By Vince Ingenito
The original release of Injustice: Gods Among Us delivers exactly the kind of glorious fights you’d expect from the DC Universe's mightiest, & makes them as fun và rewarding to lớn watch as they are to lớn play. While it buckled just a bit under the weight of all it was trying to lớn do, it more than earned its spot on the shelves of fighting aficionados. Now NetherRealm has released Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition, collecting all the currently available DLC và sprucing it up for the PlayStation 4 and PC, and the result is…largely the same. Ultimate Edition looks and runs a bit nicer, but it doesn’t do anything substantial enough khổng lồ warrant picking it up if you already own the original.
Bạn đang xem: Injustice: gods among us
For its first trick, Injustice does something that few fighting games ever even attempt to lớn do: tell an interesting story. What if anh kiệt lost faith in humanity and, with his near-infinite power, decided it was time to stop protecting & start ruling? Without ruining anything, you've rarely seen Supes quite lượt thích this before. We've seen him “retire” in Kingdom Come, và watched him wreck cửa hàng whilst being mind-controlled a few billion times, but this is a far darker spin than all that. This isn't about a mopey alien who just wants somewhere to lớn belong, it’s about a god who's decided his subjects no longer deserve không tính tiền will.
As heavy as it sounds, Injustice still finds time for the same kind of action, adventure, & humor that made the Justice League animated series such a treat. In fact, much of the original JL voice cast is in action here, including the inimitable Kevin Conroy as the Dark Knight himself & George Newbern as Superman. The story mode’s primary fault is that its reach exceeds its artist’s grasp. Closeups on main characters look good, but when the in-engine cutscenes attempt to lớn depict clashing armies or sweeping cityscapes, bland textures and shoddily modeled buildings erode the visual impact a bit, & neither the PS4’s or PC’s beefier internals vì nothing to lớn change that fact.It's only because the in-fight graphics usually look so crisp that this dip in visual chất lượng seems so stark, especially since the trò chơi is now running natively at 1080p/60fps. Outside of looking sharper và smoother, the move to lớn next-gen hasn’t done much else in terms of effects or post-processing, resulting in a fighter that looks decidedly less impressive than say Killer Instinct. Ultimate Edition certainly isn’t ugly by any means, but even compared lớn other cross-generation titles, it only looks good rather than great.Despite this, it still manages to lớn capture the godlike abilities of DC's finest. The cast is varied, interesting, và thankfully devoid of nin-ja lookalikes – more than I can say for Mortal Kombat 9 at its launch. NetherRealm took 24 characters, many of whom have never been seen in a video game, và translated their abilities & personas over beautifully. This is Injustice's greatest feat, & Ultimate Edition drives that trang chủ further by including the additional six characters that have come out since launch. There's reverence for the DC Universe in each menu screen and every matchup-specific line of dialogue.So Injustice mostly stays faithful enough to lớn its comic book roots, but how true does it stay lớn its Mortal Kombat ones? The short answer is: only as much as it needed too. All the best things about MK are present in spades. Beefy, high-impact hits that sound as brutal as they look, & long, satisfying juggle combos still abound, but so much more has changed for the better. Traditional direction-based blocking replaces the block button, making actual cross-ups possible. Throws are no longer a pure 50/50 mix-up like they are in MK9, thanks to lớn a universal tech input. Full bộ breakers (renamed “clashes”) are only possible once per match now, & are part of a wider variety of useful ways lớn spend meter that make the decision khổng lồ save it for an emergency a more meaningful one. This broadens the tactical possibilities for players at every level.Two other new systems help further differentiate Injustice from its ancestor. The subtler of the two is the character-power system. Each fighter possesses a chất lượng mechanic based on their super-power that truly makes their style distinct. Solomon Grundy, for instance, gets a series of chain throws, each of which buffs a different attribute of his for the remainder of the match. The Flash, on the other hand, can gọi upon the speed Force to lớn effectively slow opponents to a crawl. NetherRealm got pretty creative with these, và learning how to lớn leverage them properly adds another level of technical nuance & variety.
Also new, but potentially more troublesome, are the interactive environments. Each setting is jam-packed with heavy objects to pick up and throw, or bounce your opponent off of, & landing certain attacks at the right spots triggers a stage change, sending your enemy careening spectacularly through a series of obstacles. I have mixed feelings about these. Sure, it's badass when Doomsday backhands superman clean through a pair of skyscrapers in downtown Metropolis... But when mere mortal heroes like Batman or Green Arrow vị the same exact thing, it just looks plain silly.
Xem thêm: Quản Lý Hiệu Quả Và Thông Minh Nguồn Tiền Của Bạn, Tin Tức Mới Nhất Về `Phim Hoạt Hình`
I'm not trying khổng lồ go nerd police here, but such moments undermine all the effort that clearly went into making these characters move & play like you'd imagine they should. Between that, và animations that look great one moment and jerky the next, the illusion of two superheroes clashing can crumble at times. It never keeps the fighting from being fun, but Injustice is so effective when it maintains that spell that I hate lớn see it broken.Now, I'd be lying if I said all the wanton destruction wasn't great fun, because it totally is. However, I did have some balance concerns when Injustice originally launched. Environmental attacks are completely unblockable, and either shear off sizable chunks of life or leave you xuất hiện to eat a full bộ combo - and sometimes both. As the trò chơi has developed though, this has proven lớn be mostly a non-issue, with NetherRealm making a few small tweaks to lớn tone them down a tad.Finally, I'd be doing Injustice an injustice if I didn't mention just how much nội dung is included. NetherRealm has once again spoiled us with things to do và a mountain of costumes, art, and music to lớn unlock. STAR Labs is the new challenge tower, offering hundreds of fights to lớn complete under special conditions. If you just feel lượt thích jumping into a series of matches, you can unlock & fight in a number of battle ladders, each with different stipulations like heroes only (no villains) or surviving on one health bar. Training mode has been steenypizza.comificantly beefed up too, with frame data và detailed move descriptions built right in. Online lobbies have also improved, with the ability to lớn bet XP on who will win the next match – và even issue challenges for how they'll win it. It helps keep lobbies fun and interactive, even when you're last in line lớn fight. Ultimate Edition augments this generous selection with new STAR Labs missions, some of which utilize the Dual Shock 4’s cảm ứng pad.The Vita DifferenceMuch like the Vita port of Mortal Kombat, Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition delivers almost the exact same experience as its console brethren. As is expected, slight graphical concessions have been made, but that little bit of lost sharpness around the edges is a fair trade for the silky-smooth performance, which is a lot more important in a fighting game anyway. Feature-wise, it's just as packed, save for the online lobbies, which are nowhere lớn be found. But the nice-sized roster, full-featured training mode, & oodles of single-player nội dung are all present, giving you plenty to bởi vì when throwing down on the go.The Vita's D-pad is a great fit for fighting games, and while stick players will understandably struggle a bit, pad players like me shouldn't have any problems...so long as they stick with the default control layout. There's no option to bản đồ a button as a throw shortcut, so if your config of choice doesn't have light và heavy attacks set khổng lồ adjacent buttons, throwing is a pain. It won't affect too many players, but it seems like an odd omission in an otherwise terrific port.
Injustice: Gods Among Us is an exciting, unique-feeling fighter at the beginner level, và a deeper, more interesting one at the advanced level. Story mode is a pleasant surprise, but the real reason khổng lồ play is the thrill of harnessing the god-like powers of some of the most overwhelming figures in the comic realm. Ultimate Edition on PS4 & PC is the best-looking, most complete version you can buy right now, but if you already own Injustice on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, there isn’t much reason lớn upgrade, especially if you already bought the DLC.