Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Everything I know about the Marvel universe, I know because I beat it up with Mega Man,
Morrigan, Tron Bonne and Phoenix Wright. That�s my point of contact. By comparison, I came
into Injustice with only the most passing knowledge of DC Comics (which I�m to understand
is, itself, a redundancy) and a long-since-lapsed grasp of the mechanics of the Mortal Kombat
family. Injustice didn�t care. It sat there in its self-confidence, knowing that it�s
a quality fighting game with an intriguing storyline. I just had to open my mind enough
to realize it. I had to discard my deathgrip on the StreetFighter-slash-KOF-slash-GuiltyGear
quartercirclery I know and love. I had to care about these characters I�d only tangentially
heard of. And in the end, Frankly, it wasn�t all that difficult.
An act of chaotic supervillainry like, say, the Joker detonating a nuclear weapon in Metropolis
is exactly the kind of thing every superhero aims to stop. And, sure enough, every one
of them tried to stop it. Problem is, you get that much awesomeness into a condensed
area, and things start to get a bit wonky. Extradimensional chasms may be opened. A dystopian
alternate-universe might be encountered. Friends might be enemies, enemies might be friends,
and you yourself might fight you yourself all paradox-like. Comic Books 101, really.
What matters is that the action scenes - played today by head-to-head 2D fights - are freaking
awesome. A couple things have changed, but the basic gist is the same it�s ever been:
Beat up on your opponent until their health bar depletes. But, as this is part of the
Mortal Kombat lineage as opposed to the Japanese style more popular in the genre, there�s
more directional inputs and less stick-spinning circle-fractions. And then, just for good
measure, there�s a whole extra layer of complexity, like follow-up attacks on your
superpowers, really fleshed-out character-specific mechanics that make Order Sol and Zappa look
like chumps, and crap on the ground or in the vicinity that can be utilized in your
assault.
And that�s where the game sold me. Yes, in competitive situations you�re probably
not going to want wild shifts in terrain or grenades popping up on the ground. But you
have the option to have those things, and I think it makes for the kind of wild experience
that befits such heroic characters. Over-the-top, crazy attacks make a game like Injustice that
much more entertaining, and if you can do it while retaining some semblance of balance,
so much the better. Add in a solid roster out of the box (with the now-obligatory DLC
fighters coming soon), an extensive mission mode that rewards technical accomplishment,
and what amounts to a bajillion or so arcade-style challenges, and you might just get me to buy
a comic book. Despite, y�know, the fact that print is dead.