Thanks to Deadpool and Wolverine, many of us have Deadpool on our mind right now, and though the Merc with a mouth hasn’t had much of a presence in video games – certainly not when compared to the likes of, say, Batman or Spider-Man – it’s not like he’s been completely MIA. In 2013, for instance, we got a Deadpool game courtesy of Activision and developer High Moon Studios, telling an original story in a hack and slash romp.
When it launched originally, Deadpool wasn’t particularly well received, and for many, it was another game in an endless line of hastily cobbled together licensed products (something that was, of course, much more prevalent back then than it is now). Neither its original release nor its remaster have what you would call a good Metacritic score (falling in the low 60s or high 50s), and admittedly, the game wasn’t without its issues by any stretch of the imagination. With time, however, opinion on the Deadpool game has seemed much less sour, to the point where the game seems to have its fair share of legitimate fans. And in spite of its aforementioned issues, the game does deserve its fair share of praise as well.
Let’s start, however, with those issues, because we’re not going to be foolish and deny that Deadpool had any flaws whatsoever. No, it was a decidedly flawed game, and in more ways than one. From simplistic and repetitive design to straightforward combat, the game was criticized for plenty of things, and though you may disagree on how significantly it was impacted by those problems, that it was a largely simple and straightforward game is also undeniable. Sure, there’s an argument to be made that that was by design, but it’s not hard to understand why those looking for a more nuanced and mechanically complex action game may have felt let down by how straightforward Deadpool was in those areas.
But just as the game had its undeniable flaws, it also had plenty of strengths that deserve credit and recognition. Chief among them is the plain and simple fact that the game is hilarious. Self referential humour, irreverent jokes, meta gags, and the like are all Deadpool the character and IP’s bread and butter, to say the very least, and the 2013 game did an incredible job honing in on that and making it central to its identity.
It’s fair to say that something as subjective as humour is never going to universally appeal to everyone, especially not when it is as inherently brash, in your face, and purposefully obnoxious as Deadpool humour tends to be more often than not, so it wouldn’t be shocking if the game’s jokes and writing may not have landed for some who played it. Chances are, however, that if the Deadpool brand of humour is something you generally enjoy, you’re very likely to have gotten a kick out of the game as well. Some of the best superhero games we’ve seen over the years have seen the success they’ve seen because they exhibited a keen understanding for the biggest strengths and characteristics of the characters that they were telling stories about, and while it would be an exaggeration to out 2013’s Deadpool game on that same level (or anywhere close), it does deserve credit for doing a damn fine job of identifying what makes Deadpool, Deadpool.
From a narrative perspective, Deadpool wasn’t a special game by any means. It told a solid, original story, one with plenty to like and enjoy for fans of the property and the X-Men universe in general, but that story was ultimately little more than a a stage on which the titular superhero protagonist could shine. A ton of credit also goes, of course, to the excellent portrayal of the Merc by veteran actor Nolan North- who, incidentally, also appeared as himself in the early portions of the game, as part of a typically self referential gag that saw Deadpool hiring him to play him in a video game about himself.
Beyond that, on the gameplay front, though Deadpool was – as I touched on earlier – a fairly straightforward hack and slash game, it was also fairly fun more often than not. No, criticisms of repetitive design were not completely unfounded, and thanks to the simplicity of the game, that repetition could admittedly set in with the combat encounters- but the core mechanics themselves were fun. Deadpool was the textbook definition of a competent hack and slash game- it delivered the kind of action that dead next to nothing that could be described as imaginative or new, and while that made criticism of the game easy to understand, that action was also undeniably fun quite often, especially since the thing that the game hinged on most was not its gameplay or combat, but its writing and humour.
So no, Deadpool is not exactly a masterpiece- to call it anymore than a fun game with its fair share of edges would be a bit silly. But it was a damn fun game, and for fans of the IP it was based on, there was plenty to love about it. It is not the sort of gem that will make you wonder why it has the critics that it has – even the game’s biggest defenders will admit that it is a flawed experience – but thanks to how perfectly it captures the essence of the character that it is dedicated to, it’s also a game that has some genuine, undeniable merits.
The shame here is that going back to this game is a real pain, because thanks to expired licenses, it’s delisted on pretty much every platform. Its original console versions, the PS4 and Xbox One remasters, the Steam release- none of them is available, thanks to the fact that Activision’s Marvel license expired quite long ago now.
The question now is- is there hope for a new Deadpool game at any point in the not too distant future? To say that superhero games and games based on licensed properties in general are popular right now would be an understatement. We have seen a deluge of major, AAA licensed games in the last few years, and looking ahead, it doesn’t look like that is going to stop anytime soon. Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Marvel’s Blade, EA’s Black Panther and Iron Man games, Insomniac’s Wolverine and Spider-Man titles- the list of major Marvel games currently in development across the industry is a long one, and it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest to see it growing longer still.
Combine that with the fact that Deadpool is a massively popular character – now more than ever, in fact – and you could easily imagine a scenario where a talented studio develops a AAA game based on the property and is actually able to enjoy critical and commercial success. Whether that does actually happen is anyone’s guess, but we desperately hope it does- not least because the one, genuinely solid Deadpool game that we did have to fall back on is impossible to get access to on modern platforms.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
