DC Universe Roleplaying Game (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As posted to the G4TV.com website we have footage of the upcoming DC Universe fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us. While this tells us nothing about the story, the part I’m worried about, we do get a look at the game mechanics and character models. That’s still interesting. The speaker is Ed Boon, Creative Director at NetherRealm Studios, the company behind the game.
Now I’m not necessarily a fighting game enthusiast, so take my opinion for what it’s worth. Personally I think there are some good ideas here. Multiple areas of the same arena is nothing new. I think one of the Dead or Alive games was the first to use it, but someone may correct me. The way they’re using it here feel right to me, though. I like being able to throw people that far away, although I wonder if the “gadget” class has a way to do that as well? Otherwise anyone playing Batman vs. the Flash (to use the characters previewed here will be missing out. The environments themselves are also well done. Not only because you can find “weapons” in the area, but look at those boxes shake in the Batcave battle between Superman and the Flash. Whether or not they can be used as weapons themselves, it’s a nice addition to this big battle
Of course, the question will be how easy a casual fighting gamer like me can pick it up. One of the reasons I’ve preferred Virtua Fighter over Street Fighter (although I can’t speak for later versions of either game) was that the combos were easy to figure out, if you even needed them. SF’s combos are a chore to pull off and too often I couldn’t get the really cool move out of them like I could VF or Soul Edge (the game that became Soul Caliber). Then again, it can’t begin trying to win me over unless it comes out on PC since I lack a modern console and would probably lean towards the Wii or Wii-U anyway.
My top question about the game has not changed and has yet to be more than teased: “why are the DC heroes fighting each other?” In Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe it was because the act of merging the two universes was creating a “rage” in the heroes and villains of both the DCU and Outworld. Since story mode is a big component of fighting games these days I’m curious how this story will go.
And this wouldn’t be BW Media Spotlight if I didn’t complain about the costumes. Sure, I expect them to use the New 52 costumes (or rather armor and I just realized that putting the Flash in armor may be dumber than putting Superman in armor–and I like armored heroes, so now I have to flash back to that other Avengers cartoon) but why go to the Man of Steel film for your color palette? Even Jim Lee used somewhat brighter colors in his ridiculous designs. Here everyone has dark colors and it just looks wrong. I know these are the Mortal Kombat guys but they used lighter colors in the DC crossover. Why not here?
So this may be a good game, but I still want to know about the story before I can cheer it on. This IS a storytelling critique blog after all.
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