Injustice: Gods Among Us Review

Welcome my friends to my very first video game review. Here we see Ed Boon and Neatherrealm Studios, best known for the Mortal Kombat series, take on the DC Universe(or in this case, the DC Multiverse) once again(they had previously done a crossover game with Mortal Kombat.).

So here’s the games story. On another earth, the Joker drugs Superman which causes him to attack Lois, thinking she’s Doomsday. As a result, he kills her, as well as their unborn son, and sets off a nuclear bomb that destroys all of Metropolis. Filled with rage, Superman kills the Joker and proceeds to take control of the entire planet, establishing a one earth government. After a few years, Batman brings a few members of another earths Justice League, as well as their Joker by accident, to help take down Superman’s Regime.

The story mode is fantastic. For one, the voice cast is awesome. But that should be expected since a good portion of it are alums from the DC animated series’. You got George Newbern as Superman, Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman, Tara Strong as Harley Quinn and Raven, Khary Parton as Cyborg, and of course, the definitive voice of the Dark Knight himself, Kevin Conroy. All that’s missing is Mark Hamill voicing the Joker, though this game did come out when Hamill was in his “retirement” from playing the character, but newcomer Richard Epcar does a great job in the role. It’s also kinda disappoint that Maria Canals-Barrera didn’t return to voice Hawkgirl, but she doesn’t play that large a role in the story anyway, so it’s not that big a deal.

We also got a lot of new additions like Adam Baldwin as Green Lantern, J.G. Hertzler as Deathstroke and Ares, and Neal McDonough as the Flash and Damian Wayne. But the true standout of the game is Alan Tudyk as Green Arrow. He’s freakin hilarious. I actually wouldn’t mind a Green Arrow solo game with him in the role. I’m looking at you Rocksteady.

What I love about the story mode is that it feels less like a video game and more like an interactive blockbuster. Despite the 5 hour campaign(give or take how long you take with the actual gameplay), it has extremely good pacing and there’s a lot of great character interactions. I really don’t know what to say about the story mode other than it’s great. If your not much of a gamer, I suggest you look up Injustice: Gods Among Us story mode to watch all the cut scenes. I’m surprised DC hasn’t any direct to DVD animated movies based on the prequel comics, which I haven’t read yet, but have heard are really good.

But at the same time, I think there was a missed opportunity regarding the final battle. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s awesome to see 2 Supermen duke it out. But the thing is, there’s not a whole lot of emotional investment in the fight. The good Superman only comes into the main story in the last chapter. And there’s never any point where the good Superman talks about the possibility of him becoming like the evil Superman, apart from when the alternate earth Batman says that he’ll come for him if he goes bad. If anything, the final battle should’ve been between the alternate earths Batman and Superman. I’m sure they’ll have a big showdown in the sequel, but since Brainiac is the main villain, it clearly won’t be the final battle. But that’s not that big a deal. It’s just an idea.

Now let’s talk about the gameplay, which is awesome. Every character has unique fighting styles, special abilities called traits and super moves. The trait is different for every character. Some are weapon changes, others are just unblockable moves, etc. For example, Superman activates a sun shield that minimizes damage for a limited amount of time, Batman summons 3 flying batarangs that fly at your opponent, Wonder Woman switches between using her lasso and using a sword and shield, Deathstroke’s makes all his gun shots completely accurate, etc. But the real treat is the Super move. These are 10 second unblockable moves that inflict a ton of damage. But be careful when you use it. Each character gets two bars of health and if you use the supermove when your opponent is at only a tiny amount of health left on their first bar, it will just wipe out that last bit and it won’t show the full move.

One of my favorite aspects of the game is the skins. These are alternate costumes that a lot of which are based on famous comic storylines and some are even alternate characters. For example, one of the Joker skins is the Tourist Joker from The Killing Joke. And one of the skins for Green Lantern is the John Stewart Green Lantern.

My favorite character to play is Deathstroke. Am doing if you know me, that shouldn’t surprise you since he’s my favorite comic book character. And I love that he plays such a big part in the story mode. My favorite skin for him is the Red Son Deathstroke skin. I just love the look with the gas mask and the coat. It looks awesome. I’m honestly sad that he’s apparently not coming back for the new one.

Injustice: Gods Among Us is probably the game that got me back into gaming. It has an amazing storyline with fantastic voice acting, and awesome gameplay. Injustice: Gods Among Us gets a 9/10.

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