Dead Head Fred is an action adventure open world-ish video game with horror aesthetics developed by Vicious Cycle Software, whose work I didn’t really know of but consisted of works like Robotech: Battlecry (a game I sorta played as a kid that I thought was mediocre) and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (another mediocre third person action game that’s a satire on the likes of Duke Nukem). Funny enough, other than the fact that independently I have some friends coming over to play Matt Hazard soon (which I didn’t know they were developed by the same company), it seems that Matt Hazard and Dead Head Fred were really their only independent “franchise starters” (as far as I know), as well as most of the games that the company had developed seemed to be mixed reception tie-in titles made to get a quick buck feels strange. The title apparently got started as a Rayman-styled platformer with some little block motherfucker named Geo, whose ability to switch the shape of his head to solve puzzles and fight enemies would later form the basis for the concept for Dead Head Fred, which publishers felt was “more edgy” and wanted this more than the other game. With this in mind, the devs went back to the drawing board and decided on a noir theme based on movies like Miller’s Crossing, Evil Dead, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and other movies with either a fantastical horror theme or a noir setting. Apparently they were thinking of developing this for the Gamecube before moving this to the PSP, but when I tried looking up the source of that it was a Wayback screenshot and I couldn’t find anything about that. Developers later stated in a sort of post mortem that they were hoping for a potential Playstation 2 and Xbox Live Arcade port later down the line if that was ever in the cards but it’s safe to say that it definitely WAS NOT. However, the game was released as a Playstation Portable exclusive (and later playable on PS Vita via PS3 store purchase transfers) and having heard of this game multiple times but never seeing anything about it as a kid and being one of many games I raced to buy when they threatened to close the PS3 store, I bought it on a whim with many others and haven’t touched it in years. So how is this game? What is it like?

Well I can at least start with the sad fact that the gameplay is a mixed bag for me. I appreciate the game’s open(ish) world with off paths you can go through that aren’t even related to the main story path. The game’s gimmick of switching heads (choosing between nine different ones) for different circumstances and puzzles (such as using the zombie head to suck up gas, air and other things to float or put into other objects, the Golem head for pushing heavy objects around or the scarecrow head to catch on fire without hurting yourself) are a pretty solid idea and enjoyable enough for the most part (except a part I’ll get into later). Out in the open world you’ll be able to loot certain containers, chat to characters to pick up side quests, some back to certain areas with new heads to open up side content with extra loot and play unexpected minigames such as fishing, cockfights (including having your very own chickens hanging out in your Freak Farm house barn as a sort of raise/reward system for these fights) and playing pool, and using some of the rewards in these quests to either sell and make cash, or for other uses down the line such as turning in certain objects for certain quest holders (in fact, recommendation: after meeting Jeanne Rossini at the Bongo Club and once you get the giant stone head from raiding the Montezuma casino, leave it and go to Old Hope Falls near the pawn shop and pick up a bunch of pearls by the lake. Bring this back to the homeless guy by the gas station, who’ll make a pearl necklace and then bring that back to Jeanne for 700 dollars, trust me as you’ll need to buy the radioactive suit for the nuclear power plant later in the story that's 1,750 dollars). As stated, you’ll gather money for doing these quests (which range from “collect this amount of stuff” to puzzling quests like “find this woman’s wedding ring, which says it’s near a cafe of sorts but is actually in a back alley down the street up on a ledge but the game doesn’t tell you that” sort of stuff) to buy items such as clothing (the Italian Suit, the High Roller and the aforementioned radiation suit) as well as health pickups.

So here’s the part that I want to address about the gameplay that I don’t like that much and actually dragged the game down for me a good bit: combat. In the beginning it’s kind of okay because you have three heads that you can use, and it’s recommended to switch between heads to counter certain enemies and make your life a whole lot easier. However, you end up losing two and you’re stuck with the Jar, which is cool except for the fact that afterwards the first boss is coming up: Juju Judy. I was stuck on this boss not only because I didn’t know what to do (both because I’m dumb and also the fact that I thought the objective was optional) but also because they spawn a bunch of zombies that can’t be countered with the jarhead, and Judy shoots out fireballs that’ll knock off your health. Mix that in with being ganged up on by the aforementioned zombies as well as the fact your health could get knocked down really quick meant that I had to juke it by hanging out where she couldn’t hit me at a nearby gate, hit the zombie a bit then back off when they break out the unblockable orange counter attack. Maybe others didn’t have an issue with this but I did, and while this sort of concept got easier over time as the game went (starting from the city) and you unlock new heads, it doesn’t help that the game’s combat feels sluggish (even with the variation of attacks and enemies), like smacking a boxing bag that kind of hits you back in the face after slugging it once or twice. Speaking of slugging, the game’s combat overall feels like this and made me never want to touch this game again. I think what makes this part even worse is that the publishers kind of pushed for there to be more combat, which I understand cause PI’s can get into fights sometimes but in this case it either should’ve just had more time to flesh out a better combat system or just hadn’t had one at all. However, what does make this a bit better are the head upgrades, which I would definitely recommend the healing one with the Jarhead as it fills up your health over time faster, and it was very useful when I needed it. However, the heads can be upgraded by acquiring gold worms through various means (I didn’t explore this avenue but I mostly got them from boss fights). However, even getting these worms can sometimes suck, I at least know you can pick up different colored worms around certain parts in the open world and I always sucked at the worm collecting game, which involves filling the bar but not holding down the Square button too hard, which I don’t care for cause I don’t end up filling the bar or I end up ripping the worm in half so I lose regardless. I feel like I’m missing out on something, whether it’s another talking point or ingredient that would make the combat feel better; maybe I suck? I don’t know but the gameplay didn’t reallty do it for me despite all of the uniqueness surrounding the game.

The plot revolves around a singular mystery: What exactly happened to Fred’s head? That’s the thought when you wake up after a freak science experiment from the mad Dr. Steiner, a scientist who works for local mafia boss Ulysses Pitt. Turns out you’re a guy named Fred who was murdered and had his head chopped off, only to be resurrected back to life (in a green jar with only the brain and some eyes) for the sole purpose of taking down the titular mob boss himself. After Fred gets reacquainted with life and missing memories as a result of his death, Steiner is kidnapped by Pitt and his goon Lefty (who is questioning the doctor about what happened to the dead body of Fred himself), whose left leg was literally replaced with a Thompson machine gun. Making his way through the castle and dealing with some of Pitt’s undead goons, Steiner gives you a hint while you’re looking through a wall that he’s being taken to the nearby Creepy Hollow forest, and held by the Headless Horseman himself. After escaping Steiner’s castle, you meet two distinct characters: Sam Spade, a hunchback gravedigger who has a fascination for heads and will be your defacto “Head” upgrade guy and JuJu Judy, another henchperson of Pitt who engages in both necromancy AND has the hots for Fred. After a frustrating boss battle, Judy disappears and Fred travels to Creepy Hollow, where he rescues Steiner from the Headless Horseman himself. In between these two events of course, Fred acquires a couple different heads for use later in the story.

Fred heads back into the town of Hope Falls, New Jersey to inquire about what the hell happened to himself in the past and meets his old girlfriend, Jeanne Rossini; after trying to convince her that the mannequin head talking to her IS Fred, she doesn’t believe you and tells you that if you want to convince her that you’d have to tell her something only her old flame Fred would know. However, through her you do learn of Fred’s old partner, Benny, who resides in Zombie Town, having become a routine alcoholic since you died (in between taking down another one of Pitt’s lieutenants and learning of the mannequin head, used to talk to humans without freaking them out with the talking jar). Trekking through Zombie Town, Fred eventually finds the bar that Benny resides in, before being captured by Judy again for the second and final round. Unfortunately all the rounds were on her because Fred collapses a fuckin house on that bitch, and she dies whispering to Fred about a tape before dying (but not before hitting on him some more). Fred goes back into the bar and talks to Benny, who promises to meet him at the old agency in Old Hope Falls once he sobers up, and at that meeting he learns that not only did Benny betray you after Pitt paid off his gambling debts (which he regrets as he thought Pitt would only talk to Fred to try to pay him off), but over the course of the last act or so that your murder revolves around the death of Vinni Rossini, Jeanne’s father and that you were hired to help solve the old man’s murder. After finding Jeanne again and playing a mean sax solo (or as she would put it, playing the “Gobble Pipe”, heh you can’t make this shit up), you two reunite and make amends, and also learn after investigating Rossini’s death (via messing with his head and reliving the corpse’s memories) that Fred had filmed the old man’s death on video tape. He also learns that he bought the property that Rossini died on, so that Pitt wouldn’t be able to scrub up any evidence.

Fred travels to the Freak Farms and after engaging in a parody of the Hatfields and McCoys, Fred finds the old property to find the video tape, only to learn that the hidden video tape isn’t there. However, Fred does find an old casino chip for the nearby Montezuma Casino, and hoping that the tape is there he races off to cash in his chips. After fighting through all the goons and recovering the tape, Fred learns that Pitt has kidnapped Jeanne and wants to use that as leverage to take the tape back. Fred however decides, “Fuck all that shit, all of your money is going to burn first” and royally fucks over the mob boss’s finances, before deciding to take down his big business: the Pitt Nukular Plant. Traveling through the radiation infested swamps, Fred ends up at the power plant and infiltrates it from the inside, destroying the plant in its entirety as well as defeating Lefty in combat, turning him into a radiated kaiju creature. With only one place left to go, Fred heads over to Pitt’s HQ to take Jeanne back and take Pitt down once and for all. Facing Kaiju Lefty again, the monster is defeated with a bunch of trickery involving conveniently placed green slime outside of the monolith of a tower as well as doing the Stevie Wonder method and blinding the fuck with a searchlight. Fighting his way up the tower (encountering both an amusing museum to Pitt himself as well as a frustrating gauntlet of fighting all of the enemy types in single lobby), Fred encounters Pitt, who seemingly sends him down to his death via elevator, before it’s learned that the Jarheaded bastard is actually alive and is hanging out on the outside of the building. Climbing back up, Fred almost frees Jeanne before she accidentally alerts Pitt to his presence, and they almost make a deal for Fred’s severed head back, which Pitt has been keeping as a namesake as Fred wants Steiner to reattach that too. However, this is all ruined by even bigger Kaiju Lefty, though the battle on the roof ends after the both of them fall off. Sad without his head but glad Jeanne is safe, they both walk out to find Pitt still alive, at least temporarily before Pitt’s rude demeanor pisses off the Kaiju and he gets eaten alive. The story ends with the head being missed, having been kicked into a sewer by some guy, and Fred recounting his life after the plot, including his getting a part on a medical drama including quirky doctor stuff (as a reference to John McGinley’s acting on Scrubs).

So what are my thoughts on the plot? It’s simple, and it’s goofy but in all honesty it’s a lot of fun, and it mixes both supernatural stuff and mobsters so for me? I’m all in, and I generally enjoyed my time with the game. If I could point out the biggest plot hole, it would be why the hell didn’t Pitt just kill Jeanne after Fred plainly announced his intentions over the phone to burn all of his money and take over his business? I guess cause it would give Fred no choice but to kill Pitt in revenge but the lack of reality (I know, in a fantastical like game lol) did kind of poke a hole for me in the final act of the game. Other than that? Again I have no complaints, for the most part everyone did a decent job, though I’m surprised they only used Judy twice and didn’t bring her back for a third and final time. Regardless though, the writing is witty and humorous, sometimes a bit cheesy but with a sort of self-aware flair that one can tell is basically a parody. Other than that, again it’s simple and enjoyable and I don’t really have much in the way of complaints for this end other than that they were going to try to make this game a franchise at one point. However, other than the lack of Fred’s real head, the game seems to wrap up fine on it’s own merits as a self contained story so even without that bridge into the future it’s pretty good.

The sound design is great and the voice acting is solid. Everyone brings a solid performance to the title; John McGinley does a fantastic job as pissed off and headless private investigator Fred Neuman with all the sarcastic quips. I didn’t think “oh it’s that one guy from Scrubs”, I thought of him as “Oh shit, that IS Fred” and to me when an actor embodies a character so well to the point that you don’t think about it? It’s amazing, even if he doesn’t do any special accents or anything. Jon Polito as mafia boss Ulysses Pitt is great too, with a similar sort of “Miller’s Crossing” performance that just screams “weasley but angry” and he pulls it off fantastically. Other actors take on multiple roles at once and pretty much do a great job for the most part, like Jack Roth as both Doctor Steiner and Vinni Rossini (though this voice sounds like a bad impression of an older mob boss, though it adds to the charm) or Barbara Goodson, who does both Juju Judy as well as other smaller characters. Everyone does a good job on this end and I can’t complain about anything because I didn’t notice a bad performance in the slightest on this end. The soundtrack is also pretty great, Jason Graves and Rod Abernathy did a great job bringing a sort of grungy sounding yet smooth private detective feeling sound in their work, as well as bringing out the theme in each individual place that Fred is at. If I were to list off favorites, I would say the main theme, Steiner’s Castle, Hope Falls and the Freak Farms solid. The rest do a good job blending into the background of whatever area you’re in and I can’t speak enough positives about the sounds. I guess if I were to give any critiques to the sound stuff, sometimes in relation to the combat it doesn’t sound very punchy or satisfying knocking out some enemies but then again even in that way it feels fine.

The art and world design is also just as good as the sound, everyone looks unique in their design. Fred and his multitude of Dead Heads all fit the fun style they're looking for, and the jar with only a brain and eyes attached make for a memorable and surprisingly emotive look. Sam Spade as this sort of graveyard caretaker with a hunch, Benny with his giant cranium head, Pitt with his herpes looking face, Lefty wit the entire left side of his body looking like he just spent the entirety of his younger years inside of a McDonalds and had a stroke because of it, it’s oozing with style and whoever designed the world in this game did a great job. The horror aesthetic style they also have, with numerous designs based on haunted castles, to Evil Dead inspired creepy forests, to radioactive zombie towns and redneck farms make every place feel different, basically it’s great at looking like a shithole (and Hope Falls is in New Jersey so it makes sense LOL). The graphics aren’t bad at all for the PSP/Vita, though I always hated going into the Tiki Worlds because it would look like someone smashed multicolored vaseline across your visor and expect you to navigate whatever the hell that is. I’ll also go out of my way and say it’s very impressive being able to fit a sort of semi-open world like they do (with loading screens of course) onto the PSP like they did; while I’m sure it’s been done before and would be done later (with the personal classic GTA: Chinatown Wars), it’s still cool although a bit confusing to navigate wherever the hell you’re going sometimes. Overall, I love the 40s retro aesthetic, and in all honestly it reminds me of another cult classic and a personal favorite of mine: Stubbs the Zombie, with its horror based themes as well as that game’s olden vibe mixed in with grandparent slang and in-jokes based on the decades.

To finish off my thoughts on Dead Head Fred: while I appreciate the game’s aesthetics, it’s atmosphere, it’s wit and humor as well as the unique presence, I felt like ultimately the combat is what dragged down the game for me. Whilst I’m always willing to cut developers some slack due to what goes into actually making a game, there were multiple times in this game where I was honestly frustrated and just wanted the game to end due to how often they relied on this combat as a crutch. It was a lot worse in the beginning, it got better over time but to me, the gameplay is the most important part of any game. If it’s good (doesn’t matter if it’s something intense like Sifu or a walking game like What Remains of Edith Finch as examples), then it makes the process of wanting to continue to play it way more enjoyable. I wanted to enjoy this game, but I didn’t as much and that makes me sad because I love literally everything else about this. I’m not sure I would ever play the base game ever again personally on PSP or the Vita, however I would probably play it on PS4/5 again for the trophies if it ever popped up on the store (with titles like Killzone: Liberation or Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror). I would love to see the world continue however, whether it’s with a remake (with improved combat please, don’t be like the MediEvil remake which feels like a slog), or a movie adaptation or what. It had a lot of promise, and though I didn’t care for a lot of what the game had to offer, it’s unique in it’s own way and I can’t help but give credit and admiration where it’s due.



Links:
https://www.mtv.com/news/gaqw2k/interview-actor-john-c-mcginley-of-dead-head-fred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Head_Fred

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadHeadFred

https://web.archive.org/web/20110716220627/http://www.viciouscycleinc.com/developer_diaries/diary.cfm?ID=13

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/disciplines/postmortem-vicious-cycle-software-s-dead-head-fred

https://music.apple.com/us/album/dead-head-fred-original-soundtrack/263025773

https://english-voice-over.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Head_Fred_(2007)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csNPgtrQalU&ab_channel=NoirStation

https://www.ign.com/wikis/dead-head-fred/Castle_Steiner