Deadpool VR review – an excellent adventure with Marvel’s lesser-known characters

Throughout his appearances in hundreds of comics, the 2013 game, and the now MCU movie trilogy, Deadpool has been portrayed as a bumbling idiot, but a bumbling idiot who just happens to be an extremely talented and regenerative assassin. Sure, he may get hit and slashed a lot, but he comes out on top, even if he is decapitated when he does it. As an indestructible being, Deadpool is fairly strong, even if his humorous facade doesn’t depict that, and upon playing Deadpool VR on Meta Quest 3, I’ve come to realize something – I am not strong, and I am not good at fighting.

I’ve been excited for Deadpool VR since the game was announced at Summer Game Fest, and while I wasn’t sure if it would reach the heights of some of the best VR games, I knew I’d be in for a good time if the Merc with a Mouth were well-written. Fortunately, it’s nailed pretty much every aspect of what I’d want from the character, including bombastic gameplay that nails the pure, unadulterated chaos that you’d expect.

Straight off the bat, Deadpool VR sees you sitting in a car with a tied-up and gagged unnamed enemy as you attempt to recapture a SHIELD helicarrier. Moving past the obvious innuendos, I was pleasantly surprised by Neil Patrick Harris’ take on the character – it’s clear he’s doing a sort of Ryan Reynolds immersion, but it works really well. However, you’re quickly wrapped up in a multi-dimensional plot to help Mojo create the ultimate, gory reality TV show by kidnapping – I mean, ‘offering’ various characters the chance to join the show for fame.

That’s the primary catalyst for Deadpool’s level-hopping adventure, with arena-style battles taking place between each main mission that will see you perform for Mojo’s audience. There’s no shortage of jokes, meta-insults to the ‘player’, pop culture references, and, well, everything you’d expect from a Deadpool game. There’s also plenty of cameos, from the likes of Ghost Rider to Nova, all of which add a level of seriousness in an attempt to offset Deadpool’s wacky personality. It doesn’t exactly do that, but it’s a nice reprieve.

The silly adventure is more than enough to get me through the narrative with a smile on my face, but the gameplay truly sells that Deadpool fantasy, if you could call it that. Armed with a pair of swords, a pair of pistols, grenades, and a grappling gun, you’re able to slice and dice the hordes of foes that come at you with style, and the game encourages you to do so. The better your combos and the more you engage with the various tools, the higher your viewership rises, earning more currency to spend on new weapons.

If anyone saw me while I played the first level, it’d have been obvious that I was really excited as I dive-kicked an enemy, while parrying another one in slow motion. It flowed perfectly. I hadn’t had this much fun on my Meta Quest 3 since playing Blade & Sorcery, and the rest of the game is full of naturally cool moments, as well as those setpieces that really amp up the tension.

It also helps that the tools you can purchase really diversify your abilities. Boomerang swords, more grenades, and pistols that fire through multiple enemies are just a few of them, and you also have an awesome ‘Big Money Time Mode’ that grants you a powerful, limited-time weapon, from definitely-not-Gambit’s cards to definitely-not-Thor’s hammer. The sheer carnage you can deliver with Deadpool’s various weapons is pretty fantastic, and keeps the game refreshing throughout your playthrough.

While the levels aren’t entirely spectacular, they’re fitting for VR’s obvious limitations. Between battle-style rooms that get locked off as you turn into a sword-slicing tornado, you’ll have random little objectives that have Deadpool and an often frustrated Spiral talking, and trading insults, with the Merc fittingly joking about the game’s fetch quests or odd puzzles. In particular, I loved the samurai spirits that you need to talk to in the game’s second level, whom Wade Wilson would insult even after their death.

It helps that the entire cast gives such a good performance that you’ll be engaged the whole time. I already mentioned that  Neil Patrick Harris gives a great take on the movie Deadpool, while John Leguizamo’s Mojo is as slimy as you’d expect, and I was pretty impressed with Tom Cavanagh as Mephisto, even if nothing will surpass his take on Reverse Flash for me. Some cameo characters don’t get enough time to be fleshed out, but it’s overall an enjoyable range of voice actors that either bounce off Harris’ Deadpool, or completely negate it, which is a positive, just to add. I love the variety.

Unfortunately, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns in Deadpool’s brain (or playing as his effective brain). There are a few times where I’ve had frame stutters that typically occur when those slow-motion moments happen, and it’s quite jarring, as well as the occasional bug that has frozen enemies or random objects stuck in walls. It’s quite funny, though, as the latter seems almost diegetic to the world, and you can let it slide as part of the gameplay, even though I do hope they’re fixed.

The best way to describe my time with Deadpool VR is like playing an interactive version of the movies. It’s not as in-depth as some virtual reality titles may be, but what you get is a bombastic adventure through Marvel’s lower-tier characters played off brilliantly by a cast of loveable (or hateable) characters, and some engaging combat that feels great to play out. It’s not perfect, but it’s extremely enjoyable, and arguably one of my favorite games this year on the fun factor alone. It’s clear that this is a game you can only enjoy if you slap on a headset and experience it yourself, and something that can only be done with the magic of VR.