Let's Talk... Deadpool

Deadpool might be a popular Marvel anti-hero, but he’s never had his own place in the spotlight until now. So Deadpool fans should be happy to know that Deadpool makes his transition from comics to video games unscathed, with High Moon Studios faithfully capturing his in-your-face quirk quite nicely. Unfortunately, Deadpool's biggest strength is also one of its biggest weaknesses, whilst his wacky character has been well captured in this title, his persistently terrible jokes, tiresome self-awareness, and the inability to keep the fourth wall intact may well put a lot of players off.

The story follows Deadpool's through the making of his video game produced by High Moon Studios... No, no, not the game you're playing, the game that Deadpool is actually making... Yes, it is that "meta". The story is no more than a 5 hour spectacle of stupidity and excessive violence with the odd X-men character popping in to make a quick cameo before being humiliated by Deadpool and leaving. The story is packed full of stupid, over-the-top humour that’s practically all misogynistic and utterly cringe-worthy. It isn't all bad though and the game does provide some laughs, but those rare moments are completely overshadowed by the endless boob jokes. Deadpool’s story does feature a couple of pretty funny moments where you’re forced to temporarily play the game in 8-bit because you apparently “blew the budget” on the last high-octane action sequence, which also varies the gameplay from time to time.

The gameplay in Deadpool consists largely of some pretty basic hack ‘n’ slash combat where you rack up combos using a simplistic mixture of light and heavy attacks. There are only three melee weapons that you can use and all they do is give you the option between slow, medium, and fast attack speeds. Deadpool is a known proprietor of anything that can shoot bullets, so there is some ranged combat in Deadpool but its pretty basic and isn't the main focal point of combat. Through combat, and what little exploration there is to do in this linear game, you gain money to spend on upgrading Deadpool and purchasing new weapons and equipment. The variety of upgrades may feel pretty broad at first, but it soon becomes clear that the majority of your upgrades are the same upgrades just used on all your weapons. Upgrading Deadpool himself is possible and there are some cool upgrades available, such as every 10th hit gives you back health, but most are quite basic and pretty boring. Although combat is extremely simple, it can be quite fun to rack up combos, chaining melee and ranged attacks together to create devastating results. Ranged weapons lack any sort of real kick and aiming is a little fiddly, but melee weapons are pretty fun to use.

Some of the game's crude humour... yes, you are taking a piss in between two bad guys...

Deadpool’s story is little more than 5 hours and offers no real challenge, even on the highest difficulty. The only way that Deadpool is able to increase the difficulty is just by adding more enemies, since there are about three different types of enemies in this game and you’re hardly ever introduced to a new enemy type. Boss fights are tedious and far too easy, with one boss requiring you to press B when he charges at you and then beat the crap out of him. Once you've completed the pitifully short campaign there’s a challenge mode that pits you against the exact same three enemies found throughout the campaign in some of the campaigns stages. Challenge mode may add a few more hours of gameplay if you enjoyed the combat enough, but overall Deadpool is severely lacking in content for a $60 game and if you’re a huge Deadpool fan then I suggest you wait for the price to drop before seeing this masked menace in action.

Deadpool does run pretty well (I was running at a smooth 60 fps on high settings), but that’s because the game looks pretty horrible. Textures are muddy and environment design is boring and incredibly lacking. The game’s only locations are sewers, ruined buildings, and industrial areas, with so much brown and grey that you'll want to tear your hair out just to add something more interesting to the painfully boring colour pallet. The game generally sounds okay, the soundtrack is nothing special and voice acting is pretty average (like everything in this game…) Most weapons sound okay, but the hammer packs no real audible punch and the SMG sounds so bad that I couldn't even stand to use it. The default controls for mouse and keyboard were so horrible that I just couldn't use them and resorted to using a 360 controller. Also, I experienced a couple of crashes and a major graphical glitch that continued for the majority of the game, where my screen would become completely covered by all sorts of crazy nonsense whenever my health got to a low enough state rendering it utterly unplayable until my health come back.

Wolverine makes a quick cameo, but only so you can bitch slap him endlessly.

Overall, this a pretty poor debut solo appearance for Deadpool and his wacky personality has been captured quite well here. Unfortunately, its the game's boring level design, 5 hour length, relentless attempts to make the player laugh with rude and often sexist jokes, and combat that offers no real challenge that makes Deadpool fail to live up to his potential here, and I'd love to see what a Deadpool game can offer when done right. If you're a die hard fan of the kooky masked menace then I'd avoid this title, or at least give it a while.

Strengths:

       -Combat is quite fun and the game has a nice combo system
       -Deadpool's kooky character is captured excellently
       -Cameos made by variety of Marvel characters, who are all captured accurately

Weaknesses:

      -Combat is easy, and offers no real challenge

      -Tedious boss fights

      -Extremely crude and poorly timed humour that gets tiresome after an hour

      -Lacking enemy variety      

      -Ranged combat is fiddly and a poor alternative to melee

      -Level design is boring and repeated throughout the game

      -$50 full price for a 5 hour experience