This morning, around 12:15, I beat Injustice: Gods Among Us on XBox 360. This may not be a big deal to most, but this is the first video game I’ve beaten in about 16 years. You see, I’m not much of a gamer, and the last game I powered through to the end was Super Mario Bros 2 (I beat them out of order: 3, 1, 2). If you’re a long time reader of the site, you might be saying “What about Power Rangers Super Legends?” Well, technically, I never beat it. It just glitched and took me to the ending. Anyway, now that I’ve got this win behind me, I’ve got a few thoughts on the game and the experience.
-When did games become so easy? As I said before, I’m the furthest thing from a “gamer”. Remember, Super Mario Bros 2 came out in 1988 and I didn’t beat it for 9 years. That’s not because I was a slow kid, but mainly because I had no real interest in it after a while. I think Nintendo contributed to my anger management issues, so I’d take year long breaks at a time. Still, NES games took at least a week to beat, and that’s if you were A) GOOD and B) did nothing other than play the game and scour Nintendo Power or the Game Player’s Guide for hints. I, an XBox novice, managed to beat this game within 5 hrs of gameplay. That must mean it took about an hr for the typical gamer. $60 for an hour of fun? I know whores who’ll give you a better return on investment than that!
– I love the Batmobile’s ability to travel anywhere, simply to run over your opponent. In space? No problem. The Batmobile can get there!
– This game made me like Cyborg. He was more…”urban” to me than he ever came across in the comics. Not that that did it for me, but he seemed to actually have more personality than I’d experienced in Titans comics.
– I get most of the alternate universe: good guys are bad, bad guys are good – except Batman. That said, how did Superman get both Black Adam AND Captain Marvel on his side? Hell, how did he get Black Adam on his own? Do I need to read the comic to understand that?
– If you’ve never respected Aquaman, play this game and your opinion will change forever. He is AMAZING.
– I’m really bad at memorizing and executing combos, so I was sure that would keep me from getting far in the game. I couldn’t have been more wrong, which seems almost like a failing of the game. I feel like Doomsday should be harder to beat than simple punches and kicks. I should’ve needed to pull out all the stops, but he was no more difficult to defeat than Sinestro or Grundy. In fact, the only two real challenges are the Batman vs Batman fight, and the Superman vs Superman fight.
– As shitty as the Mattel figures look, the new character designs actually work for me within the confines of the game – even Joker! All of their looks (with the exception of maybe Flash) are functional and make sense within the plot. Like Star Trek‘s Mirror Universe, everything here is dark and “war-ier”, so they should have spikes, armor plates, etc. Mattel just did a terrible job translating them into plastic representations.
– During Wonder Woman’s speech to the Amazons, I got a glimpse of what her fans see in her. It’s probably the best writing she’s had in years, but it still wasn’t enough for me to think she deserves her own movie or TV show. It just goes to show she’d be an integral part of a team project, like a Justice League movie.
-Did NOT see that Nightwing twist coming. If they expand on that in the Injustice comic, I may just have to grab it once it’s collected.
Well, that’s my take on things. I’m new to the whole “next-gen” gaming experience, but I know I need to play more to unlock stuff and earn achievements. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually. Keep in mind I got the 360 as a wedding gift. The wedding was in October, and I’m just now getting around to testing it out. So, check back in a year or so, once everyone has moved on to the X Box One. Ha! I barely got that sentence out. Anyway, what were your thoughts on Injustice? Have you read the comics?
So you definitely completed the ‘story’ mode of Injustice, but considering the depth of the Star Labs missions and the fact that VS fighting games are built for multiplayer, I wouldn’t say you completed the game itself. Hell, there are like 4 or 5 characters you don’t even play as in Story mode. It took me about 4 or 5 hours to do the story mode myself, so don’t think a seasoned gamer would absorb it mich quicker. Actually if you lose a lot during story, the difficulty will adjust automatically so you don’t get stuck.
The value proposition for someone like myself is how much I can dig in and play and learn a handful of characters. That is very high on a game like this. very deep combat system, lots of stuff to learn. The Mortal Komat team at Netherealm made a better game than the last Mortal Kombat, and that game was tournament ready.
But the best thing about Injustice is how friendly it is to the part time or casual gamer. I could button mash and make cool stuff happen a lot. The only other fighting game that did that for me before was the Soul Calibur series.
I really wish there was more costume variations though. Honestly, I’d be happy to pay for some Silver age or Timm styled costumes etc, but so few seem to be coming around and a lot of them are attached to content I’m not interested in like the Joker 3 pack from Killing Joke. I do appreciate they dropped the 1st appearance Doomsday costume (green suit) in a free update last week.