zwolanerd

Yesterday the demo for Injustice: Gods Among us was released for Xbox (and, presumably, PS3 and who knows what else). I’ve had my eye on this one for a while, so I downloaded it and ran through it. First of all, though, let’s clear up what it is, exactly. From the official site:

What if our greatest heroes became our greatest threat? Injustice: Gods Among Us introduces a bold new franchise to the fighting game genre from NetherRealm Studios, creators of the definitive fighting game Mortal Kombat. Featuring DC Comics icons such Batman, Cyborg, The Flash, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Solomon Grundy, Superman and Wonder Woman, the latest title from the award-winning studio presents a deep original story. Heroes and villains will engage in epic battles on a massive scale in a world where the line between good and evil has been blurred.

Short version: DC comicbook heroes and villains beating the snot out of each other, Mortal Kombat-style (have we already talked about Psy doing that one yet?  I’m sure someone has, but I refuse to look it up). There already was a Mortal Kombat vs. DC game a few years back, and it was fine, I guess.  This one is a bit more interesting to me because it’s just straight-up DC characters unleashed on each other.

The demo lets you play as either Batman or Wonder Woman, and you fight four other characters: Batman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor (in a power suit), and Doomsday. Sure, it’s a little stretch to have all these characters equal enough in power to battle each other, but it’s amazing how quickly you can get past that in your mind and just get to the fighting. The environments are detailed and interactive, something I realized right around the time Wonder Woman picked up the Bat Signal and bashed me with it.  The moment was tinged with both “That ain’t right!” and “Whoa, cool!”

Each character has a special super move that becomes available once you’ve done enough damage to fill the meter. It’s very easily activated by holding the left and right triggers at the same time, something I appreciate very much. I am, for some reason, completely unable to do combos in fighting games. I can do moves like forward, back, A, but anything under the Combos list is literally something I cannot do. Anyway, I absolutely loved the four super moves in the demo:

• Batman: Tasers the opponents neck with two tasers, and the backflips jsut in time for the Batmobile to come roaring through and smacking the opponent
• Wonder Woman: two fellow Amazons come out and hold the opponent and do do various damage with WW doing some pretty sever hitting as well
• Lex Luthor: fiddles with a mechanism on his wrist that calls down a laser from a satellite which he channels with his suit towards his opponent for a massive explosion which can be seen from space
• Doomsday: pummels his opponent down through the ground for what looks like miles, into some water, and then back up through the ground (but not the same tunnel he just made!) back to the fighting arena.

Along with that, at one point I knocked an opponent off the top of the Gotham Police Station, and at the same time as he was hitting the wall on the building across the alley, he also got hit by a wrecking ball. Then he and the wrecking ball fell down through the street below where he ended up on a subway track, whereupon he was smacked by a subway that then fell through the hole created by the wrecking ball and into a new fighting area.  It sounds crazy, but I loved the spectacle of it.

Once you run through the demo once, there’s a montage of characters, arenas, and action showcasing what all else the game has in store.  Aside from the 24 (or so) characters and the multiplayer, it looks like there are a bunch of minigame-type things to do as well.

I very rarely buy brand new games at full price – I just can’t afford to, unfortunately. This game looks like it will go in the very next purchasing tier, though, which consists of actively looking for cheap used copy as soon as possible (as opposed to the “oh, hey, maybe I’ll get this game since it’s cheap” method), maybe renting it, or convincing a friend to buy it so I can borrow it from him. That last part sounds like I’m a mooch, but I return the favor when I do buy full-price new stuff, which does happen when it’s Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, or a Lego game, so it’s not as bad as all that.

Now, if someone out there wants to get me a review copy, I’d be happy to oblige with a review, certainly.

Tags: demo review

Written by: Mark