Deadpool Review

Deadpool has always been one of my favorite comic book characters.  Ironically it was his incredibly inaccurate portrayal in X-Men Origins that introduced me to him.  I think of Deadpool as basically the most insane comic character ever.  In addition to being a sociopath, Deadpool is actually aware that he’s a comic book character and constantly breaks the fourth wall. To me it was a pretty interesting character compared to most other superheroes out there.  So I was  excited when I learned that a Deadpool game was in development and that the developer of the Transformers Cybertron games would be developing it.  I thought that this would be a recipe for the perfect Deadpool game.  The game did turn out to be good but it is far from being perfect.

You begin the game as Deadpool blackmails High Moon Studios into making a game based on him.  From there the player is placed on an insane roller coaster ride as you follow the Merc with a mouth through all his exploits.  Said exploits include tossing a man out of a skyscraper and riding him all the way down to a bounce house. There are other moments similar to this where you just have to chuckle to yourself and wonder exactly what the hell are you playing.  Aside from that though the story is pretty weak.  All that is ever revealed is that you have to stop Mr. Sinister from doing evil.  His plan is never gone into detail.  All you know is that Mr. Sinister is obviously evil and you have to stop him.  Several other characters do make appearances such as Cable and Wolverine but they appear so briefly that their inclusion is almost unnecessary.  Also the game just ends without much of a resolution. No real final boss fight just one last fight and that’s it. I know Deadpool is supposed to be a spotlight stealing glory hog but when you show several characters off in promotional materials and give them little to no dialogue you are doing said characters an injustice.

The gameplay is fast and frantic just like you’d expect from a Deadpool game. You go around levels slicing and dicing all the various enemies in your way with some gunplay mixed in. Along the way you earn Deadpool points which allow you to unlock and upgrade your weapons.  I was worried how High Moon Studios was going to mix both hack and slash plus third person shooting mechanics but they do it in a way that works.  My only complaints would be that the lock on targeting really doesn’t work and the camera can be really frustrating in a closed area.

The graphics are average for High Moon’s Standards but I feel that this may be intentional.  While the game isn’t cel shaded per se the game does look bright and colorful like a comic book. Still coming off of Fall of Cybertron the game did look underwhelm me.

While I did enjoy Deadpool this game isn’t for everyone.  Experienced players could probably finish the game in under a day. If you’re a Deadpool fan I’d say it would be a safe buy but otherwise you may want to try it out first.

6/10 (7/10 for Deadpool fans)