Deadly Premonition

Your game is crashing in the hospital because it's looking for a file in your game's /updata/movie folder that isn't there. It doesn't actually use the video files in there as far as I can tell, except to check to see if they're there. If one is missing, the game crashes. The subfolder /updata/movie/prm can be used as a sort of manifest to see which files are missing. Because the game doesn't actually play those video files, you can resolve the issue by creating a blank text file and saving it with the appropriate name (the first missing file is ScnD03.wmv, names are not case sensitive) and making sure to add the .wmv file extension. If you want, you can even replace the existing .wmv files in the /updata/movie folder (DO NOT REPLACE THE FILES IN /updata/movie/prm) with blank text files saved with the .wmv file extension and cut the game's filesize by over a third.
You're welcome.
P.S. If you find the game crashing for you at the same spot repeatedly, try taking a different route. I find that trying to take Adam's St toward the hospital in Chapter 6 does this.

This is the greatest game of all time. Bad controls? Nope, that's intentional. Cliche dialogue? Wrong again, all part of the genius that is the story. Doesn't work on PC without mods? Well yeah but again, all part of the mystique. So bad it's good? HA, try so good it can never be reproduced. There's no world where a Twin Peaks video game could ever be good, so thank god we have this masterpiece. I saw this entire review in my cup of coffee

This is a godawful game. If you like this, I love you.
I'm convinced there's a Bethesda bug that accidentally launches the .exe file of this game instead of Starfield, hence all of the boiling hate. Either that, or when you double click on "Dragon Age: The Veilguard," this abomination pops up.
This is by far the worst game I've ever played, but it moved me tremendously and actually made me cry.
Zach, we should probably tell them to literally restart their computer to successfully beat the hospital level in Chapter 3, eh?
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Notes to my past-self:
* You will momentarily quit playing the game because of computer crashes. Eventually, you'll figure out that you need to save A LOT. Every chance you can. If a cutscene freezes, just restart your computer and you'll be able to continue. There are a lot of save points, so you won't ever lose much progress.
* The beginning will be really off-putting. Some kinda funny, juvenile things. But you will really start to like the game once it opens up. You get a cop car and get to drive around Greenvale, and you'll really love doing that.
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I feel bad for anyone who wants to play this but can't due to hardware/software issues. Luckily, my computer was able to run it, albeit with several hard crashes/freezes.
The game can be very gruesome and perverted and clunky, and so there's no way I would ever recommend it. But I'm compelled to someday make my own "Let's Play" series on this so more people can experience this game. I would honestly use this as an example of "video games as art". Only 6.1% of all players on Steam have reached the ending, and I'm SHOCKED the number is that high. But I'm really glad I contributed to that statistic.

Good luck playing this version of the game.
If you can get this version working or you want that legal gray spot of "well I payed for the game so I can pirate it". You are in for a bat shit insane Alice steps thru the looking glass mystery horror. Tho dated for even when it was released, it has that spark that makes it worth it.
HOWEVER don't expect this game to work on Steam. The pirates at least have the courtesy of making sure the game runs. Unlike Steam. Ya, anyone that quotes Gabe about piracy being a service problem, you are a fool. Steam was never about service or beating the pirates. It was about convenience to the already paying players. This game proving that.

I like the Twin Peaks inspired story this game have, I also don't think the gameplay is that bad and honestly don't really care about the bad graphics. The real problem of this game is the horrible optimization, the game frequently crashes or freezes when entering or exiting cutscenes.
you can "avoid" that by installing DPFix, placing the folder on the games directory, then going to pack - DPFix.ini - then go to the window options section and change "forceWindowed 0" to "forceWindowed 1" OR "borderlessFullscreen 0" to "borderlessFullscreen 1" (Borderless Fullscreen 1 will overwrite ForceWindowed 1, so choose one of the two). Now if you chose force Windowed, make sure to launch the game, go to "settings" and uncheck "fullscreen". If you chose borderless Fullscreen than you don't need to do that. even though, you can't truly avoid all freezes and crashes but now you can play the game.
Honestly, talking about the game it self, I just love it, it's like if you mix Twin peaks with Shenmue, I just can't describe the game's story but I love not only the plot itself, but also the feeling of solving a criminal case.

An ambitious, unconventional and gripping game held back somewhat by a low budget and technical problems. This game will really fight you at times and you've got to push on. Twin Peaks X RE4 X Silent Hill X a lot of other things. If you want a truly unique experience I cannot recommend this enough.
Quick summary of what I used: DPFix patch (settings tweaked to taste), Deadly Premonition Controller+ Steam input layout (this one fixes the right stick. The game also has issues with triggers, so swaps trigger and button functionality). Set Win95 compatibility for the games .exe's and then restart your PC so you can up/down further (You can get by without it, but you NEED that aiming later on to beat that game). See PCGamingWiki page for details.
PRO TIPS
- Save save save save save save. Save often.
- Back up your saves often. As often as you want, for me that was every 2 hours or so, just in case.
- The game has a tendency to crash and be hard locked during a certain chapter (8 or 9 roughly? Smoke cigs inside the diner before leaving. See PCGW.) Keep all your saves just in case!. Your save is in the game's main folder with the .exe, in the file "savedata" called dp.
- YOU CAN LEAVE STORY MISSIONS WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE. They just take place the next day, so don't feel bad about leaving them for side stuff. No Dead Rising "SCOOP LOST!" here. However, you CAN miss side missions, say... if anything happens to who gives you them...
- Some story missions "flow together", so you can't do side stuff with certain people between them.
- Side missions, there's a great steam guide for them listing how to find, start and do them:
- DO MISSION 4 (Dumbbell), THEN 5 (get a flower when it's raining) ASAP! It unlocks fast travel to anywhere you've been before with the Radio. YOU REALLY WANT THIS.
- The Spirit Maps you can buy from The Milk Barn store (talk to the rocker bro!) lead you to brief combat gauntlets and reward you with infinite ammo upgraded weapons, get them.
- Do side missions 24, 23, then 25 (they are rather short, don't worry, a cinch with fast travel too) to get increased item slots.
- Play darts and beat the high score at SWERY65 to earn increased weapon slots.

Playing this game (PC port specifically) is a true labour of love. But it was worth it for me in the end for the utterly delightful, schlocky and charmingly quirky experience that Deadly Premonition is as a whole. I went in completely blind playing this and oh lord did I love it despite the many technical and mechanic related downfalls there are too playing it. And I know I really love it because with a mediocre game I would have rage quit and uninstalled it at many points in my play-through.
I'll start with the bad so you know what you're in for:
>You MUST go through the effort of installing fixes and mods or you simply can't even play this version (it literally won't work lol)
>You'll need to persist through many crashes and reboots and I mean MANY to play it. Sometimes you will just get plain pissed off and turn it off for the day lol.
>The quick time events are god-awful. Literally the worst I've ever experienced.
>The sound balance can get really annoying in terms of the music randomly being way louder than people speaking in some cut-scenes, then being balanced fine in other scenes.
>The combat and driving mechanics are pretty average, but honestly I didn't find them that bad- they're serviceable.
Things I loved:
-The pure unhinged, amusing hilarity that is the entire experience with York, Zach and the story overall. The characters and the writing are what make the game great. There is a real quirky charm here for people who are a fan of media like Twin Peaks (the influence is strong and noticeable) as well as campy, schlocky movies/tv. If you're not expecting to take it too seriously, you'll have fun. It's not meant to be a gritty, realistic detective story. It's meant to be fun and leans into being ridiculous.
-The music gives the entire vibe and atmosphere to the experience- I just love it. Especially the main theme when you boot up the game- I find it so calming and chill.
-The voice acting is really good, especially for York.
-I think the beginning of the game is stronger than the ending portion of the game, but I loved York's arc at the end.
-I loved the open world aspect of the game, getting to roam around and quite literally spy in people's windows.
My recommendations if you're going to give this game a go are:
-Install the mods and fixes available (if you do a quick google- there are people that have done guides to help with this).
-To get the full experience of the story, characters etc. you're going to want to use a guide for the side missions (the one I used was on the True achievements website). I would generally say I HATE a game that you need a guide to play to fully experience- but this is an exception as it was worth it for me to see everything the game had to offer. There are many side missions and interactions that are only available in earlier chapters and several of these give you key items that make your experience playing the game much easier and more enjoyable. (Note you can do chapter replays to do things you missed- but playing them in order is much more immersive and just easier imo).
There are a LOT of side missions, but I'd say overall they're worth doing as they're how you get to experience the true vibe of Greenvale and its people.
-If TLDR on doing all the side missions- PLEASE at least do the one for George early in the game to get the radio which will allow you to fast travel.
-Use the map not just for locating where you need to get too, but for tracking where the citizens are around town. The map will show where each NPC is at the time of day. E.g you can spy on Thomas when he goes home to his apartment for the day for an amusing scene. Or if an NPC is in a weird area you wouldn't expect- you can go spy on them and see what they're doing there. And if you're not sure if a place is going to be open/an NPC you're looking for is there yet- just check for them on the map (it will save you a lot of time).
-Make manual saves at least every couple chapters. There is only one save file in the game- so you will have to make copies of the actual save file in the game's system files. Your save can get corrupted so this just makes life easier.
-If the game crashes or something is just not working, just restart your computer. You will honestly be surprised how often a restart will just fix the issue randomly. If I knew this earlier in my play-through I would have had a much better time.
I hope more people can get through all the issues and experience the delightful charm of this game!