Injustice 2 Review

Most fighting games I find a little bit ‘meh’ but the ones I really do like are the ones made by NetherRealm who had great success rebooting Mortal Kombat and with the previous Injustice game featuring DC Superheroes using a similar fighting system.

What’s great about these games is the seamless transition between cut-scenes and the fighting action. This isn’t just some disjointed voice over and animation over a short series of fights for each character, but a properly thought out story where you play as the characters as they are introduced and have to fulfil their part of the overall mission. This time around in the alternate universe, Braniac is on the loose and coming to eat Earth after destroying Krypton so it’s up to the warring factions to come together to fight this bigger menace.

The presentation here is fantastic and really watchable. Sometimes I even forget there’s a fight coming up as I marvel at the great action sequences and some of the best motion and performance capture I’ve seen in a game. Particular note goes to Harley Quinn, with a hyper-real set of expressions and possibly the most realistic character model I’ve seen in any game ever – she really is a joy to watch as she goes about her typical mental business!

When it comes to the fighting, it’s something you’ll be very familiar with if you’ve played the previous games or Mortal Kombat. Light, medium and heavy attacks can be strung together to create combos, both triggers set off a super move if your meter is full and you can burn off sections of it to inflict extra damage as you go. You can also throw your opponent and there’s the scenery to interact with as you throw objects at each other or smash your opponent into another section of the arena. As expected, the super moves do get a bit repetitive after you’ve seen them a few times but they are all very different and a lot of fun to begin with. It’s also cool that the characters all have something to say to each other that’s specific. They don’t feel like canned interactions.

Of course you’ll get more out of the game if you’re really into all of the DC characters. I confess I don’t know all of them. I’ve never heard of the talking Gorilla Grodd with his telekinesis powers, and don’t have a clue who Dr Fate is, but of course I do know and like the stylised look of all the characters from the Batman universe and the Superman canon.

Another interesting single player mode is Multiverse, where the concept plays something like this. There are infinite worlds out there and each one has its own set of heroes, only slightly different than another. These worlds open up with a timed window for you to jump in and play and when you fight through a stack of opponents, they all look slightly different in what they wear. It’s here you can collect Mother Boxes which you can open to randomly get all kinds of augmentations and accessories for your heroes. Some of them are for show, and some of them also buff your abilities and can be applied when the characters reach a certain level which you’ll increase by playing with them more.

Of course you can jump online if you’re hardcore, and the game does have that level of complexity that you can choose to master if you want it. It’s also great that you can just jump in with anyone and mash buttons and you’ll still have a great time!

Injustice 2 really is a great game. It looks amazing, plays well, has short loading screens and has that moreish quality thanks to the way you collect stuff and customize the characters. It’s one of the best fighters out there so it gets a stonking 9 out of 10.

Get the game now
New: Buy Injustice 2 from Amazon.com

See also: