Welcome to yet
another awesome Guest Post here on Needless Things! I really
appreciate the Phantomaniacs who are willing to help me out in my
time of need (and here I thought I was needless – HA!).
Today’s post
is from my old pal, Evil. We’ve had many adventures together, but
this is the first time he’s contributed to the site. Or any site,
for that matter. I’m proud to be the first to publish his words.
What follows is
a review of Injustice:
Gods Among Us,
a fighting game that looks sort of interesting but features some of
the most hideous character designs I have ever seen. It’s like the
producers looked at the Schumacher Batmans
and thought, “Nah – too reserved.” I suck at video games and
I’m really
bad at fighting games, but I was definitely curious about this one. I
mean, no matter how much DC Comics may suck right now, I’m still a
DC guy. Evil answered pretty much all of my questions and piqued my
curiosity. I might have to buy this thing now.
Thanks, fucker.
Story
The game is set up with a story mode
and the regular fighting mode. I’ve played through the story mode
and while entertaining, it’s pretty ridiculous. The basic story is
that the Joker drugged Superman and made him think Doomsday was
destroying Metropolis. Superman flew Doomsday into space and killed
him. But surprise! It wasn’t Doomsday, it was Lois and she was
with child. Also she was linked to a nuclear bomb so when she died a
nuke went off and destroyed the city. Let that sink in for minute.
This game is about Superman going crazy after killing Lois and his
unborn child. Fun!
So Superman goes all Justice Lordsy,
and through intimidation, gets all the heroes and villain’s, who
get reprieves, to take over the earth. This also involves getting
costumes with more armor and lights for some reason. However,
someone had a plan in case Superman went all crazy. Who was it? The
Martian Manhunter. Hahaha - just kidding. They didn’t even put him
in the game except in the background. Poor guy; DC put out a
“Justice League” with Vibe and then left Manhunter out of the
game. Of course it’s Batman. He has made special pills out of
Krypton DNA or some nonsense that allows a character like Harley
Quinn take on Green Lantern by upping their strength and stamina.
It’s silly, but at least they gave a reason to why she just
wouldn’t have her head ripped right off by a green baseball bat.
Batman’s plan involves bringing over heroes from “our” DC
universe that he needs to complete his plan to take down Superman. So
he brings over Batman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and
Wonder Woman. Joker gets pulled over on accident too. Over the
course of the game other heroes are brought over too but I don’t
want to spoil all the story.
The story mode is broken down into
chapters in which you play as one of the heroes to complete part of
the mission. You fight three or four battles, with pretty long cut
scenes interspersed between the fights. It’s a pretty good set up
and kept my interest the whole time. There are also some cuts where
you have to push buttons at a specific time to complete a goal, like
shooting arrows at Grundy to keep him away. They provide a nice
break up to the game but I’m glad there weren’t too many of them.
The story goes about like you would expect, but there are some good
twists with characters not being who you thought they were and others
switching sides.
So while the story is entertaining
enough, it’s pretty ridiculous. Superman knows it was the Joker
that tricked him but he still goes through with all of it to protect
the earth. Also I forgot to mention he punched through the Joker’s
chest in the beginning when he finds out, while yelling “I am a
man!” Seriously. With the cut scenes going straight into fights,
it makes it hard to put down, because you’re always going for one
more fight, and there is never a stop to push continue or anything,
so you just keep going. The story mode took me about 6 hours to
complete. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back through it again,
but I got it just to be able to do a few fights when I had time so
that’s OK.
Characters
The game comes with 24 characters, with
more to be available later as downloadable content. On the hero side
you have the new 52 Justice League, which includes Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg (suck it
Manhunter!). You also get Captain “My Name Will Never be Shazam”
Marvel, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, Nightwing, and Raven. All good
choices, but rather than Raven I would have liked Vixen. Her powers
would look and play great on the game. On the villains side, you get
Joker, Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, Black Adam,
Ares, Deathstroke, Bane, Doomsday, Harley Quinn, and Killer Frost.
Of those the only one I think I would switch out would be Killer
Frost for Cheetah as the villains are lacking on the speed side.
The characters play differently with
both the kinds of moves that they can do and how they interact with
the environment. Stronger characters have the ability to pick up
objects to smash others with it, while the smaller, faster characters
can jump off of them.
The balance of character is pretty
good, so there isn’t one character that you can use to dominate,
which was a problem with the previous game. For example while
Superman has some moves that will take away a lot of health, they
take a few seconds to pull off so you have time to block them. I’ve
found myself using Nightwing and the Marvel characters the most, but
I’m guessing who you prefer will just depend on how you play.
The biggest surprise to me was that the
designs actually look pretty good in the game. That Batman from
above still looks awful, but the Batman from the other side has a
great costume, so I’m not sure why Mattel went with that design.
Same goes for Supes. The only other design I didn’t care for was
bad guy Flash, who is all armored up and has weird lights/lighting
armor sticking up. Because when you are fast, heavy armor is what
you need. This goes along though with the current Nu52 designs though
with little pieces of armor over everyone (I could write for pages
what I think about those so Ill let it drop).
One more quick note, is Wonder Woman’s
boobs. It was actually distracting during the story mode. I know its
mostly guys playing this game but really? She looks like she should
be airbrushed on the side of a van riding a griffin. (Note to self,
look into airbrush artists and current van prices)
Controls
The controls on this game are great. I
don’t play a lot of fighting games but I was able to pull off a lot
of moves; there are also more complicated ones for people who play a
lot more. The controls are your basic fighting game moves that
anyone who grew up with the arcade fighters know, so it makes picking
the game up and just starting easy. The characters all use the same
combos of buttons for special moves so it makes it fun to try all the
different characters out.
The best thing they did with the
controls were the characters big moves. You fill up a meter and when
the little icon lights up you just pull the two triggers and you get
the big cut scene move. This is great, as it takes away the
frustration of knowing that there is a super awesome move that you
will never figure out how to do because you aren’t a thirteen year
old with thousands of hours of free time and fingers that haven’t
been slowed by time. My favorite is fighting in the Watchtower in
space and having Batman call his Batmobile to run someone ever. Man
- that guy plans for everything.
Graphics
The game looks great. The environments
are one of the real stars of this game and you can tell that a lot of
time went in to their design. You have 12 different arenas, each
with another area you can knock someone into if you hit them in the
right place. You have all the major spots you would expect with the
Hall of Justice, the Batcave, the Fortress of Solitude, and Ferris
Air. The backgrounds are great with Easter eggs, destruction, and
other characters doing their own thing (don’t make eye contact with
the Martian, it just makes him sad). The best part though is how you
can interact with the backgrounds. There is tons of stuff to throw,
break open, or swing on with the push of a button.
Final Thoughts
This game is a ton of fun. I was
surprised how much I enjoyed playing the story and am looking forward
to being able to pick it up and having a quick couple of fights. We
had people over the other night and everyone really liked it and
easily picked it up enough to enjoy playing. I’ve played with the
boys a couple of times and honestly its probably a little too violent
for them. There is some language too that really isn’t necessary,
and just seems stuck in to make them look more “bad” but really
just ends up sounding stupid. I was hoping there was a way to turn
off the blood, but no it’s just there. Ill probably let them play
it some but never the story mode.
Overall I give the game a
4 out 5
Graphics and game play are great, but
at this point for $60 a game has to be amazing to get a 5. I would
recommend waiting to get the game used, at $40 it would be totally
worth it.
There will, of course, be more
characters and environments to download later so there is more to
look forward to. The first announced will be Lobo, who looks great.
I can’t guess who else we will get but I bet it won’t be Martian
Manhunter. Screw that guy.
-Evil
Thanks, Evil! And also:
Side Note: Toys R Us currently has Injusitce on sale for $35. So I guess I'm going to buy it. I don't think I'm going to let Lil' Troublemaker play it, though.
-Phantom
"Nightwing and the Marvel characters the most" is wrong. I think he meant "Mortal Kombat characters."
ReplyDeleteHe is not wrong. He was referring to Captain Marvel and Black Adam. "Marvel" characters. There are no Mortal Kombat characters in this game.
DeleteYeah I can see how that would be confusing. But I still refuse to call him Shazam.
ReplyDeleteHis Super is kinda disappointing. I was expecting something more spectacular than "throw a guy from the sky". Following the throw with a diving smash or a "SHAZAM"/lightning bolt combo would've been awesome.
DeleteI picked up a copy today. I was on the fence until I saw the Toys R Us sale. I don't think I would pay full price but thought it'd be worth $35.
ReplyDeleteI should probably buy this. But it sounds too violent and EDGY for Lil' Troublemaker.
Delete