Deadpool Game is an action-adventure anti-hero video game based on the same-name Marvel Comics character. The game was developed by High Moon Studios and released for Microsoft Windows (digital only), PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 by Activision. The plot of the game was developed by former Deadpool comic writer Daniel Way, and Nolan North voiced the character. The game received mixed and was praised for its elements of humor and storyline while being criticized for gameplay deficiencies.

As of January 1, 2016, Deadpool Game was de-listed and removed from all digital storefronts along with most other games released by Activision that had used the Marvel license. As of July 15, 2016, the game was made available for purchase on Steam again as well as downloadable content from PlayStation Store but only in the US markets. The game was re-released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 18, 2015, to coincide with the same-name 2016 film. On 16 November 2017, due to licensing issues, the game was again removed from digital storefronts.

Deadpool Game

Laying through Deadpool Game sounds like the lead character is as schizophrenic. On the one hand, Thesaurus.com says it’s zany, wacky, ridiculous, dumb, sophomoric, and several more adjectives. This is a funny game that is, if you’re in-jokes about dicks and casual sexism. If not, then Deadpool-the character and the video-would grate you like a hard cheese buzzsaw.

On the other hand, much of the gameplay experience with Deadpool Game is formulaic and safe … so sure you might think developer High Moon Studios is playing some kind of Nature-referential “oh, how normal wasn’t this? “To you meta-gag. Yet that is not so. No, Deadpool Game talks about a big game but provides a standard action experience which is the video game turducken.

For those who aren’t familiar with the glory of the one and only “Merc with a Mouth,” the spandex-clad Deadpool Game is itself an anti-hero parody. A cornerstone of Marvel Comics, the Weapon X boys (the same ones that adamantium-led Wolverine) gave him a healing factor in an experimental treatment that left him certifiably insane – and self-conscious that he was a comic book hero. Of this reason, Deadpool Game also understands that he is a hero from the videogame. In reality, by pressuring High Moon to make a game about him, he begins the tale – what little there is – and then throws out the script that it sends to him for approval. It’s a fittingly mad approach which is true to the character of Deadpool, even if it doesn’t make for a good plot.

Deadpool Video Game — Deadpool by GamesNess.Com

Armed with weapons, katanas, and excessive love of chimichangas, Deadpool Game is poking fun on clichés and conventions in videogames just as often as he pounds bad guys with sharp items. It’s very clear that the writers of Deadpool Game had a blast putting the character into immersive 3D; he constantly has arguments with the voices in his head, and at one point he can jump on word bubbles coming from his ill mind to cross a poisonous river. You can also instigate a creepy stalker situation between an alternative to a dialog tree and yourself at one point. It’s pretty imaginative, creative stuff which has made Nolan North’s very enthusiastic delivery as Deadpool’s voice even more enjoyable.

But then, there’s the repetitive gameplay little matter. In pseudo-Batman-style, combos can be clustered together with a mixture of melee and shooting battle which, while not entirely bad, begins uninterestingly and grows staler the longer you play. Before finishing off with a shotgun blast to the head, it can be fun slicing through a henchman a second, but there is not enough variety in attacks and tougher enemies may seem unreasonably immune to your relentless hacking.

The higher the chain of combos, the more points you earn on DP. This could be spent on purchasing new weapons (shotguns, sledgehammers, bombs, bear traps, etc.) or upgrading to existing ones. But few of these choices change the gameplay-most of them just increase the damage and make enemies take fewer hits. It’s a great update program and doesn’t push the imaginative gray matter exactly. This is the Deadpool Game of which we are thinking here! Why should it be so serious?

Deadpool Game is also equipped with a teleportation device that lets him * bumpf * short distances such as Nightcrawler, which can be useful when cornered to dodge attacks or to make a quick escape. The downside is that the teleport button is the same one that appears to activate a special combo over an opponent’s head; get the timing wrong and you can zap behind him instead of hitting him. Due to the near camera viewpoint, teleporting in small spaces can be especially disorienting, with enemies unexpectedly off-camera and you do not know exactly where you are concerning them. The lock-on targeting button for gunplay is another annoyance. It works most of the time, but pressing it often locks it into a spot just to the side of the fleshy, perforate-able bits of a target. When a lot of the same bad guys swarm into a room to threaten you — and they will repeatedly — the last thing you want to do is spend precious time re-targeting their melons.

But where Deadpool Game is not surprising is in its level architecture. You’d expect to see an office level, a sewage stage, a jungle stage, etc. in a game that’s a send-up of videogames, but you’d also expect these chestnuts to be turned onto their metaphorical heads with a style that skews your perceptions. Instead, they play each of these visually uninteresting rates fairly straight. Sure, there are often unintended nonsequiturs (Deadpool gets pulled into an 8-bit dungeon crawler, Deadpool hallucinates a scene in graphics in the LittleBigPlanet style); it’s just that such pieces are dealt out as slogging treatments through the comparatively mediocre stages.

Some later levels display a little more creativity, especially when Death herself (a frequent interest in love for Deadpool) submits him to a series of introspective challenges to test his importance. He must fire cardboard cutouts of the demons fleeing from his broken mind in one set up like an amusement park ride before they can kill him. It’s like things I wish there were more of.

Some are trying to take cover weakly but most are only standing in front of you and shooting. Even the boss battles with the supervillains are slow and repetitive, not to mention very boring. The winning technique is to sprint away from a distance to restore health and fire while teleporting to dodge the charges and power attacks.

Last but not least, Deadpool Game is almost empty of secrets and collectibles: a major lie for a game that parodies videogames and stars a superhero. You’re going to be a sad puppy if you’re hoping to unlock alternate costumes, comic book pages, or even anything that will entice you to replay the 10 or so hours of action a second or third time. If you play through the linear game, the only reason to keep the disk around is to play the levels of the Challenge Mode, which are only a collection of survival modes set at the same levels that you just played.

Behind Deadpool’s demented humor, imaginative plot, and genius sight gags is a relatively traditional, generic action game. It’s not bad, but it’s not especially good either – so there is just no need to replay it once you’ve done without oodles of hidden secrets or unlockables to find. Developer High Moon gets the character and gives the funny but none of the finesse of action that would make Deadpool stand out. If you’re a fan of boob jokes and dumb, repetitive, but slightly enjoyable games, then Deadpool Game will be giving you the silliness of a weekend.