Amid some aggravating glitches, sometimes-repetitive mechanics and an unwelcome late-game difficulty spike, the game isn't really superhero material. But High Moon surprised me with competent action and better-than average storytelling, and even Deadpool himself grew on me, despite his dumber-than-dirt antics.
The early-game blow-up doll left me with low expectations for Deadpool.
Wrap Up: Deadpool does right by its bizarre hero This made the character more palatable for me. When he hits on women, they groan and rebuff him (or turn out to be imaginary). A bit more disturbingly, one of the very first shots in the intro has Deadpool literally shooting a framed portrait of a woman while he listens to a voicemail rejecting him.īut the game interestingly seems to know how tiring this objectification is, and High Moon paints the lead character as something of a doofus. He loves talking about them, touching them and staring at them when a woman is talking to him. There are a whole lot of virtual breasts in Deadpool, and Deadpool loves them. Never is this more apparent than in Deadpool's "appreciation" of the female form. But there are inherent problems with a character whose immaturity is a selling point. The creative team has nailed the character - his juvenile antics, inner demons and dire tragic-comic outlook on life (and death). The plot moves fast and works well as goofy, self-aware satire. The ADHD level design is supported by some better-than-average writing and voice acting. In the campaign, this isn't much of a problem, since you never have time to get bored. In the "challenge" mode - basically, wave-based survival stages set in various environments from the story - there's nothing to do but juggle enemy types and loot ammo. But new toys can't fix a fundamentally shallow system.
An upgrade system alleviates some of the boredom, allowing you to trade in "Deadpool Points" for weapons and abilities. There are plenty of different enemy types that require slightly different tactics, but for the most part, you are slashing or shooting.
Are dudes shooting you from the other side of the room? Flush them out with a grenade and shoot the rest.Įven when rushed by mobs of bad guys, I always felt empowered, but the mechanics can be repetitive. Cornered by a bunch of melee-happy goons? Smash them up and let a few bullets fly at close range. These aren't discrete states - Deadpool is a master of blades and firearms, and you can choose to go guns blazing (or katana-chopping) into any situation. You spend much of your time in High Moon's expansive levels cracking skulls in both combo-based melee combat and twitchy gunplay. From here, the plot serves as one giant excuse to eviscerate video game conventions.ĭeadpool is a competent third-person arcade-style action game. After assuming brief control of Deadpool himself, at which time you can enjoy such activities as defecating, inflating a blow-up doll and surfing the "interwebs," you soon get a special delivery at your door - the game script. That'll be the fourth wall crashing down around your ears, where it remains for the entirety of the adventure. Things start in Deadpool's apartment, as the masked man receives a phone call from video game mega-publisher Activision about making his game idea a reality. Deadpool never sits still for a moment, and that's a very good thing. Combined with the crass super-human's on-screen predilection to hear voices that aren't there which correspond to the id-ego-super-ego paradigm, the developer has captured the puerile spirit of the character.īut High Moon has also built a responsive action game around the idiot anti-hero, with a mix of melee and gunplay and a hodgepodge of other one-off sequences thrown in for good measure. High Moon Studios' first title set in the Marvel comic book universe is littered with poop jokes, bouncing breasts and famous X-Men appearances.