Deadpool

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Beat-'em-up; Sub-genre: Third Person Shooter

ESRB: M (excessive uncensored profanity and sexual language, excessive blood)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 16/8

Developer: High Moon Studios

Wiki page

Wade breaks the fourth wall by imitating how the player feels playing this game.

For the first time I feel the need to explain my conclusion right at the beginning. I can get into details below, but let's get this straight now: this is a one star game. The second star I had to give because the writing captures so much of what this comic book character is about. Even if you don't give a crap about the Marvel character, this is one of the strangest and most insane games I've played. Not in the sense of acid trip games that try to bend your mind (many Indie and Japanese games try to accomplish this), though. It tries so hard to illustrate how broken and self-absorbed Deadpool's (Wade Wilson) crazy mind sees things that it's never really clear what is going on. Yeah, it's played off as a joke that Deadpool doesn't care about the plot... constantly. But it becomes a curiosity trying to figure out what's on screen versus what is actually supposed to be happening in the world around him. This is particularly noticeable when completely and unnecessarily impossible things happen- like when Deadpool's dog, Shuggems, inexplicably makes his way to Genosha from the other side of the globe- and when other heroes do things out of character. Also, at some point Wade is talking to Death herself and Cable asks him, "Who are you talking to?" There are any number of things to pull the player in, especially with such a good performance on the part of the actor playing the titular character, and many of you who aren't humorless robots like myself will enjoy how funny this game supposedly is (I did still get a couple laughs out of it).

Humor in video games: hit the player in the face with it.

Unfortunately this is a video game. And it's not going for high art like Journey. So that means people gotta enjoy pushing buttons. High Moon went out of their way to throw a lot of STUFF for the player to use in combat. I can see how they wanted Deadpool to fight like Batman (not the character, the game) by putting a lot of focus on gadgets and counters. But it has none of the polish or brilliant decision-making of the Arkham games. Swapping weapons and "throwables" is awkward and not explained through the UI (user interface), often causing me to take a lap around the cycle before finding the thing I want. Then there's the unnecessary combos. Oh, joy. So many combos I'll never use. Always helpful. Good use of your animation department, having them do that instead of focusing on making everything cleanly flow and randomly change. Nevermind the nitty gritty, the counter system falls short in big, obvious ways. Since dodging and countering are the same button, there will be tons of times that Deadpool will stop to counter someone when you are trying to get the hell out of danger. And I can tell they tried to code it so that other enemies will not attack during a successful counter, thus making an attempt at the instantly choreographic feel that the timing of the Arkham games have. But High Moon didn't figure out all the prioritizing and invincibility frames that Rocksteady did. Topping it off are the Momentum bar moves (like "Musou" or super moves). The button combinations to use them are horribly difficult to spit out in a clutch situation (LB+A or LB+B etc.) and the start up and ending frames combined with the lack of directional movement cause endless, frustrating misses. To sum it up, the beat-'em-up portion of the game is nothing special. It tries, but not hard enough.

What really steps on the toes of the combat is the level design. I'm convinced that the levels in this game are somehow stock levels. You know, like stock photos or clip art? I say this because Deadpool stumbles on everything and has no room to breathe! Not only that, but they are all such boring set pieces: a sewer, ruins, an office building, a prison, and floating rocks. That doesn't go hand-in-hand with fantastical powers and insane, reality warping, goofy nonsense.

You know what else mucks up the combat? The third person shooter aspects. The problem with combining these genres is that it means one of two things: guns will be way more useful and the player will strive to use them as much as possible (like Space Marine) or the guns will simply be a means of extending your combo (like Bayonetta). The former turns the beat-'em-up parts into a waste of time, and the latter makes guns into nothing more than a fancy light show. Deadpool... somehow causes both grievances. At least on the harder difficulties, since things have so many more hit points. All guns save for the laser guns are ineffective in one way or more. And only the laser guns can hit things at long range reliably. Keep in mind that there are no consumables or super moves to fight things at these harsh distances either. And for some strange reason Deadpool seems to have a lead allergy. Yeah, a guy who reportedly "can't die" is easily killed by a simple pistol. Moreover, for a guy who actually has a significant level of regenerative healing power, it takes him a hell of a long time to get his health back. Is that supposed to be another joke? That his regeneration is WORSE than every other game that overuses that feature? Topping all this off is the enemy AI. My word they are spazzy! They dart, lunge, spin around, and just do whatever they want all while hipfiring with 100% accuracy. Deadpool has an aim assist feature to deal with this. The best way to describe how that works is to simply say that it doesn't.

Another thing that I feel is some kinda running joke are the checkpoints. They are improperly placed as they force you to rewatch cutscenes because you died on an obviously difficult part of the game. And despite having the ability to put as many checkpoints as they want during a simple section of walking, they never give the player that leniency during a trying section of platforming or an overlong, multi-wave battle with a horde of enemies. Furthermore, items on the ground respawn from previous checkpoints. Yeah! So any time you are able to backtrack to an earlier checkpoint (one level has several checkpoints all within the same little area) you can take a lap around and pick it all up again.

I still remember Deadpool just being a loudmouth. I miss him not being so overplayed.
I don't miss Rob Liefield's artwork, though.

Conclusion:

For what it's worth, it's a game that tries hard to please both comics fans (specifically of Deadpool's comics) and gamers alike. As far as I know, it just got hit with the "licensed game" bug and couldn't fight it all the way. Hell. Deadpool complains about the budget constantly during the game. Probably had budget issues, yo.