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Written by Zima Beck.
Jumping right into the thick of it, gameplay in DEADPOOL is fairly straight-forward; hack and slash with an under-developed upgrade system, some mediocre gunplay and tacked on stealth portions. Combat is what you’d come to expect from a hack and slash, even if it is mostly shallow and repetitive. The majority of the game consists of dual wielding melee weapons and firearms while mowing down rooms full of faceless guards and mutant clones. While mindless murder can be fun most of the time and the enemy types have some variety, there is little depth to be found in the game’s mechanics as it really leaves you yearning for much more. Levels are also fairly generic and standard to the hack and slack genre: sewers, a city in ruins, catacombs, an office building… see what I mean? Sure, given the context of the game’s story the levels make enough sense, but overall you really can’t help but feel that there was a complete lack of inspiration in the locales. Additionally, there is a fairly obvious lack of polish in the overall gameplay and level design that really makes it seem like High Moon felt that it was passable enough to be released into the world. This is unfortunate and really gives the game a rushed feeling, leaving you to wonder what could’ve been if High Moon had really taken the time to give some more polish to DeadPool. All in all, DeadPool is a game we’ve all played before a million times over. The only real saving grace here is Deadpool himself, as he serves up enough entertainment to make a playthrough of the game that much less bland. While DeadPool fully acknowledging his existence in a game is the title’s greatest asset, it is also, in a way, its biggest downfall. The game manages to cross the thin line between self awareness and irony, ultimately leaving itself to fall prey to its own jokes. In attempting to make itself appear as though it doesn’t need to try incredibly hard to succeed at what it is, DeadPool ends up failing at exactly that. I wish I could sing praises about how great DEADPOOL is as a game, but I just can’t. In the end, the game just comes across as a cocky way of saying, “Here’s the half-assed DEADPOOL game you think you want. |
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