One day Warners will give the general public a reason to care
about a DC property that isn't Batman. This is not that day.
Released April 2013.
Published by Warner Bros. Games.
Developed by Netherrealm Studios.
Version played: Wii U
Fighting games and superheroes really ought to go together like peanut butter and jam...no, wait, I hate peanut butter...and most jams...okay, better turn of phrase: they ought to go together like convenient DNA-altering lab accidents and losing a relative/guardian/love interest. Given that basically every traditional cape comic in existence eventually boils down to a simple good guy versus bad guy showdown, translating those stories into a beat-em-up sounds really simple on paper. But in practice, I can't recall ever being fully satisfied with the results. Yes, I know, Marvel VS. Capcom has a large, long-lived fanbase, but it's...it's a Capcom fighting game through and through, so irrespective of appearances I have never been able to convince myself, in any incarnation of the series, that I'm really playing AS Spider-Man (or whoever). No, I'm controlling someone from Street Fighter that kinda looks like Spider-Man. Superheroes don't just stand 4 feet apart and throw rapid punch-kick combos at each other, they fly, they flip, they shatter the ground with every footfall, hoist 80-ton weights above their head and blast lasers from every orifice! The only game off the top of my head to try and nail that style of battling was EA's Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, which unfortunately falls under the heading of 'A for effort, D for execution'.
And now the artists formerly known as...whatever their team name was at Midway are taking their second stab at Marvel's 'distinguished competition' after Mortal Kombat VS. DC Universe (a game we DO NOT TALK ABOUT EVER except when we mention it like I did just there) with Injustice, which if nothing else has seen a publicity blitz vastly beyond the reach of any other fighter in recent memory. The ads were everywhere, there's a tie-in comic series, there's a whole line of 4" action figures (which I'm sorely tempted to sample, especially since Green Arrow and Deathstroke are pack-buddies) - this is the kind of media saturation normally granted only to AAA shoot-em-ups of the most boring variety, and I've no doubt it'll reflect well on the sales figures. But the question is, will the game prove good enough to keep on rotation for months to come...?
"For the last time, when I asked for a 'sammich', I was being IRONIC - !"
First, the basics. Movement in Injustice feels nearly identical to Mortal Kombat 9, which is to say it's locked to a 2D plane and is quite plodding, albeit in a deliberate rather than unresponsive way. When you tap forwards or backwards, you'll move one fixed 'step' in that direction, no more and no less, as opposed to the more fluid walking found in most Japanese fighters. Ditto for jumps, with the flight arcs of back and forward leaps being pre-planned. For attacks, you have 3 regular strike buttons - Light, Medium, Heavy - plus a 4th button triggering a character-specific buff effect, with the various shoulder buttons used for grabs and the other, wackier stuff. Each fighter has a power meter that charges slightly as they deal damage and moreso if they take hits, and can be used to beef up special moves or (when full) trigger a Super Hyper Cutscene Combo. Rather than the standard 'rounds' found in virtually every other fighter, Injustice instead gives each character 2 full health bars from the go; a brief pause occurs when one bar is emptied, then the fight continues as it was. It's not as big a change as it sounds though it does perhaps make it harder to come back and win if you screw up early on in a battle.
In terms of individual characters, the MK9 influence shows through again as everyone has basically the same standard movelist. Oh, they're animated differently, sure, but the properties - reach, frames, damage - are virtually identical. Press down and Medium with any character and you'll do an uppercut, down and Heavy will be a low sweep hit, and the effect is the same whether you're playing as Killer Frost (icy lingerie model) or Doomsday (Boner Hulk). While I'll grant this helps keep things balanced, it just doesn't sit right with me, and when other games like Tekken, Soul Calibur or even Dead Or Alive try their damndest to present many completely different-handling characters who are still more or less equal in power level, seeing this sort of thing just smacks of laziness. Anyway, with that a non-issue, it's the special moves and buffer powers that differentiate the roster, and they're a more impressive bunch. It's not quite as boringly textbook as MK9 (where it seemed there was a mandate that EVERYONE had to have a projectile attack because otherwise, oh no, how can it possibly be balanced???) (see previous gripe) and the commands are generally based on simple quarter-circle or back-and-forth directions to activate. As for the style and thought behind them, it's a mixed bag. While some characters (the Joker especially) have a variety of interesting specials with fun animations that compliment their persona, there are others where it feels like the devs just kinda gave up. Take Shazam, for example - this is a guy who literally has the combined powers of the greatest heroes of Greek myth, and in the game, he...has electro-hands. That's basically it, just multiple variations of zap. Even Batman, oddly enough, gets short thrift, with 2 of his slots given to such generic toss as a sliding kick and a parry. To a degree, I think this may have been caused by the choices made for the roster - however different Bane, Doomsday and Solomon Grundy are in terms of fiction, in-game they're all just slight variations of Big Strong Guy and I don't understand why they couldn't have ditched at least one of them. (Shazam might also have suffered in this regard, since he's a little too similar to Superman power-wise)
"Nngh...Can't...Fold...Arms...Huge...Gauntlets...Feeling...
Like...Really...Bad...Idea...Now..."
The buff powers separate the characters a little more; they're not all 100% unique (pretty sure Batman and Black Adam have essentially the same one) but there's enough variety to make things interesting. The effects are very widely varying: for example, Superman's power makes him glow red and boosts his base damage, whereas Doomsday gets more boners...uh, more boney...he...he looks weird and becomes invulnerable to knockback and launching for a little while, is what. The pedantic side of me wonders exactly how balanced these powers are - especially since Green Arrow's power, where he just shoots an arrow at the opponent (which is kinda the whole basis of all his special moves) seems to be near-useless - but I've found that it's quite possible to work around and counter each power whenever an opponent triggers one, so I'll give them a pass on that.
Then there's the Super Meter to worry about. Obviously, the main goal is to fill it all the way up and trigger the Super Hyper Cutscene Combo, here taking the place of MK9's X-Ray moves, and though they're certainly not as grisly the SHCCs take cinematic bombast to a whole new level, with many causing the fighters to leave the stage entirely because the maulings unleashed are SO EPIC they can only safely be performed in space or a pocket dimension!...even though they only do about, what, 40% damage, tops. Funny how that works. Some of the sequences are a bit dry compared to others (ultimately, the characters with crazy superpowers will always find funnier ways to f*** people up than those without) but despite my initial fears I'm not growing sick of them after repeated viewings. Single segments of the meter can also be used to enhance any of your fighter's special moves, which generally results in them doing double damage; the fact that you can trigger this after the move hits is a nice change and results in less accidental wasted power. Then there are Clashes, triggered by...you know what, I used this feature so rarely I can't remember what the trigger was. Basically, one player activates them, then both players wager a certain amount of their super-meter, then the fighters smash together and whoever wagered the highest wins. If the initiator wins, they regain lost health; if the defender wins they cause damage; a draw means no change and anyone who wins loses however much super-juice they wagered. It's potentially a lifeline to give a losing player a chance for a comeback, though in practice whenever I get locked into one I just refuse to bet and let the other player get the health regen while I make do with knowing I'll get my SHCC first afterward. The animation is funny but it's very gimmicky and removing it wouldn't hurt the game in the slightest. Oh, and the combo breaker is back, this time with the 'stock' system of limiting its use to 3 times per battle rather than tying it to the super meter a la MK9.
Sinestr-O-face.
24 characters - 12 good, 12 bad - are available to play as right out of the box, with no hidden fighters until the DLC starts hitting. I've already talked about most of the designs in detail, though something I hadn't noticed back then was that every character had an alternate costume right from the start, justified by the alternate-universe concept in the story (which I'll get to in a tick). These costumes reflect each character's role within either the sinister Regime or the scrappy Insurgency, and so head towards either military pomp or dystopian fatigue respectively. Some of these are actually an improvement over the default designs - it's nice that Batman gets a cowl which isn't made from segmented metal plates - but most feature the same failings as the originals, with too many crazy textures, seams and pointy things cluttering some of the most simple, iconic looks in comic history. There's a few upcoming DLC costumes that skew more towards the source material, and it can't be exaggerated just how much nicer they look...and it'll be nice to have alternate costumes that are actually available, too. While there are a scattered few bonus outfits unlocked by in-game progress, most of the bonus suits have been either linked to pre-order campaigns or used as incentives for purchasing the Injustice iOS mobile game and starting some sort of WB Games account. Do I even need to say that I hate this trivial monetising crap locking away game content just because it can? Because I reaaaallly hate it. Anyway, graphically the character models are...alright, though up-close the amount of jaggy edges and blurred textures is disappointing - and after DOA5 and TTT2, pretty shocking.
In a reversal of DOA5 though, what the characters lack in presentation the stages make up for. Cities, space stations, courtrooms and labs, interiors and exteriors, they all look fabulous and are positively bursting with colour and just the right amount of motion to be fun without distracting from the action in the foreground. Additionally, each level has its fair share of interactive elements; bits of foreground furniture can be smashed, thrown, leaped from or otherwise vandalised to your advantage, and most stages are multi-tiered, with a back + Heavy strike propelling the opponent through a fun animation that gets them to the other level in the most circuitous manner imaginable - my favourites being a trip into the Phantom Zone through the Fortress of Solitude stage, and the Hall of Justice's Boom Tube portal that transports the opponent to Apokolips so Darkseid can wail on them for a bit. One other nice touch - and this is really my favourite even though it's purely cosmetic - is that as the fighters exchange hits in the foreground, elements of the background shatter and break in sync with each impact, which is a neat way of getting across the idea that there's some serious building wrecking oomph behind each shot these crazy people are taking. If I have any real problem with the stages it's simply a matter of clutter; what with all the gimmicks attached to the basic fighting system, having to remember all that AND manoeuvre yourself to best take advantage of the stage's features is a hell of a lot to keep in mind mid-fight. Another reason they should have just ditched Clash...anyway, the levels are good. Well, mostly. Okay, this is a nerd issue, but I think it'd be nicer if there was a little more variety as far as inspiration goes; I mean, there's 5 stages all based around Batman and his mythos, and with guys like Flash and Shazam getting zero love in that regard, that really feels like overkill. Not to mention some of the ideas are a little dull - of all the weird and wonderful places that are important to the Green Lantern story, his 1 stage is...a brown hangar? Uhm...wow. (note to nerds: yes, I do know the significance of this particular hangar; no, I still don't consider it interesting when we could've had Oa or Qward or Ysmault or whatever)
The main draw for single players is Story mode, and it's structured much like it was in MK9 - multiple chapters each focusing on a different character, all part of a single narrative - albeit with the welcome addition of chapter select and the more dubious appearance of quick-time event interludes before certain fights that affect how much health you and your opponent begin with. These get a little challenging but are very basic, and frankly don't feel like they were worth the effort taken to include. As for the story itself...ergh. Basically, the core Justice League characters, when fighting to stop the Joker from detonating a nuke in Metropolis, find themselves transported to a parallel Earth 5 years in the future, where everything is a super-fascist nightmare. The reason? Hold onto your brains: this time, the Joker synched his nuke to Lois Lane's heartbeat, then had Superman drugged with hallucinogenic gas that made him see his girlfriend/wife as Doomsday, causing him to kill her by accident, and by proxy kill everyone in the city he's protected his whole life. Driven mad by the grief, Supes kills the Joker (and Green Arrow, for...some reason) and declares martial law, while Batman heads up an underground resistance movement and doesn't kill anyone because Batman must ALWAYS have the moral high ground. Even when 'stopping the Joker's reach extending beyond Gotham' is basically the one thing anyone asks him to do and he completely, utterly failed at it, so this whole mess is basically on his head. Anyway, Mirror Batman needs 'our' Justice League to help him make a Kryptonite gun so he can kill Superma - no, no, wait, he's totally not going to kill him, just, y'know, poison him with the one thing that can kill him. Much better. Look, despite some very nice presentation (the animation in cutscenes is spot-on) the whole narrative is bloody atrocious and full of perplexing character beats that'll have even half-hearted comics fans tearing their hair out through frustration (perfect example: 'good' Superman vapourising occupied cars with his heat vision, not giving a damn for the passengers) and the voice acting is only okay at best. On the plus side, Doomsday gets a Kryptonian dog collar and a Forehead Boner which he uses to knock over a series of skyscrapers like a row of dominoes. Suffice to say, if the best moment in the game is Doomsday's Forehead Boner, something has gone wrong.
From the opening cutscene, where Joker dares to suggest
that the Donner Cut of Superman II was actually inferior to the
theatrical version.
Beyond the story, the Battle option provides more traditional fighting game solo play in various forms. There's a 'classic' arcade ladder that pits you against randomly-selected opponents of increasing skill (or no skill if you set the difficulty to Very Easy) before finishing with a scrap against Mirror Superman. Beat him to unlock your chosen character's ending, which vary from simplistic to baffling (some are set in the 'real' universe, some in mirror-land, and there's little rhyme or reason as to which is which) and are done in the slightly-animated art form used in past MK games...so they're not really worth the effort, all told. Additional Battle modes allow you to fight against strictly heroes or villains, try some survival mode, fight while your health bar constantly decreases and so on, with more than 15 other variations open for unlocking in the extras menu. The MK9 Challenge Tower returns as S.T.A.R. Labs mode, offering a (very) long chain of character-specific trials that force you to fight with special handicaps or use special moves and smart motion for less-obvious purposes. It's still a welcome addition, though without such a variety of unlockables tied to it (just bonus XP to be traded in for concept art showing the evolution of Doomsday's Boners and other less interesting stuff) it doesn't hold the attention quite so well, and the attempts to graft a narrative to the missions are flimsy. The other fight options are self-explanatory: single fight (you vs. CPU), versus (local) and online. I'd love to comment thoroughly on the online setup, but I haven't actually bothered with it yet - not an issue with the game, I just find multiplayer less enjoyable when I can't physically smack the other player upside the head when they play cheap.
Another thing I tend to do to button-mashing scrubs.
Except I use a Wii nunchuk cable instead of a grapple-gun.
Verdict: While I think its heart is in the right place, and if nothing else it's a quantum leap beyond MKvsDC, Injustice still doesn't give me the real superhero fighting experience I've been after for so long now. That much of the game's skeleton is shared with MK9 isn't much of a help, as that title's stiff movement - fitting and nostalgia-inducing in its intended environment - couldn't really be further removed from "Look! Up in the sky!" and the associated freedom and wonder. Taken on its own merits strictly as a fighter, it's solid, but buries some of its strengths beneath needless gimmicks. It's not hard to pick up for first-timers and there's enough depth for skilful players to flex, but it doesn't quite hit the organic sweet-spot of a Tekken or Virtua Fighter where it starts to feel like you're crafting your own combos unique from the game; by comparison, Injustice demands you stick to its script and only improvise when it tells you to. It's probably going to be the style and presentation which'll win people over with this game, and not undeservedly - taken in full it's a glossy, shiny DC love-letter made of punches (though the music could be a whole lot better) and that in itself is worthy of applause. But, on balance, I expect this disc to be gathering dust in 2 months' time, like MK9 before it. 7.5 out of 10 - the extra .5 given since I'll probably never get to talk about Doomsday Boners on here again.
"STOP TALKING ABOUT MY BONERS RRAAARRGH!"
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