Dead Head Fred review

So my next review is Dead Head Fred and no it’s not a game about two bald brothers in a pop group or Rik Mayall being an imaginary friend wiping poo on your sofa, it’s about a private detective who’s brought back from the dead without his head. Instead, he has a brain with eyeballs in a jar balanced on his shoulders. Nice.

This one’s a third person action puzzler with cool film-noir style graphics, a tight script and some of the best voice acting I’ve heard. In a way it also works well on the PSP as it’s made especially for that format alone and not just ported across lazily to sell a few more copies.

So the game starts with you looking through your jar head as a scientist revives you, who then explains you’ve been murdered by the mob. You then have to get your memory back and get revenge on the people that did this to you by running round the town, graveyards and swamps, talking to a heap of colourful characters and fighting zombies. The good news is you can steal their heads and use them to give you new abilities. A bit like Worzel Gummage but with swearing and blood. Actually, this game’s a lot LESS scary, I was terrified when John Pertwee put on his creepy thinking head.

Combat’s a little bit messy with a limited combo system and a glitchy camera at times, but this is more than made up for with the adventure parts of the game and the very funny characters you’ll meet along the way. It’s also fun swapping heads with different abilities like a mannequin’s head which will stop freaking out because they’re talking to a zombie with a jar head, a zombie head which can absorb air to make you float and a stone head which lets you walk on the sea bed amongst others.

There’s also some mini games like catching worms for bait and fishing so you can make some lovely health drinks. Not sure why, you’re the wise-cracking walking dead!

With so many average PSP games out there at the moment, this one really is a breath of fresh air. It’s funny, fun to play and has a compelling storyline and genuinely likeable characters which will make you play this to the end. It gets a very good 7 out of 10.