Tread lightly, dear Halo and Modern Warfare fans: this game is not for you. In fact, it’s absolutely not for any 360 gamers seeking a polished actioner that…well, makes a lick of sense.

No, this game is for the “others” — those who relish the chance to experience a truly mad, surreal, open-world survival-horror game that borrows liberally from genre classics like Silent Hill and Clock Tower while adding in zany ’80s pop-culture references. Where else can you shoot up imaginary zombies and go on a grisly side-quest hunt for human bones while discussing the finer points of Olivia Newton-John’s acting career? Only in this shlocky and deliciously absurd B-movie world.

With Deadly’s fussy camera system, truly terrible vehicle controls, and graphics that would’ve been suspect even in a first-gen PS2 game, you’ll have to equip your +1 Shield of Irony to appreciate its finer points. But this $20 game earns its keep with inventive action twists (white-knuckle quicktime events pepper the dungeon-crawl segments) and a sizeable town that not only runs on a “real-time” clock, but is also full of quirky citizens and fishing spots (!). Best of all? A deliberately weird and memorable main character who’s just as deranged as the killer he’s chasing. Its production values are unquestionably budget, but the game’s ambitious level of corny self-awareness makes it a stupidly affordable, must-have cult title for the adventurous set.

On Xbox 360

+ Holy crap! It's $20 for 25-plus hours of gameplay?!

+ Charming weirdness with a few scares thrown in.

- Production values lacking; pacing drags in spots.

? Think the writer of this game is a Twin Peaks fan? Gee, ya think?

7.5