Injustice : Gods Amoung Us
I went out of my way to read all the Injustice series as they were putting out the comics (tie-in). It was enough to get me to really pay attention to the game when it came out.
It’s been a bit, so most people have had more than enough time to play it and get to know the game. It’s the kind of game that appeals to me because I really don’t have to 
think too hard about it. It’s a fighter that I can drop in and out of real quickly. my girls love fighting games too and a superhero fighting game with Daddy is just one of their favorite things ever.
One of the other things that makes it so noticeable is that it’s a DC game. Good DC games are few and far between. Marvel still cranks them out with regularity (though not quite as often as I remember them doing in my Genesis days) but DC seems to have problems making anything that doesn’t have the words “Batman” or “Arkham” really work outside the comics.
The new costumes are neat, and not something I’m going to get up in arms about. It’s an HD video game, they want some more grain and texture on them. I’m not
expecting exact duplicates of what we see in the comics- though I will say the Injustice comic prequel really did better jobs on the costumes. In fact, I prefer the Injustice comic version of Superman’s costume to the New 52 version even. I’m not digging the shape of Batman’s mask and evil Flash looks downright silly – still Flash can be a hard costume to get right. The lightning motif keeps it right on the edge of cool or lame as it is, and it doesn’t take much to push it all the way to silly.
The Flash TV show got it right. The JLA pilot….not so much.
Another interesting thing about the look – while Lex Luthor does don the armor occasionally, he spends most of the game looking like Lex Luthor : CEO of Lexcorp. I LOVE that. Even more interesting to me is that they seem to have patterned his face after Bruce Willis. Maybe that’s just me, but seriously, other than those eyebrows….
The other thing about the game that’s very standout is the Joker. He’s actually a playable character at one point in the game, and that’s unique in of itself. It’s not Mark Hamil though, and believe me, he is missed. This isn’t Richard Epcar’s first time out as the Joker – he previously did the voice in DC vs. Mortal Kombat. You can see right away he’s doing something very similar to Hamil, and that’s cool. There are a lot of moments, every few sentences where you hear an inflection that tells you it’s not Hamil, but considering how long he did it, this is to be expected. I think it’s really col that they are trying to keep a similar style, instead of going a completely different direction. The Joker has some of the best lines in the game – “Why does she hate Pancakes?” was one of my favorites.
When we come down to it, my only real problem with the game is simple : We’ve seen this story before. Justice league or JLA from alternate universe is evil and good JLA has to defeat them. It’s been done a hundred times- heck, it’s even been done before in the game world. Remember Justice League task force for Genesis and Super NES? Still, it’s a very minor gripe. After all, this is a fighting game, and the storyline, while derivative, is well done. Far better done than I would expect coming from a video game anyhow.
The replay is alright, though I’m not sure how often I’ll return to it. I can’t see myself going through story mode again, and I don’t really have the stick-to-itness to unlock all the characters, but standard Vs mode is always around for a quick pick up and go when I’m not drawing Violent Blue…. in fact, I think I hear Superman calling my name right now!
Since I’m not going out tonight, I thought we’d look back at a game a couple of months ago.
I was really trying for a Mad Scientist/Robot team. The game was 1000 points and each figure needed to be over 100 points. I’m really not used to playing with such high numbers, but it gave me a chance to use some figures I normal hold in reserve. I decieded against using the 300 point Superman, because if Caff over at Get’em comics taught me anything, it’s that Superman is just a target with a great big “Kick Me” sign on his back. I really wanted to try to fit Supergirl in there though. I just couldn’t fit her in – that’s okay, I ended up using her the next time (see the previous Clix Heros post “girly clix”). I threw in all my iron man suits including FCBD War machine (love this piece) and Iron Patriot. My Hulk had really busted some heads a couple of weeks earlier at the sealed tourny so I wanted to try him again with a Hulk robot. The Lex and Braniac figure had served me well in the past too.
All in all, I though I had a good team going.
Then Aaron busted out his GALACTUS figure. Remeber wha I said earlier about Superman having a great big “Kick Me” sign on his back? Yeah. It looked like the plan was immediately going to become dogpile on Galactus.
It ended up with me and Jesse really trying to get that last hit in on Galactus. Jesse distracted me by tossing a Juggernaut my way, but I don’t really think it made that much difference, it was roll of the dice. He ended up taking Galactus off the board, but it was still a blast to actually play against the giant.
I kind of wonder though, what the discussion between Lex Luthor and Tony Stark was just before that team up, don’t you? I think it would have gone a little like this:
Halloween, Heroclix and the Weekend
Had a really nice time last night playing Heroclix with the guys over at Get ‘Em Comics getem-comics–games.webstorepowered.com/ref=sample_one. I was surprised at how well my Brainiac/Lex Luthor duo figure worked. I’ve heard nothing but smack talk about it over at HCrelms, but this was a nice tank. It ended up being my last piece standing, and one of the final three pieces on the board. To be fair, I do think the guys were taking it easy on me, and I got some incredibly lucky dice rolls (three or four times in a row, I hit EXACTLY what I needed). But not bad for a figure I got mostly for fanboy reasons, not strategic ones.
Speaking of fanboys, I’ve got David Tennant hair today and couldn’t be in a better mood. I’m going to goth out a little for the Hallowen party tonight and then take the girls on a Halloween walk at the park. Hope your weekends are just as good. If you’re in the Cleveland area, don’t forget about 12 Hours of Terror at the Capitol Theatre. I’ll be the one in the Saw shirt (they were giving them away last year) with the Superman blanket and He-Man pillow. Got my commentary for Fulchi’s Zombie already cued up on my iPod.
After all, you’re going to need something to get your mind off of Violent Blue’s cliffhanger today….
Argo City Comics 