‘Injustice: Gods Among Us’ sets the tone for superhero games

By David Stenger

Superheroes and villains fighting nonstop: Sounds a lot like everyday life in the DC universe.

“Injustice: Gods Among Us” was released Tuesday for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. It’s a fighting game made by Ed Boon, creator of “Mortal Kombat.” “Injustice” is all about the characters from DC comics.

In non-canon fashion, the Joker uses a nuke on Metropolis and ends up killing Lois Lane and her unborn son. Superman loses his cool and kills the Joker to avenge his love and family.

The game spirals downward from there. Superman leads a new society’s regime to make sure no one gets hurt. Batman leads an uprising against this, trying to return society to normal. At one point, he must gather heroes from an alternate universe to take on Superman and his new regime.

The fighting of the game is similar to the latest “Motal Kombat,” where players move on a two-dimensional fighting arena while everything is rendered in three dimensions. The stages where fights take place have several different tiers. This makes it possible for one character to be thrown through walls into a new area where the fight continues. Objects are interactive in the game. Characters can pick up cars and throw them at an opponent or make an item attack the player. It is said the story mode of the game explains why certain characters will be able to take on other characters, evening out the playing field.

The attack system is similar to “Mortal Kombat,” as well. Three of the four buttons are focused on light, medium and heavy attacks, which lash out a series of combos. There is no block button, which will cause a lot of planning to avoid enemy attacks. The fourth button is different for each character, resulting in special attacks.

Each character will have two bars of health with only one round per fight. They also have something called a super meter, which builds up over time. This results in massive attacks from each character. Lex Luthor’s superior attack summons a laser satellite from space to attack another character. Batman unleashes a furry of attacks before jumping in the air as the Batmobile runs over the opponent.

The game will support a total of 24 characters from the entire DC universe, and this might be the most violent we’ve seen these characters. It is certain the main focus of the game will be Superman versus Batman, but several other arch nemeses will be fighting in this game. It seems hard for most heroes to put up a fight when Aquaman traps someone and summons sharks to eat them. This game looks very interesting and it’s sure to be something DC fans and lovers of fighting games should check out.