Deadpool (PS3): Breaks the Fourth Wall, but not much else.

So, full disclosure: Up until early 2011, I really had no idea who Deadpool was. I considered myself to be a comic fan, but really wasn't all that brushed up on anything that happened after the early 90's. Priorities changed, and me and comics just kinda drifted apart. Thankfully, I work in a library so I have been using its connections to catch back up with my favorite franchises.

But around February of 2011 came the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I remember when selling reserves of the game some of my coworkers and people picking it up were very excited about the appearance of this "Deadpool" character. I shrugged it off. But then at a fight night later that week, someone played against me with him, and I laughed my ass off as he yanked the lifebar off the screen and proceeded to smash me with it. From then on, I was hooked. I've been reading much of his back catalog, and now after a hilarious Comic-con announcement last year, Deadpool has his own game in.....

DEADPOOL: (PS3)

So the overall meta of the Deadpool game's story is that Deadpool is basically holding High Moon studios hostage after they rejected his initial video game pitch. After giving a much more "explosive" proposal, High Moon Studios sends over their script for the Deadpool game.  Deadpool is clearly not happy going off a script and starts cutting through it with a crayon without reading to make his changes. After arguing with his voices a bit and dicking around his apartment, we jump into the script...

Deadpool receives a contract to kill Chance White, a corrupt media mogul. Deadpool has no idea why he's accepted this contract because he didn't read the script. But none the less Deadpool cuts and shoots his way through White's armed guard in his headquarters to make his kill. In the wake of his destruction (and blowing the games budget in the process), White escapes with the help of Mister Sinister.

This irks Deadpool because he won't get paid if he doesn't actually kill White. Sinister makes his escape to the island of Genosha. While in pursuit of Sinister, Deadpool teams up with his old collegues with the X-Force in Wolverine, Rouge, Domino, and Psylocke and after a bit of an argument about who gets to fly the Blackbird, the group of them give pursuit to get revenge for robbing Pool of his pay (oh, and stop Sinister's scheme.)

So alright, the premise for the story is both completely fitting for the Deadpool character and at the same time feels slightly lacking. The biggest problem in the area of story is the lack of a really strong set of supporting characters. For the weeks approaching release they would tease and release images showing that Wolvie, Domino, Cable, and Rouge were all in the game. At the onset, I was pretty happy about that since these are characters I generally like and am familiar with.

But really, the only ones who gets any real extended screen time in the game are Cable and Death. They mainly serve to kinda push Deadpool along in the story, but he clearly has little interest in doing so. Its funny because those were pretty much the exact feelings I had as well. I found myself a couple of times wondering if this was meant to be something they did on purpose, or if the writing was particularly weak in that area. This really is a theme you might find yourself in for a number of the game's aspects.

Cable can be described as the game's Grumpy Dad.

The main antagonists, Mr. Sinister and his gaggle of D-list villains (Blockbuster, Vertigo, and Arclight) all feel kinda thrown in. Which again, seems like something that could be intentional or slapdash. You'd feel that that this is a Marvel licensed game they'd have the right to throw in characters from the entire universe. Then again because of the very nature of the Deadpool character, this allows him to completely trash how awful this cast is. It makes sense in that regard. 

But what sticks in my craw about it is if you are going to advertise that these more popular Marvel characters are going to be in the game, one would hope that its going to be more than just a lame token appearance which many of these characters seem to be. You get one small section where you "sort of" play as Rouge. I don't think Psylocke even gets a line of dialog. Wolverines contribution to the story is marginal at best. It's really kind of a letdown considering the history between characters like Deadpool and Wolvie/Domino.

Full disclosure: I thought Arclight, Vertigo, and Blockbuster were made up for this game.

I know that Deadpool for the most part of his series deals with some pretty off the wall main antagonists for the majority of his main stories, but he's clashed with almost every hero and villain in the Marvel universe a one point or another. There could have been an actual fight with Wolverine or Domino, any of the previous Weapon X products, no mention of Spider-man after one small reference at the start, none of the Avengers make and appearance. There isn't even people who are more commonly known to his own franchise in there (probably because a lot of them are dead, but still.)

Really, I think a lot of Deadpool's best story arcs are where he's a support character to a major player. Thor, Hulk, Spidey, and so on. I feel the game might have been better served as a series of disconnected missions with the other characters universes. Sadly that's not how it played out.

"Deadpool, we need to go off screen and be ineffectual to the plot for the next few levels, bub."

So the Deadpool game's combat system I guess can be considered pretty cookie cutter for those action adventure spectacle fighter kinda games we've seen. You got your light attack, heavy attack, jump, dodge, counter functions, you can use your shoulder buttons to go into the over the shoulder 3rd person shooter kind of control scheme with pistols, shotguns, and machine guns. If you have been playing video games at all for the past 10 to 15 years nothing about the game's control scheme is gonna throw you a wild curve ball. Its about as cut and dry as it gets.

However on the same token, sometimes it can feel a bit loose too. If you go into the menu for your unlocks and upgrades you will see that certain levels of weapons unlock different and more extended combos to use. But my mashing of the combos never seemed give me the inclination I was doing my combos properly. This is really an area where Deadpool can take a page from the God of War playbook. When I hit my specific button presses in that game, the combos on the screen look clearly different enough for me understand that those specific presses triggered that specific move.

Occasionally you will get the QTE button press to counter an enemy, but the window of it is small or sensitive to directional button presses, so I never seemed to be able to really rely on the ability to counter certain enemies, sans a few fights with Blockbuster where his counter is very highly telegraphed. Which makes that boss fight almost insultingly easy. Luckily for the most part if your counter doesn't work you will still teleport dodge away so you remain safe. A friend of mine thinks this was done intentionally, to make a mockery of bad gameplay, but I think that's a bit too subtle for the Deadpool universe. I think it just doesn't work well.

During the course of the game Deadpool will continue to break the fourth wall in cutscenes and a number of those deal a good amount of laughs. There was a concern that, much like recent Spider-Man games, Deadpool would overuse some of the pool of quips he has ad nauseum to the point of irritation. Depending on how long you play the game, this might be an issue or not. I for the most part didn't have much of a problem with this, but there was one line that I seemed to get much more than others: "Two extra slices for just 9.99."

It came up just enough times for me to find it irritating but not so much that it ruined the gameplay for me. What they really should have done here is give Nolan North the script, let him run through his lines, and then let him ad lib for like and hour and cram every bit of those you could fit onto the disc. This would made certain things come up a lot less frequently, or if anything allow them to play at random but no repeat until it cycles through the whole list. 

The game has a tendency to keep you bottled up in some pretty lame environments through the whole game. Buildings, Sewers, factories, or dilapidated buildings. I know there is only so much you can do with environments in a game like this but a couple splashes of color would have been nice. Genosha is an island in the middle of nowhere, a few stages could have taken place in the jungle or something with some wild animals to fight. 

Ultimately the game is pretty samey though and through. You'll find yourself running around hack and slashing your wear through faceless baddies until they start to shoot at you, which will be your cue to pull out your guns and fire back in kind. There is an occasional stealth element where you can sneak up on a guy and hack them to ribbons without being seen, but its so rare and so likely to go wrong you might as well keep powering through with your swords anyways.

Lastly the game also features a series of challenge maps that are kind of like horde modes. The more you beat the more you unlock further difficulties and if you manage to get a gold medal, you can get an alternate costume for Deadpool. The thing is, you can only use said costume on said challenge map, and only for its unlimited mode. So basically you only get the new costume for a section of the game you can't win or unlock more things for. Seems like a massive oversight, let me use them on the other challenges or in the story mode.

So did I like Deadpool? I have to say that I did for the most part. Its not a game that's going to break any molds or show you anything new, but for the most part its pretty functional and fun to play. The difficulty curve is a little ridiculous from time to time where in some stages you'll find yourself slashing things to bits like a red and black katana cloud of death, yet 5 minutes later you'll find yourself getting gunned down in the same section over and over again. It can be frustrating but not so much that'd you would stop playing.  I'd say the games biggest flaw is what I perceive to be a lack of replay value. 

The Deadpool game is made for those people who are clearly fans of Deadpool. I wouldn't say its a great introduction to the character for those who aren't exactly familiar with him, but he does make the transition from comic to game pretty well with his character intact (for those of you who saw the X-men Origins: Wolverine, that is not how Deadpool should be).

Ultimately though, it shows why it came out at a lower price. I think the game could probably get a sequel, but I suggest that they focus on really beefing up the story aspect of the game bring in more of the more notable Marvel universe. It's not the best game to ever come out, but not bad either. Its safe. You'll get your yucks, and its fun enough to see to the end, just don't expect to keep playing it to perfection. Here's hoping for a more polished sequel, because it has potential.

Even D-Pool appreciates "Yo Dawg". Love it.