Nepotism wins again! A gracious relative recently offered me a Family Discount™ on their PS5, and I, in my benevolence, accepted. My PS4 Slim, which has fought the good fight for nine glorious years, shall no longer suffer under the weight of Elden Ring or Red Dead Redemption II and instead be put out to pasture as a glorified Blu-ray player.
Fourteen PS4 games accompanied the PS5. I had some knowledge of the majority, namely Far Cry 4, GTAV, Spiderman (2018), and their 8th-gen, open-world ilk (NHL 15 was the only sports title, mercifully). But there was one game that I hadn't seen on store shelves or at friends' houses: Deadpool.
After a cursory Google, I was sticker-shocked to see that the game goes for over $80 on eBay. I had to know what, scarcity aside, could justify the price tag. And the answer is… nothing!
In all fairness, it did get a single, short-lived smile out of me: after answering the introductory button prompt, you are awarded a trophy, titled, 'The first one's free!' (It was at this moment that I smiled.)
I do enjoy the occasional fourth wall break.
The umpteenth, as is Deadpool's wont? That's a different story.
And then, with poetic tastelessness, you're immediately awarded another: 'The second one is also free…' (It was at this moment that I stopped smiling.) Not even two minutes in and the game recycles a joke.
After receiving these handouts you're loosed to either explore Deadpool's apartment or start the campaign. Explore, and you'll find a handful of interactables with which he can do something lame and/or raunchy.
See that mixing bowl in the kitchen? Ha ha, Deadpool dons a chef's hat and whips up 1,000 pancakes. See that fly-infested toilet? Hee hee, Deadpool—before making a "stink pickle" (the game's words, not mine)—conjures a black bar out of thin air to censor his miembro del toro. "Find all 14 of these WACKY and HILARIOUS scenes," the game half-promises, half-threatens, "and you'll earn a trophy!"
I'm sorry to rain on your parade if you're a Deadpool enjoyer.
Regardless, "Trophy Progress" is insulting.
The apartment is sad, really, and indicative of a crisis of confidence. In its opening moments, Deadpool doubts its own humor, its only appeal; it throws you into a pigsty, promising a trophy if you'll roll around in the mud for just a little while longer. The stench is one of desperation.
In stark contrast, Astro's Playroom—sharing the bed with Deadpool on my PS5 honeymoon—is brimming with confidence. It's liberal with trophies, too, but there's an unspoken expectation that you'll stumble across them or seek them out yourself, guided by your own curiosity and intuition.
On the powdered peak of Mt. Motherboard, for instance, there's a snowball no bigger than Astro's head. I saw this snowball and—as any gamer worth their salt would do—rolled it around, watching it grow and grow until it occupied most of the screen. That I got a trophy for doing so didn't matter, because the act was rewarding in and of itself.
A lot of the fun/reward is from the PS5 controller's haptic feedback,
which massages your hands with the crunching of snow.
Like the snowball, there are little threads everywhere, waiting for you to tug on them and unravel their secrets. Some of them reward a trophy and some of them don't, but Astro's Playroom—unlike Deadpool's apartment—trusts that you don't need an incentive to find out for yourself.
So yeah, who would've guessed that an M-rated action game would have nothing in common with a family-friendly 3D platformer? Now please excuse me, I've got to test the load times of games I have no intention of playing.