Let's Talk... Injustice: Gods Among Us

For anyone who’s played the 2011 Mortal Kombat title, parts of Injustice will feel wholly familiar. NetherRealm Studios makes no attempt to hide the fact that they made the 2011 blockbuster. The excessive super move clone the madness of MK’s fatalities, the graveyard-like challenge mode, and King of the Hill and Survivor online modes make the game feel very similar to MK. But it’s the game’s crazy environmental interaction and hilariously over-the-top super moves that make Injustice also feel like a separate game from MK.

This game may as well be called Batman vs. Superman, because that's pretty much all it is

At first glance the combo system appears to be relatively simplistic, but behind the accessible button combinations and easy-to-activate super moves there lies a reasonably high learning curve. Combos use a three button system that essentially has you mixing light, medium and heavy attacks along with your standard uppercuts and air-based juggling. It’s this simplistic control scheme that allows new players to easily chain powerful combos whilst simultaneously opening the door for more experienced players to do perform some seriously crazy combos. The game also just straight up provides you with a moves list on the pause menu for whichever character you’re playing as. It’s some of the deeper and more complex areas, like the clash system that allows you to wager parts of your EX meter for either health or damage, are what prevent it from feeling too simple and certainly keep it from getting stale.

Along with the combo system, each character has their own character power button which will activate whatever their character-specific power happens to be. For example, Deathstroke’s button will increase the effectiveness of his abilities by giving him longer bursts of gunfire for a few seconds, and Wonder Woman’s will swap her Lasso with a sword and shield. Whilst some have a very basic effect, such as Superman’s, will simply increase damage done.

There's a decent amount of playable characters, of whom I have heard of none.

The game also has a fondness for environmental chaos in the form of environmental interactions, such as kicking dudes into a helicopter that’s just hanging out in the background, that give the game a great 2.5D feel. There are also ways of knocking your opponent straight through the environment into entirely different arenas, some which are pretty incredible. The one for Arkham Asylum, for example, has you throw the opponent through a wall into the Scarecrow’s cell, to then have him inject him/her with his special stuff and then proceed to crush him as an 80 foot tall nightmare. The same craziness goes for the game’s amazing super moves which really are one of the best parts of the game.

The story mode uses a formula almost identical to the later Mortal Kombat games. The narrative has you play as a series of different characters fighting 3 or 4 opponents before moving onto the next dude. Naturally, the story throws you into fight after fight with every character imaginable, and the seamless transition between cutscenes and fights is truly impressive. The story itself is a little crazy and it can be extremely hard to keep track of all the different factions, the different versions of different characters, which is the good Batman, and just generally what an earth is going on, especially if your DC knowledge is as profoundly limited as mine.

The game's hilariously over the top super moves are one of the best things this game has going

If you can follow it, however, the story generally creates enough of a setup to have Batman fight Superman, which is really all you need for a fighting game. It essentially has Evil Superman become a tyrannical dictator and wrecking the Earth, because he’s evil and that’s what evil does. Naturally, every single character in the DC Universe is drawn into the fight and you’re left with two, interchangeable it would appear, factions of good and bad doing lots of fighting. It’s a good length for a fighting game story mode, and balance between cutscenes and actual is pretty nicely split.

In terms of multiplayer, Injustice has a lot of the traditional MK online game modes and features to offer. A King of the Hill game mode allows a room of up to 8 players battle it out to see who the best player is. Whoever beats the king cashes in the exp reward, and spectators can bet on fighters for additional exp. Exp is, of course, used to level up and earn more character skins and profile customisation. There’s also an online practice mode that allows players to demonstrate moves and combos to each other, which is a neat addition. Alongside all that there’s an online Survivor mode, which is effectively the same as King of the Hill except players do not regenerate health after each round.

The game's online King of the Hill mode, where players can bet against who will beat the King

There’s also a challenge mode not too dissimilar to the graveyard mode from MK. There are dozens of challenges that include every character in the game, with each character having around 10 challenges each, which have you doing all kinds of crazy things. Like winning a match without jumping whilst fire bursts out of the ground in random spots, or more obscure ones like slice a bunch of debris flying towards you without being hit 5 times. It makes a nice break from standard fights and the challenges actually tell their own smaller stories, although a lot of them are extremely rudimentary scenarios like “the bad guys escaped from Arkham Asylum! Beat ‘em up!”.

The game’s character models look pretty great (although in cutscenes they loom a little muddy) and the various crazy environments look sharp. The game’s has some satisfying sound design, with some nice physicality to the impacts, and some of the story’s voice acting is pretty hit or miss: some of voices are a pretty great (Kevin Conroy retains his role as Batman) and some could certainly be better. As for the game’s control scheme, its simplistic nature gives the game a refreshing accessibility for a fighting game, but some of the movement feels a little sluggish and a little slow for my liking.

There's a nice variety to the arenas, each of which features two different starting areas and can be freely transitioned between during a fight 

Overall, Injustice manages to excellently balance accessibility with depth to create an experience that is both manageable for newcomers and complex and intense for more seasoned veterans. Its unique combo system makes it stand out from the crowd, and the ridiculous nature of both the excessive environmental interactivity and the incredibly ludicrous super moves make the game appealing on their own. The wealth of online modes and features and the reasonably lengthy story mode maintains the game’s appeal for a good long while.