This review contains spoilers
For me, Deadpool is one of those games that isn't SUPER fun to play, but the other aspects of it really hold it together and make it worth at least checking it out. The game didn't take me too long to complete and I was enjoying most of my time with it. Unfortunately, I don't have an exact time, which seems to be a common trend among games I've been reviewing lately. Would love if more games told you how long you took to beat the game, but, alas, not all of them do that. I do know that I started my playthrough in March, but I took a long break from continuing the game since I was juggling so many other games at the time...so, now its November and I can finally say I beat the game.
Big sidenote: I'm not a big comic book guy, just recently got into reading them and my focus has not at all been on Marvel stuff. I jumped into this game without being very familiar with Deadpool as a character; I just knew he has a tendency to break reality and the fourth wall a lot. I found him to be quite entertaining in this game and pretty fun to actually play, but recall hearing some people complain that he acts out of character. That may be a valid complaint, it may not be. I can't give an opinion either for or against the stance considering just how little I know about the character. Can't help but wonder if the voices in his head that are a big part of him in this game are like that in the comics. My lack of experience with the character is the reason I'm not comparing what happens in this game to any comic books.
So, from what I've heard, people tend to dislike this game. Honestly, I'm not sure why. Sure, it's a pretty barebones mission-based hack-and-slash with light platforming elements (almost reminds me of the Ninja Gaiden reboot games but with much more simple and easy combat), but I never felt it was really trying to be anything more than that so it didn't bother me. I ultimately found the gameplay fun for what it is, it's not deep but it's fun to smack around goons with the three different weapons you get as well as blast them with all the different kinds of firepower you can grab. There's a shop system that uses Deadpool Points, or DP for short, as currency. You get DP either from finding it in the world, grabbing it from dead enemies, or as a reward for pulling off combos. You can buy new guns, explosives, and melee weapons from the shop, as well as various upgrades for those items. You can also upgrade Deadpool's personal attributes, like increasing his health, letting you get critical hits occasionally, making it to where you regenerate health after getting a combo, and more. Sometimes enemies drop powerful artillery that is very satisfying to blow other enemies to smithereens with. The guns themselves felt very fun to use for me, you can keep pressing or holding down the Right trigger to blitz your foes and there's an aim button for more precise shooting. There's a decently wide variety of guns, but the plasma guns and the shotguns are definitely the best (though I did still get plenty of use out of the pistols and SMGs). I feel like they're much stronger than the melee weapons, and I was even using the Hammers which seem to be the most powerful melee. The game also has a few small mechanics to use, like Momentum attacks, which are pretty much super moves to use when you're overwhelmed by enemies or you're fighting an enemy with a lot of health. Momentum is filled up by a bar as you fight enemies, but grabbing the taco boxes that drop from enemies also gives you some Momentum.
If there's one thing about the game I can understand being very polarizing, it's the humor. If you don't like meta humor, you will despise this game's jokes since there's a LOT of meta jokes here. Deadpool loves to both criticize and praise the developers, for instance, and he will constantly remind you of the fact that this is indeed a video game. There's certain parts of missions in the game that reference other games (usually retro games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, and Final Fantasy) or are meant to emulate game glitches. I found the comedy to be hit or miss; I'm not sure why, but a lot of it seems geared towards teenage perverted "memelords" that like dumb edgy humor, boobs, and retro games. Nonetheless, it was charming in it's own stupid way and I didn't hate any of the jokes (well I could do without the perverted fanservice but it didn't ruin things for me). They throw a ton of jokes at you, so the bad ones don't linger for too long. Despite its flaws, I find that the humor and the visual presentation are the main selling points of this game, they're both quite hyperactive and charming. It's primarily silly amusing things, like how Deadpool makes a joke in the beginning of the game about games giving you achievements for nothing only for you to get an achievement right after. There's a scene where you slap Wolverine to try waking him up and you can repeatedly press a button to slap him for several minutes for an achievement. It was cool how, when you meet a new plot important character, Deadpool sometimes takes you on a short montage through comic panels of that character to explain who they are. Of course, cutscenes also have some spice added to them by Deadpool's zany overexaggerated personality and the fact that he avoids exposition like the plague. Usually the game also tosses in little short quick-time-events just to add more to the game's flavor of dumb random comedy, like when Deadpool is so bored by one of Cable's explanations that a prompt shows up for you to "Press R2 to make it stop" (making Deadpool shoot himself). Sometimes you get achievements for doing the quick-time-events in a certain way, like how you get one from always choose the option to be patient while waiting in a line for a circus-like theme park ride (because that happens in this game). Something I found rather amusing about it is that, if you deliberately wait to press the button needed, you don't get punished but you do get commentary from Deadpool. Things like this are cool little features that really add a lot to a game's likeability, which I think makes up for how unremarkable the actual gameplay is. However, I will say that it will be very grating and actually make the game unlikeable if you hate how Deadpool is in this game.
The story...well, it certainly exists. It pretty much just serves as another vehicle for comedy for the most part, Deadpool is in a gritty world but his wacky antics basically bends the world around him to include weird stuff. As I mentioned earlier, Deadpool is aware of the fact that he is in a video game. In fact, the entire story starts because Deadpool gets a call from Peter Della Penna - an employee at High Noon Studios (the developer of this game) in this story - saying that they won't make a game based on him. Apparently Deadpool had a bomb planted there because he pulls out a remote bomb trigger and presses it, then immediately gets called back by Peter to have the game be made. From there, Deadpool goes on a quest to do stuff that I already forgot because it did not feel important at all. I actually like this approach to story honestly; the game doesn't pretend to have more story than it actually does, so instead it just has Deadpool chewing out the scenery and doing ridiculous things. He hates exposition, so whenever someone tries to tell him something about the story he will not be listening or doing some weird goofy thing instead. I have heard that people really don't like how anticlimactic the ending is, but honestly I was not expecting it to be anything all that crazy anyway and I found it to be very fitting. At the end of the game, Deadpool beats the tons of Mr. Sinister clones thrown his way, then the real Mr. Sinister comes out and effortlessly strikes down the X-Men. Deadpool's response is to talk to the player and gleefully reveal the surprise he's been planning all along. You, as the player, get the honor of seeing the secret through a quick-time-event: press triangle (on PS4) to make a Sentinel boot appear and crush Mr. Sinister. Roll credits.
Overall, I give the Deadpool game 3.5 stars. I think it was a fun experience with gameplay that is basic but fun and a sense of humor I found relatively appealing. I can't stress how much the presentation elevates this game above a 3 star for me.
Big sidenote: I'm not a big comic book guy, just recently got into reading them and my focus has not at all been on Marvel stuff. I jumped into this game without being very familiar with Deadpool as a character; I just knew he has a tendency to break reality and the fourth wall a lot. I found him to be quite entertaining in this game and pretty fun to actually play, but recall hearing some people complain that he acts out of character. That may be a valid complaint, it may not be. I can't give an opinion either for or against the stance considering just how little I know about the character. Can't help but wonder if the voices in his head that are a big part of him in this game are like that in the comics. My lack of experience with the character is the reason I'm not comparing what happens in this game to any comic books.
So, from what I've heard, people tend to dislike this game. Honestly, I'm not sure why. Sure, it's a pretty barebones mission-based hack-and-slash with light platforming elements (almost reminds me of the Ninja Gaiden reboot games but with much more simple and easy combat), but I never felt it was really trying to be anything more than that so it didn't bother me. I ultimately found the gameplay fun for what it is, it's not deep but it's fun to smack around goons with the three different weapons you get as well as blast them with all the different kinds of firepower you can grab. There's a shop system that uses Deadpool Points, or DP for short, as currency. You get DP either from finding it in the world, grabbing it from dead enemies, or as a reward for pulling off combos. You can buy new guns, explosives, and melee weapons from the shop, as well as various upgrades for those items. You can also upgrade Deadpool's personal attributes, like increasing his health, letting you get critical hits occasionally, making it to where you regenerate health after getting a combo, and more. Sometimes enemies drop powerful artillery that is very satisfying to blow other enemies to smithereens with. The guns themselves felt very fun to use for me, you can keep pressing or holding down the Right trigger to blitz your foes and there's an aim button for more precise shooting. There's a decently wide variety of guns, but the plasma guns and the shotguns are definitely the best (though I did still get plenty of use out of the pistols and SMGs). I feel like they're much stronger than the melee weapons, and I was even using the Hammers which seem to be the most powerful melee. The game also has a few small mechanics to use, like Momentum attacks, which are pretty much super moves to use when you're overwhelmed by enemies or you're fighting an enemy with a lot of health. Momentum is filled up by a bar as you fight enemies, but grabbing the taco boxes that drop from enemies also gives you some Momentum.
If there's one thing about the game I can understand being very polarizing, it's the humor. If you don't like meta humor, you will despise this game's jokes since there's a LOT of meta jokes here. Deadpool loves to both criticize and praise the developers, for instance, and he will constantly remind you of the fact that this is indeed a video game. There's certain parts of missions in the game that reference other games (usually retro games like Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros, and Final Fantasy) or are meant to emulate game glitches. I found the comedy to be hit or miss; I'm not sure why, but a lot of it seems geared towards teenage perverted "memelords" that like dumb edgy humor, boobs, and retro games. Nonetheless, it was charming in it's own stupid way and I didn't hate any of the jokes (well I could do without the perverted fanservice but it didn't ruin things for me). They throw a ton of jokes at you, so the bad ones don't linger for too long. Despite its flaws, I find that the humor and the visual presentation are the main selling points of this game, they're both quite hyperactive and charming. It's primarily silly amusing things, like how Deadpool makes a joke in the beginning of the game about games giving you achievements for nothing only for you to get an achievement right after. There's a scene where you slap Wolverine to try waking him up and you can repeatedly press a button to slap him for several minutes for an achievement. It was cool how, when you meet a new plot important character, Deadpool sometimes takes you on a short montage through comic panels of that character to explain who they are. Of course, cutscenes also have some spice added to them by Deadpool's zany overexaggerated personality and the fact that he avoids exposition like the plague. Usually the game also tosses in little short quick-time-events just to add more to the game's flavor of dumb random comedy, like when Deadpool is so bored by one of Cable's explanations that a prompt shows up for you to "Press R2 to make it stop" (making Deadpool shoot himself). Sometimes you get achievements for doing the quick-time-events in a certain way, like how you get one from always choose the option to be patient while waiting in a line for a circus-like theme park ride (because that happens in this game). Something I found rather amusing about it is that, if you deliberately wait to press the button needed, you don't get punished but you do get commentary from Deadpool. Things like this are cool little features that really add a lot to a game's likeability, which I think makes up for how unremarkable the actual gameplay is. However, I will say that it will be very grating and actually make the game unlikeable if you hate how Deadpool is in this game.
The story...well, it certainly exists. It pretty much just serves as another vehicle for comedy for the most part, Deadpool is in a gritty world but his wacky antics basically bends the world around him to include weird stuff. As I mentioned earlier, Deadpool is aware of the fact that he is in a video game. In fact, the entire story starts because Deadpool gets a call from Peter Della Penna - an employee at High Noon Studios (the developer of this game) in this story - saying that they won't make a game based on him. Apparently Deadpool had a bomb planted there because he pulls out a remote bomb trigger and presses it, then immediately gets called back by Peter to have the game be made. From there, Deadpool goes on a quest to do stuff that I already forgot because it did not feel important at all. I actually like this approach to story honestly; the game doesn't pretend to have more story than it actually does, so instead it just has Deadpool chewing out the scenery and doing ridiculous things. He hates exposition, so whenever someone tries to tell him something about the story he will not be listening or doing some weird goofy thing instead. I have heard that people really don't like how anticlimactic the ending is, but honestly I was not expecting it to be anything all that crazy anyway and I found it to be very fitting. At the end of the game, Deadpool beats the tons of Mr. Sinister clones thrown his way, then the real Mr. Sinister comes out and effortlessly strikes down the X-Men. Deadpool's response is to talk to the player and gleefully reveal the surprise he's been planning all along. You, as the player, get the honor of seeing the secret through a quick-time-event: press triangle (on PS4) to make a Sentinel boot appear and crush Mr. Sinister. Roll credits.
Overall, I give the Deadpool game 3.5 stars. I think it was a fun experience with gameplay that is basic but fun and a sense of humor I found relatively appealing. I can't stress how much the presentation elevates this game above a 3 star for me.