Deadpool: Mouthing Off 2

Part 2 of 2

I've done my best to stay away from the review sites across the Internets, but I'm assuming this game is going to be well received by Deadpool fans and lumped into an average rating by most gamers. The Deadpool game fits the summer-popcorn-movie stereotype. It's good but not great; kind of short for the $49.99 release price. I'm also guessing that people who are unfamiliar with Deadpool will be put-off by his antics and confused by his humor. Or just irritated. Probably irritated

Now that I've finished the story campaign, I wish there was more to the story campaign. I feel like I got enough; I played the game for three hours a night, starting on the Tuesday night that it released. I finished the story campaign on Thursday night. Normally, I hop around from game to game while playing. Deadpool had me hooked and satisfied from the minute I started playing. That doesn't happen very often. Now that I know the story and how it ends, I just wish it could continue...or have a new arc start in the same universe.

To wrap this up, in the best way that I can, I have to label the Deadpool game as scatterbrained. If this were a normal game, that label wouldn't be compliment. I think the game would be accused doing or including too many things. For example: most of the Deadpool game is a hack n' slash, beat 'em up....but it's also a third-person shooter/platformer/adventure/stealth game. It contains a side-scrolling level (I would take more of this), a couple shooter-on-rails sections (think turrets), and a retro-style Atari level in the sewers (only for a couple minutes). The point being: it is all over the place.

And that's Deadpool. He's all over the place.

Speaking of all over the place, go to Part 1

Deadpool: Mouthing Off 1

Part 1 of 2

After sinking 3 to 4 hours in it, I think I'm qualified (by Internet standards) to talk about the new Deadpool game that dropped this Tuesday. I walked out of GameStop with a copy of the PS3 version, stopped at Chick-fil-A (sorry, no chimichangas), and plopped down on my couch to get reacquainted with the Merc with a Mouth.

The first little section of the game serves to do just that, teach the player about this masked madman by exploring his apartment. I was laughing the whole time, especially while Deadpool made fun of achievements by giving me the first and second ones for "free," I'm glad Deadpool shares my opinion on trophies and achievements.

Once out of the crazy-filthy apartment, it was sword-swinging, gun-toting, tutorial time. At first thought, I'd call Deadpool a hack n' slash game with a bit of platforming, but that's because I didn't want to use my guns, like ever. I guess I have more fun slicing and dicing enemies; even when the enemies were poised for a duck-and-cover shoot-out, I would run head-first into enemy fire (what's the point of a healing factor if you're not going to use it) and stab, stab, stab.

The non-shooting combat is easy to learn and the enemy AI is pretty dumb. And, oh I forgot about the teleport dodge: it makes the sword combat and countering very over-powered. I had honestly forgotten that Deadpool had that teleport technology. Where's Weasel when I want to thank him? Anyway, it was later into the game when I realized I was in trouble for not using/upgrading my gun arsenal.

The "heavy" baddies are much easier when Deadpool is dual-wielding shotguns. Maybe that's the case for all the baddies. Still, I get bored with third-person shooting faster than I do stringing together bloody-bladed melee combos. The melee gameplay is no Arkham Asylum, but I still enjoyed it. I like my Deadpool with his blades; I also like the sai, but I haven't used them much. The swords are fully upgraded, the sai are newly unlocked, and the hammers, well, I haven't purchased them yet.

Most of the glitches that I've seen have occurred during combat, but nothing has made me want to eat my controller. Occasionally an enemy will end up on top of Deadpool; sometimes my hits connect with the displaced enemy and sometimes they don't. Meh. Deadpool points (DP) don't always revert to the previous amount if you die and then continue from the nearest checkpoint. Last, but not least, enemies can deal lots of damage to each other; I've always thought friendly fire is a stupid concept, so when a "heavy" baddie clears all the normal enemies for me, I wonder if that was intentional.

Even though the game is linear, I'll praise the level design and variety. From Deadpool's apartment to the mucky sewers to the catacombs of Genosha, the scenery is a sight to behold. I'd also like to get my hands on some concept art, especially the final level in Genosha. Floating platforms as far as the eye can see. Again, thank you Weasel for the teleportation.

Speaking of teleportation, BAMF over to Part 2

Destroy the Secret Raccoon Civilization! Oh wait..

On Tuesday, during my lunch break I jetted over to Best Buy to pick up my reserved copy of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (the special edition) which I will, from here on, refer to as RE:ORC because its short and orcs are awesome. Anyway, I did my best not to check out any reviews of the game, but I did inadvertently skim the beginning of the joystiq review while scrolling down their post line up. Sorry. That was my bad. I've quarantined myself from the Internet so I can play the game and give my unadulterated opinion on the long-awaited return to Raccoon City.

Clearly, every Resident Evil game should include hidden taxidermied raccoons from here on out.

After three days of killing and being killed in RE:ORC, I can say that I'm enjoying the game. This game won't pull the foul-mouthed children from their Halos or CoDs (which is a good thing in my opinion) and therefore RE:ORC won't explode in the world of online multiplayer. The problem though, is that there's not enough campaign meat to justify the weak multiplayer effort.

The campaign is lackluster fan service to say the least. I've only played up until the beginning of the 5th mission, which is where you watch Leon and Claire crash their police car into a wall. Then you watch the trucker zombie run over their crash with his semi. "Command" immediately says to kill that cop. And now I'm chasing Leon through a series of parking garages. But the journey to this point was good; it wasn't bad. As far as shooters go, the missions are straight forward with plenty of flesh bags (infected and regular) to kill. The humans that get in U.S.S.'s way won't be getting awards for their smarts, but they make up for this lack of intelligence with hit points. They are stupidly hard, like three-shotgun-blasts-to-the-face-and-still-kicking hard. The zombies and monsters, on the other hand, scale in difficulty: zombies are the easiest and hunters are the hardest, which holds true to the classic Resident Evil style. Plus, it feels good shotgun zombies, lickers, and hunters all in one game. RE:ORC feels like a Resident Evil game, in that respect.

Who leaves incendiary grenades on a fire truck? That's just wrong.

Unfortunately though, most of the game doesn't feel like a Resident Evil game. There's ammo and health sprays everywhere. It's like the currency of Raccoon City was ammunition and you get to take every zombie's wallet after you kill it. Random attache cases and ammo boxes also pop up, so every U.S.S. team member has infinite ammo. The amount of health, sprays and herbs, is significantly less than the amount ammo, but to a Resident Evil veteran, RE:ORC has a veritable forest of green herbs. The game never frightens, let alone horrifies, (although there are parasites that look speciously like face-huggers and face-huggers are effing terrifying) and survival doesn't seem difficult. So, I can't in good judgement, call this game a survival-horror game.

I also have some reservations calling this game a squad-based shooter. Yes, there are three computer-controlled teammates, but there is very little squad control. If you've unlocked all the different abilities and weapons, you can equip your squad with goodies, but that's it. The good news is that your three squad mates are significantly less stupid than the gun-toting humans who get in your way. Imagine a competent Sheva divided equally into three people, well that's your squad. They're dumb, but not completely useless. You can sit back and let your squad do everything, but it's more fun to kill stuff yourself and it's much faster (besides you get more xp, yay). The U.S.S. squad will deal damage, but they can't clear an entire room. And they die, either by a tyrant playing patty-cake their skulls or by turning into a zombie themselves (then you get to kill them). As soon as they're dead, you can run up, hold a button, and BAMF! They're back.

So, infinite ammo, near infinite health, and infinite lives for your party. This doesn't sound like Resident Evil at all. And it's not. But for that brief moment, when I'm unloading shotgun rounds into an un-phased tyrant while he lifts his fists to smash me into the floor, I hold the controller just a little tighter, and remember the good times.