Something I've learned in the last few days is that sometimes a game seems bad when you haven't used all the tools given you in the game. I've discovered that games are actually very complex and difficult to master. It often is, after a first playthrough and into a second, that I really come to grips with everything a game can do. My failures the first time around are solved in subsequent plays. Case in point, Deadpool. Details in the following notes. 

Deadpool: I replayed the final chapter yesterday focuing particularly on the momentum system, that is, the super moves. I found them extremely helpful. I don't know why I avoided their use the first time around except that maybe I just like the physicality of stringing combos with conventional attacks. The super moves often stun enemies which you can then perform an execution move on them before their health has really been affected. It made the final fight much more manageable, though still not easy.

I felt confident enough after that win on the easiest difficulty to go it again on Veteran difficulty, the one I completed 99% of the game on my first playthrough. I beat it and was really satisfied. The game is great, though I stil hate those machine gunners - most unfair.

I looked up High Moon Studios, devs on the game, and realized they made another game I loved, Darkwatch for the orginal Xbox. They also made the good Transformers games. Too bad they seem to have gone the way of Raven Software and are now working on aspects of bigger games like Destiny and COD. I'd like to see what they would do with a new property. 

I started an Ultraviolent run of Deadpool but about halfway I got burned out and stopped. I was making progress though and got a few achievements I missed. Mark tried it too but he's got some issues with games with repetitive button mashing, and had to stop about half way through. 

Also, Nolan North (voice of many including Drake from Uncharted) does Deadpool and is great. I thought it was the movie actor for most of it. 

Beyond Good & Evil: I reluctantly, as part of my list of shortest games, returned to this thinking I would be bored on this my third attempt to finish it, but I got sucked in by its charm. I rage quit however over a stealth moment in the Factory. The camera is ok, but sometimes you can't fully see all the guards you're trying to kick in the back. I'd get one, and the other, who I couldn't see clearly, would get me. Five or six times of that and I was done. I can be very patient with action games, but stealth drives me loony. I'll try again sometime. I love 99% of this game. I can't wait to see Beyond Good & Evil 2 when it comes out. 

Breakdown: This original Xbox game went backwards compatible on Xbox One last month. It has been in my collection for years and I finally got to it. This is a Japanese game that, unusually, focuses on first person perspective. I experienced eating a hamburger and throwing up in first person. What a novelty for 2004! It's not something anyone does in first-person games today either. But that overwith, I was given a gun and had to escape a holding facility. I shot some guys, looted them for k-rations and ammo and shot some more. I ran out of ammo pretty quickly and tried to fight hand-to-hand, only, I kept getting shot. You're taught a bunch of fist fighting moves, backflips and side rolls in the beginning but these seemed useless in front of assault rifle armed guards. I got killed, and killed again. What I needed was a dash move to close the distance fast and do the fist fighting this game is really all about. Maybe I should've side rolled a few times? I don't know, but I didn't get it this first time. I've heard the story is really original and interesting. Maybe I'll try it again sometime. 

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard: I've been wanting to play this a long time, ever since I watched Mark play it years ago. It seemed like a hilarious riff on the FPS macho hero genre. I was wrong. It's a 3rd person cover shooter with very bad aiming controls and, so far, not that funny. I fought tooth and nail with the crosshair in this game. Every time you come out of cover the cross-hair is somewhere you didn't expect it. Sometimes I'd get it and pop out of cover and quick kill someone like you do quick-scoping in a FPS, but most of the time I'd spray bullets everywhere but the enemy. There's recoil on the machines guns that's infuriating. I'm on medium difficulty and almost nothing but headshots brings enemies down. I'm fighting through it though to get to the humor which I know is there somewhere.

Another thing is not clear, objectives. In one boss fight I fought for what must've been an hour, unlocking probably all the gun related achievements in the process, before I realized I had to hit three terminals to open exploding barrels below the boss's platform. Maybe my helper in my earpiece told me so, but I must've missed it. An arrow or highlight would've been helpful during this furious firefight. 

That was yesterday. I have God of War now from the library, so I may start that or try and finish Matt Hazard. I'm reluctant to leave a game mid play as I could easily have to relearn the strange skills I acquired to shoot properly in that game.