I wish I had more time to delve into the world of comics (or graphic novels if you want to pretend you are being an adult about it) – because within minutes of starting Injustice 2, which takes place a few years after the ending of the first game. Superman has been locked up, The Joker is dead leaving Harley Quinn to team up with Batman. To make matters worse Brainiac arrives on the scene to kill the last remaining Kryptonians.
The heart of Injustice 2’s story is the battle between Batman and Superman, each has their own feelings on how best to deal with the crisis and it makes for an excellent story. I’ve never had as much fun with a fighting game as I have with Injustice 2.
As someone who is happy if they manage a 6-hit combo, it’s fair to say I’m not great at these sorts of games, you could call me a tryer. I do my best to learn combos but struggle to do anything to complex. Thankfully the game does an excellent job of settling you in with a tutorial that guides you through all of the basics and some of the more complicated mechanics in the game. Once you have gotten used to things you are able to explore more of the game.
The single player campaign flows between cutscenes and fighting seamlessly, some fights allow you to choose between two characters. It’s worth going back and fighting as the other character to explore the alternative story paths in the game once you have completed it once. You’ll get to fight as The flash, Arrow, Black Canary, Harley Quinn as well as Batman & Superman. There is a whole host of other supers to fight as too. It will take some time to master each character as they have their own style of fighting and the combo list changes for each character. Each fighter has their own special move that can be activated once the meter has been filled. These range from Batman having his bat copter pick up his opponent, fly them into the sky, then drop them while firing a shower of bullets at them, The Flash uses his speed to slam his opponents into the Pyramids and Egypt and into the jaws of a T-Rex! They are so over the top but brilliant at the same time.
The Clash System from the original game is back, players can interrupt an opponent’s attack and force them to wager a portion of their meter, whoever takes the biggest gamble will gain a chunk of health or remove some from their opponents. It’s great watching the two fighters trash talk each other before the face-off.
I was really impressed at just how good the game looked, the cut scenes are great and each character is photorealistic in their appearance, once the game swaps back to the gameplay there isn’t too much difference. Each area you fight in has interactive elements that can be used to spring off or destroy and throw at your opponent – if you can manage it there are some spectacular transition to another area while fighting. During the single-player, you will gain rewards for winning your fights, these come in form of loot boxes that contain random items including gear, armour, shaders, new abilities for your character. You will need to have got your character to a certain level to use most of the items though, which I found frustrating. unwanted items can be sold to buy more loot boxes.
Away from the single player, there is masses of content. You can take part in one-on-one ranked and unranked online battles, King of the Hill sessions and local versus multiplayer, if you are feeling brave you can take on the internet to fight your way to glory. Despite losing nearly all of my fights the online works really well. Pre-fight you can see how well your opponents connection is holding up, giving you a chance to ditch them for a better ping. If your opponent cancels on you, it won’t take long to get matched up to somebody else. There are plenty of fighting stats for you to assess your performance, perfect if that’s the sort of thing you geek out on.
My preferred mode (because of my terrible record) was Injustice’s 2 Multiverse mode, which gives you challenges to take on with plenty of rewards on offer. These challenges are available on a Weekly, Daily and hourly basis. It essentially gives you an unlimited amount of content to play with is great.
I genuinely struggled to find something wrong with the game, yes there is some occasional lag when fighting online which can be hugely frustrating, but Injustice 2 is a brilliant package. I really enjoyed the story mode and look forward to hunting down the alternative endings and scenes. Multiverse will keep me dipping in and out to test my skills and I look forward to having friends round for a bit of local gameplay. If you are looking for a new fighting title in your life then I can’t recommend this enough.
Thanks to Warner Bros. for supporting TiX
