Injustice was found in the DC comics booth in the exhibit
hall much to my surprise. Injustice is a DC superhero game from the creators of
Mortal Kombat. Thus, the combat system is very similar to Mortal Kombat as I
discovered with my hands on impressions.
Basics
The game like Mortal Kombat is 1 v 1 in a 2D arena where
winning a round/match means taking out an opponents life bar. Unlike other
games where there is one life bar and several rounds to determine a match, your
character has 2 life bars, which both must be taken out in order to win a
round. A special note about 2 life bars is that, if you took a hit for half
health, but your first life bar only had 1/3 left, you would only lose up to
that first life bar, and the rest of the damage that was done is not
transferred to the next life bar. This means it can be very important to decide
when to use your most powerful attacks as you do not want to waste it when you
won’t be doing as much damage.
The options you have in battle are rather simple, with 3
attack buttons (pressing B button on Xbox never seemed to do anything for me).
Each of the three attack buttons were not associated to limbs as Mortal Kombat
is, in fact I unfortunately could not tell the differences between the three. The
combat engine itself is still rather different than Mortal Kombat and I really
didn’t have enough time to fully explore the various moves and combos one could
perform.
There are a lot of cool environmental interactions however.
The Right and Left Triggers being used to trigger these effects. In the Fortress
of Solitude level, there were teleporting machines on one side of the arena
that could be used every few seconds to teleport from one teleporter to the
other to perform a surprise attack. The Bat Cave level had a button that could
be pressed that would fire a missile into the middle of the screen that could
potential damage your opponent.
Like Mortal Kombat, there is an easy button for your Super
attacks. Pressing Left and Right Trigger together will trigger your super
attack, which varies from character to character. More on those later.
Roster and Character
Impressions
As for the roster, its growing with more announcements to
come. For this demo I was able to choose from Batman, Superman, Nightwing,
Harley Quinn, Cyborg, Wonderwoman, Flash, and someone else I cannot quite
remember. Each character has access to special moves and won super attack that
differentiate themselves from one another. For example Superman has access to
flight attacks, dashes, heat vision, frost breath, and a variety of other
moves. Batman has many gadgets and quick acrobatic attacks. Harley Quinn has
access to long range gun shots and some tricky moves for close range fights.
I played as Harley Quinn in my match and watched several
matches with Nightwing, Superman, Batman, Cyborg and Flash.
Harley Quinn
Harley Quinn’s super was a smash with a hammer, knocking an
opponent senseless with it then dashing towards them, feigning a punch but then
instead sliding underneath them, and blowing them up with a cake. When I
performed that movie most of the spectators laughed as they watched. Like I
said earlier, she has access to a lot of long range attacks and some trickier
moves. I unfortunately couldn’t pull them off and she is not as easy a
character to play as say, Superman and has fewer moves.
Superman
Superman’s super has him dashing in towards an opponent,
knocking them up into the sky with a mighty uppercut, well not really the sky,
more like space. He then smashes them back into the ground, dealing massive
damage. Superman’s special attacks and
normal moves are very balanced, a mix of close range, dashing attacks, long
range heat vision attacks, and quick and slower moves. He was winning most of
the games he was in but this is still very early on of course. He looks rather
easy to pick up though and has a pretty large amount of moves.
Batman
Batman’s super had him doing a variety of kicks and punches
onto his opponent as well as using his gadgets to stun them until eventually
calling his batmobile, flipping over it as it runs into the opponent and
smashes them away. His normal and special attacks are balanced much like
Superman. He has access to a grapple gun to snare opponents and kick them away.
He can also throw batarangs for long range damage (not sure if they are able to
be thrown in the air). He also has access to a lot of acrobatic moves though I
can’t remember too many of them. He has a rather large move list in general and
seems easy to pick up like Superman.
Cyborg
Cyborg’s super wasn’t quite as interesting as the others,
just a simple lazer beam to an opponents face. At least it looked pretty cool.
He seems to be a heavy hitter and can still be rather fast. Unfortunately I
didn’t catch too many of his moves but has access to a grapple that clings to
the environment and can allow you to zip across the arena which allows a lot of
mobility surprisingly. He does have access to some beam attacks thanks to the
cannon on his arm.
Flash
Flash’s super had him punching the opponent several times at
light speed before running around the world several times before smashing into
an opponent with a powerful punch, then dashing behind them and kicking them
one more time towards the ground. His attacks are very fast in general and all
focus on getting up close to an opponent. He has no ranged moves but excels on
closing the gap between opponents. A special note is that his dash along the
ground is the longest and quickest in the game.
Nightwing
Unfortunately I did not see Nightwing’s super but he seemed
to be extremely quick, faster than Batman for sure and fought with a staff. I
can’t really say too much more about him since I was paying more attention to a
monitor that had Flash on it at the time.
Final Thoughts
I can’t say much more about the other characters, I never
got to watch a full match with them unfortunately. I wish I could have gotten
more hands on time with it but it was still fun to watch and play nonetheless.
I’m definitely keeping a close eye on this game now, because as a fighting game
fan, and loving super heroes, who doesn’t want to see DC super heroes duke it
out?
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