Deadpool (Based on Stern’s 2018 table “Deadpool”)
RELEASE DATE: July 15th, 2021
EMULATOR: Visual Pinball 10.6 or higher, PinMAME 3.3 or higher, PinUp Player 1.4.6 (Required for full DMD A/V) or higher
ARTIST(S): “JPSalas”
HARDWARE: Windows PC with an Intel i5 Quad-Core processor with a Nvidia GTX 960 or higher graphics card (Recommended)
SOFTWARE/OS REQUIREMENTS: Windows 10, 64-bit
RATING: A-
It’s already been a heck of a month for the world of virtual pinball. While any contribution to the virtual pinball community is welcome, the community rarely sees that “Christmas Morning” moment where a truly unexpected table hits the downloads page. In the past, we’ve had Stern’s “Ghostbusters” as well as Spooky Pinball’s “Total Nuclear Annihilation”. Artist “daphishbowl” hit the scene with a nice translation of Stern’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” and a sudden release of Stern’s “The Munsters” surprised us all. At the beginning of the month, VPX users got a Christmas morning moment when “Batman ’66” came to VPX, which is as close to a perfect translation of Stern’s SPIKE 2 as we may see. Bring on the great “JPSalas”, a veteran of the VPX world, who brings us another shocking release: Stern’s 2018 pinball machine, “Deadpool”, a bit of a stripped-down version of the original — but no less fun.
DESIGN/ARTWORK: A
Look at the table. There’s a LOT going on here. The playfield is like a comic book artist’s mind just exploded all over it. JP does a great job copying the ramp designs (the katana rail is just as awesome as the one on the real life table), the Deadpool bobblehead doll, and that kick-ass disco ball in the back corner of the machine. The result is gorgeous, orgasmic amounts of color. The plastics have also been changed to match the red in Deadpool’s suit.
MUSIC/AUDIO: A-
Watching videos of the real life machine, the differences between that machine and the virtual one seem to be somewhat negligible. The callouts sound about the same and there are several sound clips from the actual Deadpool movie that are present here. Regardless of the accuracy, it still sounds amazing. The music is a rock song I don’t recognize but it works.
DMD/ANIMATIONS: B-
One would think that with a fairly detailed Stern copy, we’d have a PUP Pack that goes with it. Unfortunately, that’s the weak point of the entire table package. There is an UltraDMD which comes with it that does a basic job of keeping track of the various modes and shows very basic animations and scoring but that’s about it. I would not be shocked, however, if a PUP Pack was created for this game in the future.
GAMEPLAY/PHYSICS: A
The physics on the table are right on. Shots are plentiful in this game, and while this particular version has some layout changes (for instance, a ball that gets locked no longer goes to the plunger and now goes straight to the right flipper instead) and strips down rules and modes, all seven of Deadpool’s battles are here to play as are other sub-missions and multiball modes. The game is a blast to play. Salas even went so far as to include the “BOOM” button that you can program to your MagnaSave on your cabinet. This adds a nice bit of authenticity to things.
OVERALL
The fact that we even have a close-to-real verison of “Deadpool” is great. The Future Pinball version we had before it was horribly unplayable due to the awful physics, but this is perfection in comparison. This is an insanely great virtual table and another winner from JPSalas who just continues to churn out quality work.