It’s Wednesday, therefore it’s Comic Book Wednesday, and it’s a video game I only recently bought and haven’t had much time to play (although I have played it to completion on my friends’ console), so I figured I’d combine two of my favourite things in the world – comic books and video games – into a Comic Book Wednesday post with a difference.
So, to make this a little different I’m planning a quick review of the game, and a few clips of game play so you can see how much I suck at it right now. How’s that sound?
The Story
Having played the first Injustice (finally) I have to say that I wasn’t all that into the story. Ok, so it was a decent story, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve heard people raving about the game for years and I expected something far, far better if I’m honest. I liked the idea of a world where Superman turned bad, finding the evil version of Superman was actually a character I enjoyed more than the good version. See, the thing is I’m not too much of a Superman fan. You know all those normal arguments people make against the character? Yeah, I’m with them I’m afraid. He IS overpowered, his rogues gallery is good but it pales in comparison to Batman’s, and all the movies and TV shows basically come down to “it’s Superman vs Lex Luthor, but oh no, Lex has kryptonite, but don’t worry because Superman wins in the end”. Maybe what I’m mad at is the poor writing of the films, but… yeah, I’m not in love with the character.
So, in this world Superman loses his mind after Joker tricks him into killing Lois and goes on a killing spree? Somehow I find Superman as the villain of a story better than Superman as the hero of one. After all, he’s overpowered, he has very few weaknesses, and he’s rather boring. That makes him a great villain for someone like Batman to come up against. If the game focused more on that, and less on the fact that a bunch of heroes from another world had to figure out what was going on and then call in their Superman to beat this Superman then I’d probably have enjoyed it a lot more. So, with that in mind, when I learned the story of Injustice 2… I was far more on board with it. This is, after all, set in the world where Superman has seized power after losing his mind with grief and going dark, and this world doesn’t rely on a host of off-world heroes to save the day, this world has it’s own heroes who team up to do what needs to be done. Far, far more fun, in my opinion.
Plus, I may dislike Superman intensely, but I’ve always loved Supergirl. So the fact that she’s a huge part of the plot, the fact that she’s been told the story as Wonder Woman and Superman see it from their perspective and has every reason just to go all psycho like her cousin but doesn’t, makes the Supergirl of this world just as awesome as the Supergirl of any other world. Plus, playing as the character is quite a lot of fun. I’ve played a few games while recording these videos and Supergirl may actually have been my favourite while playing, and was by far my favourite while I was around my friend’s place playing on his console. In fact, originally I think she was the only one I could actually win with (not that I play PVP. Are you kidding? I can’t even nail actual moves with any accuracy yet, so I have no chance of doing anything besides a few combos against another player…).
On that note…
Video Time
Yep, it’s a fight of me as Supergirl. Had to be done. The opponent is one of my favourite characters in the game, so I’m so very glad that he’s in it (plus, you know, a flying evil cat as a sidekick just scores you major points in my book).
As you can see, I’m not exactly a natural, but at least I won, right? That’s more than could be said when I took on Batman in my first fight as Supergirl and he utterly kicked my ass.
The Gameplay
The gameplay is nothing extraordinary. I used to play a lot of fighting games when I was younger, from Street Fighter to the Tekken series, with a particular love of the Tekken series, along with stuff like Marvel vs Capcom, and this game took me back to those days. I do remember being far better at actually doing moves on a regular basis, especially nailing the fireballs as Ryu, but apparently I suck at that now. Hopefully I can get the timing down in the future and actually improve on it, as right now I swear half the time I do a particular attempted move I end up just swinging a random punch in the air, and another time I’ll do a really cool move without even trying to do it.
So, the gameplay isn’t revolutionary, but there’s some nice bits to it. For example, I like the fact that you can interact with the world around you. I love the fact that you can pick up and hurl certain things in the background at your opponents… although I learned tonight that you shouldn’t spend so much time trying to do that for a cool video moment that you end up getting your butt kicked. I also like the stage transitions. It’s very cool you can knock someone through a wall or off the screen and they end up taking a bunch of damage as they fall or bounce or even get transported to other worlds temporarily, only to wind up in another part of the same setting. And some of the transitions are just really, really cool as well. I’m particularly fond of the elevator one, or smashing someone into the back of the truck and watching them get blown out of it and through the wall behind you, taking a bunch of damage in the process. Of course it’s a lot less fun when the computer does it to you.
The best thing about this game though, much like the best thing about the first game, may well be the special moves. Supergirl’s I particularly love, along with Batman’s. There’s just something very cool about Batman’s, but I don’t like doing it too often as I’m worried overusing it will ruin it’s fun. I seem to recall Wonder Woman having a better one in the first game than this one, although I do quite like her new one (although I’m disappointed you can’t switch between lasso and sword/shield in the sequel like you could in the original). I’m still not quite sure what to do when it comes to super moves either. Sometimes I use them just to catch up to the computer when it’s kicking my butt – although inevitably it then does the recharge health thing and since I have no super bar left it always just gets its health back, damn cunning thing – but there’s something magical about leaving it until the end and finishing the fight like that, isn’t there? I wish there was a different “ending” when you did that though, rather than the computer getting back up then falling down again. For Injustice 3 they should work on a different transition from super move to end of fight than the regular end of fight transition.
Video Time Again
This one was my last fight, and originally I was going to play AS Cyborg against Robin but I figured since I love Damien a weirdly inappropriate amount (have you seen the animated movie “Son of Batman”? If not, go watch it and tell me after that you don’t just love Damien too) I’d try playing as him instead… which then sucked as I realised he has no double-square combo to speak of.
Also, is it just me or is Cyborg really, really cool in this game? He reminds me so much of the Teen Titans animated TV show version, which I just loved as well. I just hope the movie version is half as good, but that’s a different story for another time.
The Graphics & Design
Ok, now for my final bit of review for this game, it’s going to be my single favourite thing about this game: IT’S BEAUTIFUL! I absolutely love the way it looks, I love the costumes, I love the stages… honestly, part of the reason I bought it at all is that I just love to look at it. I watched my friend playing it for hours and just enjoyed the experience of watching the different characters and the story unfold possibly more than actually playing it myself. That’s the one area of the game that I can’t fault. The fact that you can “win” custom costume pieces as well to change the characters’ appearances to make them look like alternate versions of themselves only adds to how cool the design and the look of the game is. The movie costume for Wonder Woman, for example, is really, really nice to look at.
Even the voice acting in the game is top notch, from the voice acting in the cut scenes to the voice acting for the characters at the beginning of the fights, and having been through some of the combinations I do love the exchanges between certain characters as well. You get the very serious ones, like when Supergirl comes face to face with Superman, or when Batman and Superman square up, but then you get the truly funny ones like Supergirl facing Atrocitus or the truly funny exchange between Black Canary and Green Arrow when they meet up. Honestly, if I didn’t like Oli in the game so much more than Dinah I’d want to kick his ass. Can you believe he didn’t book a sitter? That’s just wrong, man. What, you expect her do it? She had to get ready to kick your ass. All you did was throw on a green jacket with a hood. Pfft, you have no idea how hard it is to be a fabulous looking, butt-kicking super-woman.
In all seriousness however, if you take nothing else away from this blog then take the fact that this is a good game. I rate it higher than the first one on pretty much every front, from the fact that the story is more creative and exciting to the fact that the graphics just blow the first one away in terms of the way it looks, they’ve put so much more thought into the “extras” in the game to keep you playing it beyond just completing the story and being done with it, and they’ve added some truly awesome characters. Now if they’d add some of the “legacy” characters from the first game back in again – honestly, there are a few that I wish they’d add that they had in the first one, but I may save that for another blog entry – as DLC characters then it would round out the game to an even higher level. So, don’t take the fact that I suuuuuck at the game as any indication that the game doesn’t actually suck at all, and if you like a good beat ‘em up and you’re a fan of DC comics in any way, shape or form then check it out.