Pitt Building, unbeknownst to Fred. The final scene of the game shows Fred and Jeanne having dinner at a restaurant to celebrate, with Fred lamenting the loss of his head.

Dead Head Fred uses the Vicious Engine, a game engine created and maintained by Vicious Cycle Software. The engine was designed as a simple set of creation tools that could be used across multiple consoles. The game was originally conceived as a platform game based on the character "Geo." Vicious Cycle's president, Eric Peterson, and some of his staff developed a conceptual world called "Prime" where Geo lived. Geo had the ability to switch his head between several different shapes (a cube, sphere, cylinder, and pyramid) that would help him solve puzzles, fight, and move around Prime in his quest to stop the evil King Rhombus, who was trying to destroy Prime. Each of Geo's shaped heads had unique properties that gave him different abilities.

The Geo concept was described by the development team as similar to other platform games like Rayman or Spyro, and skewed towards a younger audience. When the concept was complete, the development team presented it to several publishers, who stated that they liked the idea but felt its geometry-based core resembled "edutainment" too strongly, and they were interested in developing a more edgy, adult premise. The GameCube had been an early choice for hosting the game before the PSP was chosen.

Vicious Cycle went back to the drawing board and produced a new concept that they felt was darker and better suited to an older audience. The "head-switching" game mechanic had been praised by potential publishers and was kept, but this time the cartoonish, childlike Geo was replaced by an angry, vengeful private detective named Fred Neuman. The world of Prime was replaced with the bleak, film noir-esque city of Hope Falls, where Fred would seek revenge against those who had wronged him. Vicious Cycle presented the new project to Sony, who promptly approved the game for the PSP, despite it not having secured a publisher. Shortly afterward, the project was picked up by D3Publisher.

Vicious Cycle then submitted the concept to art company Massive Black Studios to develop initial character sketches. Massive Black's artists were allowed to use their imagination while developing Fred, but the one stipulation Vicious Cycle made from the beginning was Fred's head—the developers wanted it to be a liquid-filled jar with the detective's brain and eyes floating around inside. Massive Black came up with several different versions of Fred, including some with guns, which lead designer Adam Cogan had already decided the game would not include. After receiving the sketches, Vicious Cycle chose several that portrayed Fred with a squat, childlike appearance that retained some of the youthful focus of the scrapped Geo project. The publisher, D3, decided to present all of the concept art to a test group. To the developers' surprise, the test group was much more interested in a darker, more intimidating portrayal of Fred than the cartoonish, playful look they had chosen. The developers decided to flesh out the concept and took the chosen sketches back to Massive Black. This time the art came back darker, with similarities to Dirty Harry, The Matrix, and The Evil Dead, and a Norman Rockwell-inspired look that would influence the game's art style towards a more violent theme.

D3 provided the development team with more focus groups, and as a result, the game slowly incorporated more combat and less platforming and puzzles. Fred's combat capabilities were revamped to give him more attacks, counterattacks, and combinations. D3 also gave Vicious Cycle more time to develop the game, with the hope of receiving better reviews and potentially turning Dead Head Fred into a franchise. The delay pushed back the game's release from January to August 2007. D3Publisher bought Vicious Cycle two months before the game's release, but the company's headquarters remained in North Carolina and the staff was retained.

The music of Dead Head Fred was composed by Rod Abernethy and Jason Graves and recorded at Abernethy's studio, Rednote Audio. Abernethy and Graves had worked on previous games by Vicious Cycle, like Curious George. The composers were interested in developing a sound for Dead Head Fred that was retro-futuristic and borrowed from other death-themed pieces like Stubbs the Zombie and Beetlejuice. The development team did not have any substantial ideas for the game's music beyond the theme and mood of Hope Falls, giving the composers free rein on the soundtrack's direction.

A crucial area of development was the formation of the game's mood, theme, and story to give it a dark, yet humorous quality. Hiring a Hollywood screenwriter to create the script was proposed, but ultimately Vicious Cycle designer Dave Ellis was given the task of writing the game's cutscenes and voiceover script, while Cogan focused on the in-game dialog. Ellis referred to several noir films for inspiration, especially Miller's Crossing and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. During this time, Eric Peterson cast several voice actors, including John C. McGinley from the TV show Scrubs and Jon Polito from Miller's Crossing. McGinley was cast as Fred because of his character's sarcasm and wit, while Polito was cast in the role of mob boss Ulysses Pitt, which was very similar to his role of Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing.

The development team then set about recording the game's dialog, which proved to be challenging because of Vicious Cycle's location on the East Coast. All of the recordings were done over the phone at a studio in Hollywood. Despite this, and the fact that Fred alone had over 1000 lines of in-game dialog, the recording went smoothly, with the exception of one unidentified actor who walked out in the middle of a session. The original script had only one instance of the word "fuck," but several recording sessions with McGinley resulted in a great deal of colorful improvisation. The design team liked the recordings, and the script was modified to permit McGinley and other actors to curse more. McGinley focused on portraying Fred as "pissed off" and "having a chip on his shoulder" because his head was missing.

Dead Head Fred was first announced at the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) video game convention in May 2006, where a trailer was shown to the public. Following this, little was heard about the game until Cogan started a developer diary on Vicious Cycle's website in March 2007. Three diary entries were written by Cogan and Ellis, which provided details about the game's pre-production conceptualization and voice work. In May 2007, D3 announced that John C. McGinley would be voicing Fred, and the next month the company issued a press release stating that the game was finished and ready for mass production. However, the game was delayed, allowing D3 Publisher to show it at E3 2007. It was eventually released on August 28, 2007, in North America after nearly two years of development. It was released on October 26 in Europe, November 2 in Australia, and March 19, 2008, in Japan. In December 2007, D3 reduced the price of the game, and in October 2008 it was made available for download on Sony's PlayStation Network. The soundtrack was released on iTunes by Lakeshore Records on September 18, 2007.

Dead Head Fred received generally favorable reviews from critics. The game's writing and dialogue were considered the main strengths, with GameSpy's reviewer stating that "In the vast sea of PSP titles, Dead Head Fred stands 'head and shoulders' above the rest." IGN said, "The tale of revenge in a dark world is twisted [and] unapologetically humorous." Other publications were not as impressed, with one reviewer stating, "...the overused profanity just makes it feel like it's been designed by teenagers desperately trying to be edgy." The game's supernatural themes elicited comparisons to The Darkness and Grim Fandango. GamesRadar included it in their list of the 100 most overlooked games of its generation. Editor Jason Fanelli felt that PSP games often lacked creativity and that Dead Head Fred was the exception.

Many reviewers were pleased with the game's premise and setting, describing it as "weird," "wacky," and "silly." Hope Falls, especially the area of Creepy Hollow, was compared to the work of Tim Burton. Dead Head Fred's graphics were warmly received, with GameSpy noting, "The game looks simply phenomenal on the PSP screen." Pocket Gamer UK said, "Graphically the game won't blow your head off but it is undeniably stylish." Pocket Gamer also felt that the game's level design, with its emphasis on changing heads to solve environmental puzzles, made up for the "mediocre combat system." The character design was praised; GameSpy said, "Fred is one of the most interesting and entertaining characters to ever hit gaming," and GameZone said, "Fred’s freakish form is like looking at a car crash … you really don’t want to stare but you just can’t help it."

The voice acting, particularly John C. McGinley's portrayal of Fred, was widely praised, as was the rest of the game's audio. GameZone's Natalie Romano said, "There’s also some great music in the game and the sound effects are...wonderfully detailed." The focal point of reviewers' criticism was Dead Head Fred's gameplay, specifically the combat. It was generally considered tedious and repetitive. PALGN described the combat as "one of the poorest elements of the game," and Game Informer called the combat mechanics "awful." The performance of the camera was also criticized, with IGN noting, "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." GameZone said, "I just wish the camera wouldn’t be such a hindrance sometimes." Reviewers were also unhappy with Dead Head Fred's loading times; Eurogamer considered them "excessively high," and IGN said, "The only downside that crops up when it comes to the visuals are the continual loading times on just about every single area."

Dead Head Fred was nominated for several awards, including the Writers Guild of America's first award for video game writing, which it won. During E3 2007, the game was nominated for the Best of E3 2007: Best Handheld Game award by the Game Critics Awards, a group of prominent media journalists. Dead Head Fred lost to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS, but was notable for being the only new intellectual property nominated in the handheld category. The audio was nominated for two awards at the Game Audio Network Guild's 6th annual ceremony, Best Soundtrack of the Year and Best Handheld Audio. Dead Head Fred lost to BioShock and Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, respectively.