#neverrealm

A dear friend of mine commissioned this piece for their upcoming new release for the tabletop skirmish game, Summoners.

They asked me to make the splash art for the new faction coming to the game, the Death Faction.

My favorite realm is the NeverRealm

It’s been a while since I posted a review of something. I had intended to talk about Splatoon but my internet hasn’t been able to maintain a connection that lasts more than 20 seconds which doesn’t help a game which focuses on online multiplayer. In the meantime I want to talk about Injustice: Gods Among Us, a DC fighting game by Neverrealm, the developers behind Mortal Kombat.

Mortal Kombat 9 remains one of my favourite fighting games, with unrivaled amounts of content and one of the most surprisingly good stories in all of fighting games. With that in mind I had high hopes for Injustice. Admittedly I’m not especially familiar with the DC universe outside of Batman and the Teen Titans cartoon, but with Neverrealm’s previous writing accomplishment I hoped this game would change that. Unfortunately all stakes are immediately lost when it’s revealed that all events take place in an alternative universe. That’s the problem with comics; they have a nigh-impenetrable canon with 96 million alternative reiterations. Even so, the Arkham games took risks without any mention of multiverses, so it’s a shame Injustice couldn’t take a similar approach.

Content wise, Injustice is a little disappointing as well. The campaign lasts roughly 4 hours compared to MK9’s 8 hour one. No longer can you do tag team battles and individual character stories feel kind of rushed. However, what is there in the campaign is pretty good, at least for fighting game standards. Long story short, Superman turns evil and kills the Joker and so the Justice League from an alternate universe come over to try and fight his new regime. It isn’t necessarily the greatest showcase of the DC universe and will probably confuse the hell out of newcomers but I found myself liking most of the characters which is an accomplishment. Each of the chapters will have you playing as a different character which allows you to test out the varying character roster. One minute you’ll be stomping around in Lex Luthor’s mechs suit, the next you’ll be flying as Wonder Woman. It’s a completely ridiculous story but ridiculous in an enjoyably grand sort of way.

But this is a fighting game, how does that fare? This could have easily been a re-skinned Mortal Kombat, but instead Neverrealm took the time to making a unique fighting system. Bare in mind this coming from someone who isn't especially good at fighting games. You have your basic light and heavy attacks, a launch attack and a special attack which varies for each superhero and something I often forgot I had. the fun stuff comes from the environments. Position yourself right and at the press of a button you can grab a car and lob it at your opponent or kick them into a helicopter or something stupid like that. Additionally if you use a launch attack at the edge of the arena, you can boot your foe across to another location. Admittedly the environmental attacks are a bit overpowered and the best ones are usually limited to the stronger characters. You can switch these features off if you’d rather play the game in a more traditional style. As a trade off for the fatalities, Injustice has a super meter  which when fully charged can be used to perform an over the top spectacle of an attack which never fails to entertain. The Flash for example will run around the world before coming back round to deck whoever’s unlucky enough to fight him. Alternatively you can use this super meter to boost special attacks or to wager against your opponent in an effort to win some of your health back.

It’s a fleshed out fighting game which unfortunately I suck at. This might be a case of AI exploiting special attacks, but it’s probably a case of me sucking at fighting games. I ended up getting the Ultimate Edition of the game, and considering how much Warner Brothers carves up their games and re-sells it as season passes, this is probably how I’ll get most of their games. Injustice doesn’t offer as much as MK9 but still packs a good amount of content and has  a good fighting system. If you’re interested in the DC universe or fighting games, this isn’t a bad game to try out.