Deadpool

The easiest reviews to write are for the games that are very bad (where you can vent all your frustrations and push people away from a product) or extremely good (were you can gush all your praises and draw people into making a purchase). So therefore I announce that this game is very hard to review because it sits dead middle on the spectrum of good to bad.

Inherently there is nothing terrible about Deadpool. You take control of the title character a.k.a Wade Wilson as he... well, breaks the fourth-wall, tells you constantly that he's not following the script and thus means the game has very little of a coherent story throughout. You basically get told that Mr. Sinister is the main villain and you have to get him.

Along the way you meet various characters from Deadpool's past (in comics). Basically the story revolves around Deadpool and his quirky character traits. If you love Duke Nukem style comedy and lots of fourth-wall breaking you will be in for a treat. If not then your better off else where.

In some ways I feel this is the best place to cut off the review even though I haven't explained anything about the game's design. There is a reason for this as Deadpool is very competent at what it does but is nothing special. It uses a tried and tested beat 'em up/hack n' slash combo system (see every Activision-made Spider-Man game) and adds in a dash of the Batman: Arkham games for the counter system.

If you want a game to compare it to in terms of similar gameplay, it's pretty much identical to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the gory 360/PS3 version). Especially since the leads in both games share a healing factor mechanic and dispatch enemies in violent manners.

There are a few issues with gameplay. Occasionally Deadpool can get stuck during an item interaction or an encounter might not trigger, but the game has yet to crash on me. Plus checkpoints are quite frequent and quick to boot from the pause menu, so when this does happen you never lose much ground.

Some fights against tougher enemies can also drag on a bit with the big enemies not being hard to beat, just able to take large amounts of damage.

Deadpool is also only eight levels long (and not all of them are proper levels at that) but the game is remarkably cheaper than other new games on the market to make up for that short coming. After the campaign is finished there are some challenge maps for you to try out, if that is your thin, otherwise its curtains for Deadpool pretty soon after starting.

There is nothing wrong graphically with the game. Character models are well designed and are close to their comic counterparts. Although I do wish that High Moon Studios where a little more creative with their level design, after all, they had a non-nonsensical game that could have gone anywhere in the Marvel Universe. The the first four levels see you take part in an office level, sewer level, ruined island and prison level. It's almost as if Deadpool was going through the checklist of generic level design.

Voice acting is supplied by Nolan North who by this point is to Deadpool that Kevin Conroy is to Batman. He plays all three of Deadpool's voices and himself. He puts in an enthusiastic performance and pretty much is a big part of what makes this game otherwise average game fun to playthrough. Other performers (such as Steve Blum playing Wolverine) are also well done.

Music is pretty much underplayed on the other hand. This is unless Deadpool begins to join into the singing.

Overall this game will depends on whether you like Deadpool (the Daniel Way version of it at least). He spouts memes, sexual gags and utter nonsense all the time though out a completely solid, if unremarkable game, and I loved every minute.

If your still wondering whether or not to give this game a try, go play Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (or watch a Youtube playthough), play the Deadpool level, and judge whether you could play a game with that sort of humor structuring an entire game.