RETRO – Whether the American comic book’s heroes are gods, and what is „Injustice” in the makers of Mortal Kombat’s latest video game is a bit tricky. However, it is undeniable that NetherRealm has created something big and fantastic. Welcome to the world of DC Comics, where everyone meets with everyone: Batman needs to defend Joker from Superman. Meanwhile, Green Lantern is fighting with his alternative reality version, and many other such strange things occur in this game.

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were the first 2D fighter games, and even though technology has moved on to realistic 3D graphics, we still reach back for the good old recipe. Although the fighting games advanced a lot in graphics, the 2D view remained, but we get a half-measure. Due to this, we get a sort of 2.5D mode which has been dominating the recent fighting games such as Street Fighter, King of Fighters, and the newest Mortal Kombat series. The same 2.5D style is used in Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Joker’s Punchline did not bode well with Supes…

Before we would get into the mysteries of the gameplay, let us look at what NetherRealms has for us regarding a story, to play the campaign mode. After the especially abysmal Mortal Kombat story mode, I was interested to see how they will lure me to complete the story. The good news is that the story writers were able to provide us with a better one compared to Mortal Kombat. However, the bad news is that twists and situations are… a tiny bit laughable. Nobody should expect Batman: Arkham City level of storytelling here folks…

The story is that in an alternative world Joker destroys Metropolis, and fools Superman in such a way that makes him kill his own wife, and unborn child. Superman kills the Joker and creates a new world order in which he is the leader of a dictatorship. Batman becomes a rebel in this universe and the two factions fight against each other in epic battles. We thought we could avoid politics at least in video games, but it seems there is no escaping them

So what kind of superheroes are we getting? Batman, Superman and besides the Joker we have, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman. Our bad guys are Solomon Grundy, Lex Luthor, and others. In story mode, we cannot fight with every character, but in simple arcade mode, we can select anyone.

Comrade Batman, we give out slaps and get slaps…

The main factor, however, is not the story, but the gameplay, and we cannot complain about it too much. In Injustice, we get a combat system similar to Mortal Kombat, a rather slow, 2.5D fighting game. The controls are not that easy to learn, but the good news is that even amateurs can complete the story mode (an enemy or two will make you sweat though). Of course, in multiplayer the situation is different: it is worth figuring out the gameplay, and how to handle matches, as you can fail pretty quickly in the beginning. It was weird that there was no block button, and instead, we had to step backward to defend. Honestly, I like the old block button better, but we must get with the times. We also need to look out for the distance from which we use our combos. All of the characters have different special abilities, strengths, weaknesses. For example, Bane and Lex Luthor are slow when it comes to combos, but Batman or Catwoman is quicker, and both of them have more melee attacks. While Green Arrow or Joker are great at using different tricks.

A bit old school…

Although the graphics are a bit old as if I was playing a game from the early PlayStation 3 era, it did not diminish the quality of Injustice as the retro style works mostly for this comic book hero mashup. Those who like the traditional, but still 3D fighting games, or the classic comic books, I can safely recommend Injustice (even with all its faults).

-BatSector-(2013)

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc.

Developer: NetherRealm Studios

Genre: Action

Relase date: 3. Apr. 2013