Pinball / Deadpool Stern

aka: Deadpool 2018

"At least it's not another movie-themed pin!"

Deadpool is a Physical Pinball Table released by Stern Pinball in mid-2018. It was primarily designed by George Gomez, with artwork by Zombie Yeti (of Ghostbusters) and voiceover work by Nolan North as the title character.

Unsurprisingly based on the famous "merc with a mouth" Deadpool, the player is tasked with helping him fight a trio of villains - Sabretooth, Mystique, and the Juggernaut. Along the way, they can get some help from other Marvel heroes like Wolverine, Colossus, Domino, and Dazzler. There's also "Quest" modes that involve Deadpool traveling back in time to square off against prehistoric beasts. Multiball modes provide an avenue for even more craziness, including Deadpool squaring off against ninjas, dealing with Dracula in a disco nightclub, and fighting Sauron atop a moving train. Finishing these is crucial to the final Wizard Mode, where Deadpool comes to blows with Mister Sinister.

Noteworthy physical features include a ramp shaped like a katana (with a hilt that functions as a locking mechanism) and a bobble-headed "L'il Deadpool" figurine that responds to nearby ball hits and comes with its own set of modes. The Premium and Limited Editions also have a motorized disco ball that starts up during Disco Modes.

Not to be confused with the earlier (and digital) Zen Pinball table. Click here for its trope page.

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The Deadpool physical pinball table contains examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Deadpool's fourth wall breaks are animated in CG as opposed to the 16-bit style of the rest of the game.
• Addressing the Player: Deadpool frequently talks directly to the player, oftentimes quipping or outright insulting their playing ability.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The Battle and Quest modes (including Megakrakolodonus Rex) save the player's progress if they fail, allowing them to retry from where they left off upon lighting the appropriate shot again.
  • Completing the D-E-A-D-P-O-O-L targets enough times will light Regeneration, a virtual kickback at the left outlane.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Finishing Ninja or Mechsuit Multiball displays a screen showing Deadpool standing triumphantly on the twitching bodies of his enemies.
• Battle Trophy: Both quest modes end in Deadpool forcibly extracting a tooth from his opponent (collecting their DNA in the process).
• Bragging Theme Tune: "Boom!", which crosses over with Theme Tune Rap and is sung from Deadpool's perspective. Appropriately, this song plays if the player gets on the high score board while they enter their initials.
  Deadpool: [singing] Deadpool is my name — watch me take aim
  I'm the merc with the mouth, and I got my own game!
• Combos:
  • Making shots in succession followed by the scoop will award weapons for each shot. Weapons are used to qualify other game features.
  • Shooting the right orbit and then immediately shooting all the way up the right ramp will award Ninjapocalypse, which scores a value starting at 5 million and awards 25 Ninja Stars.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Failing to progress in any of the game's battle modes leads to Deadpool stopping his Idle Animation to gesture confusedly towards his opponent.
• Couch Gag:
  • The quote Lil' Deadpool gives at the start of Lil' Deadpool Multiball is different each time the mode is played. Similarly, the Ninja Multiball has a selection of different quotes that might play before it starts.
  • Inverted at the end of the game, where if no high score is achieved, the Attract Mode music will be different every time.
• Create Your Own Villain: A rather literal example, as one of the game's last modes opens with Deadpool's collection of prehistoric teeth (obtained by Deadpool traveling back in time and fighting a T-rex, a kraken, and a megalodon) is ultimately the catalyst for the Megakrakolodonus's existence.
• Dracula: Disco Multiball takes place at Dazzler's nightclub, where Dracula is causing havoc. The Super Jackpot animation shows Dracula being turned into dust from the light.
• Edible Collectible: Chimichangas help light quests.
• Fun Size: "Lil' Deadpool" is a stylized version of Deadpool that borders on Super-Deformed.
• Golden Snitch: The playfield multipliers gained by hitting the "Snikt!" ramp combo, among other methods, can lead to ridiculous scoring during modes.
• Gratuitous Disco Sequence: Dazzler's Disco Modes prompt the display to show one of these (to the point where the Premium and Limited Edition versions trigger a small disco ball within the machine itself).
• Gratuitous Ninja: The aptly-named "Ninja Multiball" has Deadpool fighting off a horde of ninja.
• Guns Akimbo: Deadpool exclusively uses his pistols two at a time.
• Hybrid Monster: The Megakrakolodonus, created from Deadpool's collection of prehistoric teeth, is a hybrid of a T-rex, a kraken, and a megalodon.
• Interactive Narrator: Winning a Battle occasionally prompts this exchange:
  Deadpool: Say it, announcer guy!
  Announcer: Deadpool wins!
  Deadpool: Oh yeah! Now say "Deadpool is the greatest!"
  Announcer: No.
• Kraken and Leviathan: The Kraken is defeated off-screen by Cable during the Megalodon Quest mode.
• Match Sequence: A wheel with various pairs of digits (along with a few oddball joke numbers) spins, eventually landing on one while Deadpool reacts. (The animation is also used for the Mystery award.)
• Medium Awareness: Deadpool is well aware that he's in a pinball game, as is his trademark.
  Deadpool: I like to think of pinball as 'glass over a world'...
• Medium Blending: The display animations usually uses a 16-bit video game style, but occasionally dips into more standard Limited Animation or CGI (which is sometimes overlaid on top of an 16-bit scene). This most noticeably happens when Deadpool is directly Addressing the Player and anything depicting Lil' Deadpool.
• Meta Guy: Unsurprisingly, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall repeatedly throughout the game. It even gets mentioned by name in the Theme Tune Rap!
• Noodle Incident: While Deadpool is busy extracting the Megalodon tooth, Cable is busy extracting the tooth of the Kraken off-screen. This is never shown, only occasionally discussed at the start of the Megalodon Quest mode.
• Overly Long Gag: Downplayed with the downloadable version of the game's soundtrack, which makes you go through four folders before actually revealing the music files.
• Powered Armor: Amassing enough weapons results in "Mechsuit Multiball", centered on Deadpool acquiring one of these. It reappears during the climactic final fight against against Mister Sinister.
• Prehistoric Monster: One of the Quest modes involves Deadpool traveling back in time and facing off against a Megalodon, ultimately managing to extract one of its teeth.
• Recursive Reality: When no modes are running, the main display shows Deadpool playing a Deadpool pinball machine.
• Retraux: A significant portion of the game's visuals and sound effects are patterned after The 16 Bit Era Of Console Video Games, including the battle modes being depicted as fighting games with life bars and finishers. It also uses sound effects straight from 1980s pinball games.
• Rule of Cool: The game's theme makes for a lot of this; ninjas randomly getting the jump on Deadpool or modes dedicated to traveling back in time to fight prehistoric beasts might not make much sense, but they are undoubtedly cool.
• Score Multiplier: There are a number of ways to increase one's playfield multiplier, such as hitting the "Snikt!" target (for a varying number of seconds), finishing Lil' Deadpool Bounce (for the rest of the ball), or amassing 100 weapons (for the entirety of the game).
• Shout-Out:
  • During Mechsuit Multiball, a chimichanga truck can be seen flying by in the background with a Nyan Cat-esque rainbow trail behind it.
  • The Wizard Mode's Versus Character Splash includes the phrase "This time it's personal!"
  • Successfully winning any Battle sometimes causes Deadpool to exclaim "Hyper! Combo! Finish!"
• Skill Shot: No less than four of them.
  • A regular skill shot that follows the standard "plunge into the flashing lane" model.
  • The Super Skill Shot— hold the left flipper, then shoot up the right ramp for double the reward.
  • The Super Secret Skill Shot— similar to Super Skill Shot, but instead aiming at the "Snikt!" target for a much larger reward.
  • Finally, the MXV Skill Shot — still holding the left flipper, shoot the right orbit and the right ramp afterwards for a sizable amount of points and a Ninjapocalypse reward.
• Smart Bomb: Downplayed with the boom button, located on the center apron of the game, which ordinarily only collects the highest value shot available. However, spelling B-O-O-M four times without using it upgrades it to a "Big Boom" that plays the trope straight, collecting every single lit shot at once.
• Spelling Bonus:
  • B-O-O-M lights the boom button.
  • D-E-A-D-P-O-O-L lights various awards on repeated completions. There are two separate target banks for each half of the word, and both of them provide different bonuses on their own: D-E-A-D lights a Battle mode and P-O-O-L lights a Ninja Multiball lock.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: Ninja Stars are one of the collectibles available in the game, either by defeating ninjas or by scoring the Ninjapocalypse combo.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • Deadpool doesn't take too kindly to players who risk tilting:
    "Quit shakin' the machine!"
    "Yeah, keep shakin' the game. There's candy inside... stupid!"
    [on tilting] "So how's that death save working out for ya?"
  • One of the joke Mystery awards is "Can't you just be happy with what you have?"
  • Also inverted; if the player is doing really well, Deadpool knows:
    "Hey, everyone! Look at how awesome this player is."
• Take That, Player!: The 1.04 update added a lot of long-overdue leaderboards for almost every feature in the game; one of those leaderboards also happens to be a "Tilt Champion" - awarded to the player who manages to tilt away the largest bonus.
• Theme Tune Rap: "Boom!", the first song on the soundtrack is sung from the title character's perspective and crosses over with Bragging Theme Tune.
• Time Travel: The Quest modes have Deadpool and Cable traveling to the past in a chimichanga truck and fighting prehistoric beasts.
• Timed Mission: Zig-zagged as a whole.
  • Averted with the main modes. The Battles run on a health bar and only end once the meter runs out, you drain, or you win. The Quests don't have any timer at all and only end upon either winning the mode or draining.
  • Played straight with the side modes. The two later Lil' Deadpool modes (Frenzy and Bounce) are both timed affairs, and so is Berzerker Rage. The Final Battle is also a timed wizard mode.
• Traintop Battle: Sauron Multiball depicts Deadpool facing off against Sauron on top of a train.
• Versus Character Splash: The Wizard Mode opens with one of these, depicting Deadpool and Mister Sinister right before they fight.
• Wizard Mode: Two mini-wizard modes and one proper example.
  • Finishing Sauron Multiball and both quest modes lights "Megakrakolodonus Rex", where the player must build up the jackpot value in order to expose the titular Hybrid Monster's weak point (the L'il Deadpool target); doing so grants 10 seconds where they can collect the jackpot repeatedly.
  • Finishing the Sauron team-up battles with the main three villains lights Clone Multiball, where Mister Sinister unleashes clones of himself upon Deadpool.
  • Finishing both mini-Wizard Modes and Mechsuit Multiball qualifies the actual Wizard Mode, "The Final Battle". It's a Timed Mission in two phases – first collecting every team-up shot in 45 seconds, then shooting various shots to receive jackpots and concluding with the Final Shot within 70 seconds. Finishing this causes the machine to temporarily go dead, draining every ball, before resetting all your mode progress to begin anew.
• Written Sound Effect: The artwork depicts a number of these, as befitting a game based on the Marvel Comics universe, such as the "Snikt!" target which increases the playfield Score Multiplier.

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