Deadpool (Pinball FX Table Review)

Deadpool
First Released June 24, 2014
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Not Yet Released
Designed by Tamas “Ypok” Pokrocz
Set: Marvel Pinball Collection 2 ($29.99 MSRP)
Links: Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki

Deadpool looks the part. No doubt about it. There’s a ton of Easter Eggs and winks to the audience. But, it comes with a price: it can take FOREVER for the animations to wrap up, which means waiting around. Even holding the flippers, it can take a while. It can mess with your shooting stroke.

One of the call outs in Deadpool has him saying Zen Studios should make an M-rated pinball game, and his stated reason results in him being bleeped for the next ten seconds. Zen? Make an M-rated table? Nah, it’ll never happen. In Deadpool, if you make a skill shot, there’s a very good chance you’ll score 500,000 points and also watch the ball go straight down the outlane that’s directly next to the plunger and fed by the skill shot, losing your ball save. I’m sure this was done to be a troll, because I guess Deadpool could lazily be interpreted as a glorified troll. Cool. Yea, Deadpool the Pinball FX table is quite the frustrating pinball experience. For the record: that skill shot isn’t a “git gud” element that adds challenge. It’s just crap design. Mind you, there’s a super skillshot if you hit the first, which you might not even get a chance at because of this design. Why would you make a table like that? People pay money for these, and your first instinct is to troll? But the whole table is that way. The bumpers are of the Creature from the Black Lagoon variety, and it’s not rare for a ball to get caught in them for a long time. On a table where time is money. Want to experience Deadpool-based agony without watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Try playing this table in the five minute mode. (About an hour after typing that, 9 year old Sasha took that as a bet and shortly thereafter became Pinball FX’s Deadpool 5 Minute Challenge Undisputed World Champion).

Signature Shot – Mode Start Filing Cabinet: The one ingenious aspect of Deadpool is how the mode start works. Once you hit the mode start lanes to light the cabinet, you can start the mode and play on EASY right away, or you can use the spinners to light other difficulties. Usually this means adding to the shot requirement or shrinking time limits. This is a great idea, and the modes are just good enough to carry Deadpool over the finish line. Even if it’s doing it one piece at a time. By the way, you’re not guaranteed to actually get the hardest difficulty even if you light it. You still have the ball into the top locker. In Sasha’s record-setting 5 minute challenge, her intent was to play on HARD, but after lighting it, the mode start shot fizzled off the jump and only went into the MEDIUM hole. And she still set the world record anyway. Go figure.

Deadpool has the same problem as Ant-Man: there’s something loose and inelegant about ball movement in this table. You can see it in the skill shot, when a tiny little bump with the plunger sends the ball flying. The bumpers and slingshots are the same way. This is what we call a “kinetic” table, though it feels more in terms of gravity than actual table mechanics. It feels like you’re shooting a marble instead of a steel ball. Maybe the table wouldn’t work without the lighter physics. I hope that’s not the reason, because if it is, that’s the point when a designer should tear the table down and start over, not slap a price tag on it and release it. So, I must have hated the table, right? Actually, it won me over thanks to the way the mode start is handled, plus the modes themselves are pretty good. From shooting garbage that rains from the sky to the miniature Deadpool. The only one I disliked was a button mashing arm wrestling sequence. Button mashing is one of those accessibility things that needs to be phased out unless it’s a specific button mashing genre (like Track & Field games).

Signature Shot – Lil’ Deadpool: Okay, so as far as digital targets go, this is slightly weak since he just wiggles there after completing other tasks. What makes it more interesting is that we started setting records once we began trying for medium difficulty. Instead of three sequences of hitting the spinners and shooting the lockers to set up Lil’ Deadpool, you have to do four. For much more points. Yea, that’s a fair trade.

Even with the physics problems, I have to give it up to Ypok. He did a fairly decent job of balancing the difficulty and risk/reward between EASY/MEDIUM/HARD difficulties. It also helps that the harp-shaped playfield inherently has good combo shooting that feels different from a typical “pick a lane, any lane” out and back again combo shooting. Do I think Deadpool lives up to its potential? Oh, not even close. This thing feels SO WEIRD in terms of speed and bounce. If this hadn’t been Deadpool, they could have just as easily based it on Sonic The Hedgehog with how fast it runs and how much punch you get off the slingshots or even the grenade that acts as a ball save. The story isn’t “Deadpool wins a Clean Scorecard” but instead “Deadpool’s physics prevented it from winning the Certificate of Excellence that the layout and modes deserved.” On the other hand, this is the rare IP that is so enticing that pretty much everyone wants to play it, and it’s actually good enough that everyone should at least enjoy it more than dislike it. That counts for something in my book.
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Angela: GOOD
Oscar: GOOD
Jordi: GOOD
Dash: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Sasha: GREAT
Scoring Average: 3.33 – 🧹CLEAN SCORECARD🧹
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.
Read my review of the Deadpool NES game.