The Merc with a Mouth – Deadpool Review.

It’s no surprise that since his introduction to the Marvel Universe in “The New Mutants #98” back in February of 1991, that Deadpool has become on of the most popular Antiheroes in the Marvel Universe. Created by artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, Deadpool is a disfigured and mentally unstable mercenary who has teamed up with the Xmen on multiple occasions and had a great set of adventures on his own.

What always made Deadpool great was with his ability to break the 4th wall, Deadpool knows he is a comic book character, which makes for some great tongue-in-cheek humour. While his character works in print media, other media seems to have a difficult time getting the character off the ground, with a film adaptation of the character stuck in development hell and a horrible representation in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it seems like the only way Deadpool can get anywhere is Video Games.

If there is anyone who can do Deadpool justice, it would the Merc with a Mouth himself. Of course, he is going to need some help, and the team at High Moon Studios, the team behind The Bourne Conspiracy, Transformers Cybertron series and the stellar DarkWatch on PS2.

The story behind Deadpool’s adventure this time around involves Deadpool being hired to murder a wealthy newscaster working for the Marauders, a group of Evil Mutants who are attempting to take over the world for a reason that is never really disclosed. Deadpool and the Uncanny X-Force (consisting of Deadpool, Psylock, Rogue and Domino) travel to Genosha, an island where mutants were living in peace until the Sentinels came and killed everyone. Here they fight to stop Mr. Sinister and his Clone army from killing everyone.

Having a clone army means for plenty of bad guys to kill, and Deadpool has bought enough firepower to level a city. Close combat works much like how you would expect it, with quick stylized combos that allow Deadpool to exercise his particular brand of ass kicking across the three different type of melee weapons. These includes his trusty Katana’s, his fast Sai’s, and the slow yet destructive Sledgehammers. Deadpool isn’t completely about the close range combat, he brought along his trusty pistols, shotguns, machine guns and Pulse Rifle given to him by Cable to get rid of those pesky range opponents.

Combat is pretty much what you expect from Deadpool, it’s fast pace and frantic with easy to learn controls similar to God of War or any beat’em up game of this generation. Combos are easy to link between weapons, allowing you in mid combo to keep the streak alive, and speed and strength behind the strikes feel reasonable for each weapon. Gunplay itself though is where the combat falls short on with the game covering the 3rd person shooter style of controls, which for a action brawler makes for some frustration with aiming. Deadpool has a great upgrade system, where you can spend DP points in order to unlock special moves and more damage toward weapons, as well as bonus multipliers which allow Deadpool to carry more ammo and heal faster.

While Deadpool has Wolverine Healing factor, he’s not invincible. Deadpool can, and will, die throughout the game and i will mostly be due to cheap deaths. This includes a large amount of bad guys rushing you while other use range attacks or mutant powers at later stages of the game. Health upgrades don’t tend to keep you alive much longer and health is only regenerated in battle by gaining a high amount on your hit counter which can be difficult.

Deadpool is short, ranking up to about 6 hours of gameplay with uninspired enviroments. Moving from sewers, office spaces, and destroyed offices. Boss Battles and enemy waves seem to repeat themselves over, while it’s not surprising since most of the story is focused on clones, however it feels cheap when fighting villains that even most hardcore Marvel fans don’t recognize like Arclight and Vertigo.  The real disappointment is in the game’s ending, or lack there of.

That being said, Deadpool is not a bad game. The comedy is well written for fans of Deadpool’s comedy, the voice acting is great with Nolan North (Uncharted’s Nathan Drake) bringing Deadpool and his multiple personalities to life. Deadpool is one of those games that you can pick up, play, laugh at some great jokes, forget about it, pick it up again and laugh just as hard. If you are a fan of the character, then your not going to be too disappointed.