Deadpool Review
Recently the 2013 version of the Deadpool video game was released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, just ahead of the new movie about to hit theatre’s. Following Christmas I picked up the game in the PlayStation sale and have battled my way through the story mode.
One of the key selling points of this game is the character himself, Deadpool isn’t like other superheroes, he swears, he makes dirty jokes, he is happy to cut off someone’s head and couldn’t be much further away from superheroes like Batman or Spider-Man. And that’s the good thing, it is different, it has humour and the breaking of the fourth wall makes this game a lot of fun to play. You just never knew what he was going to say next and while it could get a little repetitive if you had to keep replaying a section, it wasn’t a major issue.
Other X-Men characters like Rogue, Cable and Wolverine make small cameos in the game, adding to overall experience. But it would have been nice to have seen more of these characters or even added as playable characters.
Deadpool is a solid single player experience, taking the iconic “Merc with a Mouth” through many different levels while battling hoards of enemies. The main focus of gameplay is on combat, close quarter combat is done with a sword or pair of Sai daggers and ranged combat comes from a wide selection of guns and throwable objects like bombs and bear traps. It is extremely easy to flip between the combat styles and mixing up between the two is essential.
As you might expect, upgrades to the combat and weapons is offered and with tougher enemies in the later stages, upgrades are useful. Though grinding through to get every upgrade does seem unnecessary. Deadpool also has the ability to teleport, which again, can be done with ease. Deadpool also has healing abilities, so whenever the action gets a bit hectic, which it does often, running away while shooting at enemies to find a spot to heal does become a major way of playing, jumping into the action and not worrying too much about your health does make for a different gaming style.
There are dozens of different types of enemies that increase in difficulty through the story and with boss battles and mini games thrown in to vary up the gameplay. Though it can get a bit tiring churning through all the enemies, so breaking up sessions did help me enjoy the game.
The main story can be played through within 5 to 10 hours, depending on if every item is collected and trophy achieved. So this isn’t a huge open world 100 hour game, but it is a lot of fun and I really enjoyed playing it, the humour is spot on and I don’t think I’ve laughed this much during a game. I doubt I will go back and replay this game, which does effect its value for money, so I’d recommend renting, borrowing or picking the game up in a sale like I did, as it’s not worth the full retail price, especially on a re-released game.
Deadpool is a fun game, I really enjoyed the story, the humour and the overall experience, so I feel I got my money’s worth and it was satisfying to be able to sit down each night and blast through a game, in a world of online play and open world games, it was nice to just go back to gaming as it was when I was younger. Simple and fun.