These are my opinions (and mine alone) of Injustice: Gods Among Us. With the game getting more and more reveals as we head closer to it's release next year, it seems a good as time as any to talk about what's been going on with this game.
From what I've seen in trailers, the latest being the Green Arrow reveal trailer, the game seems to harken back to Mortal Kombat 3 with it's faster, longer combos. Almost like a mix of the new Mortal Kombat with Mortal Kombat 3. If Netherrealm can find a way to make the game so it can use the faster pace of 3 but with the thought out and not as twitchy button presses as the new one this can be an extremely fun game. One thing I'm a bit concerned about however, are what appears to look like danger zones like Dead Or Alive where characters can be knocked or grappled or into environmental hazards for bonus damage. While it can be fun, I personally feel it takes away from competitive play, for instead of knowing what combos to use and when to block you might just lose someone who was just able to knock you onto a car. That isn't to say I don't see an argument where it can be competitive. You can say knowing how to keep an opponent in a certain spot and making sure you're able to go where you want to go and make sure you can't be taken where you don't want to go is a new layer of strategy. I just hope there is an option to turn those off, and that we don't see too much of it in tournaments, if this game gets picked up by major tournaments.
The character roster in this game is something else I want to look at. I believe not every character has been announced yet. So far we have:
Batman
Catwoman
Cyborg
Flash
Green Arrow
Green Lantern
Harley Quinn
Joker
Nightwing
Solomon Grundy
Superman
Wonder Woman
Seeing that list I really hope this game doesn't turn out to be "Batman The Fighting Game: Featuring a couple other people" as I noticed most of the characters are mostly Batman's enemies and allies. But, again that fear of mine is probably unfounded as it's possible the Batman characters were just announced first due to their popularity and we'll see some of the rogue's galleries for the other heroes make it in the game. I'm pretty certain we'll see all the members of the Justice League make it to the game, even Aquaman. Now, here's where I make an Aquaman joke but I really don't feel I can right now since the comics are actually good right now. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Go ahead, read those you might be pleasantly surprised. Anyway, moving on, the roster still looks solid even with the current majority being Batman characters. It's great to see Green Arrow and Cyborg be in a fighting game. Solomon Grundy is a great addition and mainstays Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern are of course welcome.
 |
| Who came up with that suit for GL? |
Now on to the look of the game. The game definitely remembers to keep the feel of the comic book characters alive. For the most part (re: Green Lantern's suit) every character has most, if not all, of their iconic designs so you'll know they are what the game says they are. Though in some parts, especially in the promotional artwork, it seems that they've added the color schemes from every modern game into the game's visual style. Now, for your information I'll give you the list of the color scheme of every modern game right now:
brown
and sometimes gray
The colors of each character is never taken away but the browns do wash them out however, and I wish they'd take some of that away and let the other colors shine through even more. I know this is a modern 3d fighting game, but it's a modern 3d fighting game based off of comic book characters and these comic book characters are colorful.
Lastly, who designed Green Lantern's suit? Seriously? It looks like a suit that would be in a Joel Schumacher Green Lantern movie. What I'm getting at is the abs, why would the suit have abs? Or is that just his muscles showing through the suit? Also that looks to much like a jock strap on his pelvis, that... area... just doesn't look right. I also don't like the green lines on his legs that I'm assuming are lines made from his power. They seem out of place when looking at the rest of the suit.
My final thoughts on the game however, are that I'm looking forward to this game. Despite my over critical eye when talking about this game I actually do think this will be really fun. I'm just not overly excited right now. If I see good things with the roster and I see hands on gameplay I can go from just looking forward to it, to being very excited.
That's it for this article, if you want to follow me on twitter and suggest more articles or want to know what I think of things follow me at @ikariradio
Also listen to my podcast the Ikaricast where we talk about comics, anime, manga, technology, and video games. We even interview people, why our latest episode as of this article we interviewed a comic book creator. So check it out and subscribe on iTunes.
This game visually looks pretty cool, but my first worry is that the game will suffer because of the somewhat small cast of characters (15 or so). im sure there will be unlockable characters, and probably DLC characters as well, so i dont think that is a major concern right now.
ReplyDeleteI also share the concern about the overwhelming amount of Batman related characters presented in the game. I'm guessing the reason for that is because of the success of the Arkham Asylum/City games, and maybe the developers think that it would give people that like those games an interesting aspect to draw them to buy/play this new game. That's just a guess though.
Batman is cool, but hopefully the game wont be consumed by the characters from his comics. Only time will tell though, i suppose :)