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Injustice 2 for all!!!
Injustice 2 continues the story from Injustice: Gods Among Us, which was an instant hit from Netherealm Studios, who also helm the Mortal Kombat Franchise, taking DC’s greatest heroes and Villains and taking the comic world and twisting it to have the world’s greatest heroes become their greatest Villains. This follow-up also delivers another solid fighting game with lots of extras to keep fans playing for quite some time.
The story continues a year after Batman has taken down Superman and his Regime (with help from another worlds Justice League). Now a new threat looms over earths mightiest heroes as Brainiac has arrived to collect all the knowledge of Earth before destroying the Planet and its inhabitants.
It is up to Batman and his new group of allies to save humanity and the planet from total annihilation. This story has many plot elements that effects each character you both play as and come up against, which keeps the story well-paced and also allows you to pick one of the two characters involved in the story during certain selected chapters.
I highly advise that when you play story mode, to take note as who you played as in each segment, since you have the ability to play again and get the alternate and true ending to the game if you go through all characters and their cinematics.
Netherealm keeps the gameplay familiar with characters from the previous games having the same moves, with some having new variations or styles. Character clashes also make a return to tip the scales of each battle and new super moves using the same simple two button combination to execute also make a welcome return. I do wish that they added more than one super move per character, since much like the first game, they are fun to watch to begin with, but when you could possibly use them twice per fight, they do get stale rather quickly losing the enjoyment originally given.
Fighting feels tighter with better balancing and keeps the enjoyment without a steep learning curve. If you have trouble with ayour current fighter, try using Practice Mode to get to grips with their moves and combos. New characters also have a similar feel, depending on if they are more suited to speed, strength or agility. A casual player should give each character a chance to see who they are best with and dedicate to using them, especially if they wish to take their fight online.
Each individual character can be levelled-up by playing as them; which allows you to unlock more needed currency or XP to equip different gear onto your character to not only make them look different, but also make them faster, stronger or able to take more damage. Injustice 2 adds a type of RPG element where you can change your characters look and stats – this helps if you would like to take the battle online, whilst also giving you a goal to unlock more gear in story mode, single player or Multiverse mode (see the Content section further down).
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.
Graphics are top notch. Seriously, hats off to Netherealm for taking a risk on changing the facial features on the characters to make them look less like the previous game and more realistic (even if I find Bruce Wayne to look like an odd mash between Keanu Reeves and David Schwimmer). I mean, seriously, when you’re watching story mode and looking at the facial animations, it’s almost spooky, it’s that realistic!
Netherealm really went the extra mile to keep up with how well games can look on the current gen consoles; the graphics are nothing less than stunning with amazing dynamic environments with the all welcome stage transitions. This also makes the story mode a treat to watch, as it goes to show the graphical power of today, and makes me wish I could travel back in time like the Flash and tell my 10-year-old self what games are like today. I think I’d freak!
For the audio, unlike the soundtracks of Injustice: Gods Among Us, I was glad to hear that this game sounds less like it belongs in Mortal Kombat. I understand that they use the same sound team, but it’s good to hear a fresh soundtrack which sounds less like what we’ve heard before.
Injustice 2 has a wide array of sound clips that gives the action more depth especially when using a heavy move against opponents to deliver the devastation effect required to please those eardrums.
Character voiceovers are great, adding very well-timed humour (especially from Green Arrow -how he’s meant to be *cough* CW *cough*) and fantastic dialogue which keeps the story entertaining, along with the fighters intros (of which there are more transitions, even between the same characters), clashes and mid-fight taunts. The big VoiceOver names within the casting including the return of Kevin ‘Batman’ Conroy himself.
In terms of content, this game has tons to not only unlock with the gear system, but also play when it comes to different modes – Story Mode, Training, Practice, and the best of it being Multiverse Mode, which is sort of like the Tower Mode in Mortal Kombat X. Multiverse Mode acts like you travel to parallel Earths to do battle within different circumstances, which in turn helps unlock new items and gain more much needed XP for your chosen character and currency to buy more items.
Upon first glance, Injustice 2 seems very much lacklustre with game modes in comparison to the first series title, but Multiverse Mode makes up for this in many ways. After beating your first three introductory challenges, new worlds open, and here, you find many of the game’s single-player modes by fighting upon different challenging towers on different Earths. The single-player character story tower can be found in Battle Simulator. Here, you have a choice on the size of tower you wish to fight – the larger the tower, the more rewards can be earned.
Now, we get to finally talk about the best addition to Injustice 2 – the gear system. This is where the addictive hoarder in you comes out and keeps playing to unlock Mother boxes (much like loot chests) or buy them using earned currency from your battles. These are especially attainable in the Multiverse segment of the game. You’ll unlock gear by playing the game, but the Mother boxes also hold several pieces of gear depending on which level of box you buy or unlock (Bronze to Diamond, for example)
Final Notes: Netherealm have a great focus on making each of their fighting games bigger and better by understanding what works with previous titles, bringing a fantastic competitive fighter to not only casual players, but those in the pro circuit. The gear system is the most commendable addition, making the game more engaging to the point of obsession – not only making your character tougher with greater stats, but also looking cool with the new gear collected.
Graphics: 10/10 – Seriously impressive, this looks like it could be played as a movie on the big screen. Even theatrically-released CGI movies have not looked this good on the big screen as this would do.
Sound: 9/10 – Again, just amazing. I shall be buying the soundtrack without a doubt and there’s great depth to the sound effects which make them a treat to listen to.
Gameplay: 9/10 – Bringing back what we loved about the first game and keeps it dynamic with the altering gear system.
Enjoyment: 9.5/10. The lastability will keep gamers and fans playing for a long time to come as long as they play to unlock and customise instead of buying the micro transactions for an easy fix. It also continues the epic story of the alternate Earth where Superman became a Tyrant after killing the Joker in the first game.
Overall score: 9/10 – If I were to give you a percentage, I may say 93%. The lack of concept and soundtrack extras plus game modes took to down from a perfect score, but it’s still well deserving of this high a score, and is a Must Buy!
Thanks to the Youtube channels featured for the gaming footage.
Injustice 2 is out now on PS4 and Xbox One, and click on the packshot for the full-size version.
Important info:
- Publisher: Warner Bros Interactive
- Developer: Netherealm
- Players: single-player, co-op
- HDTV options: up to 1080p
- Sound: DTS 5.1
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT |
10 9 9 9.5 |
| OVERALL | 9.5 |
Retro game fan, comic book reader, board game lover and film fanatic. I have loved videogames since I was 5 years old after visiting my first arcade, I have grown up with gaming since having my Atari 2600 then Commodore 64. I ended up building my own career crafting pixelised characters and have had the pleasure of meeting many of my retro gaming heroes who developed some of my absolute favourite games.
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