Also available for XBox 360 and WiiU
Released 21/08/2012
3.5/5
Stuff like this is always exciting. A bunch of our favourite heroes thrown together in one action packed game with the chance for us to take control of all of them.
The Justice League have appeared in fighters before, but usually as part of a cross-over with another franchise. This time, it’s all DC. This means that they don’t have to fit Superman’s superhuman powers into the laws of some other title’s universe or nerf him completely.
However, as it is a fighting game where you have the likes of mortals Lex Luthor and the Joker going toe-to-toe with all but invincible Wonder Woman and Doomsday, some power rebalancing has to take place. The story mode deals with this, introducing a drug that allows normal people to take a lot more punishment than they should, which puts the humans on more equal footing with the ‘gods’. Happily, this allows for match-ups in which you can see Harley Quinn whack Ares over the head with a mallet.
The story also explains the other trope of fighting games: characters being able to fight themselves. In this game, heroes from one universe are pulled into a parallel universe where many of their counterparts have become subservient to a Superman gone bad. In many cases, a hero meets themselves in villain form such as Green Lantern finding that in this world he is Yellow Lantern, fighting alongside Sinestro. Others find that their counterpart was killed for trying to stay true to justice against dark Superman’s will, while some villains are actually working alongside those heroes that are left.
During the story, players will be given characters to control that fit with the plot progression, usually having four fights with each before moving on to the next chapter and hero.
The story mode is quite short, though as a fighting game, all about one on one action, it’s not expected to drag on much longer than it does.
The normal fights are interspersed with some interactive cutscenes which play as ‘push button on screen to win’ type fights. These usually involve dodging bullets or holding back an opponent in some way. Often doing well in the cutscene will weaken the opponent when it actually comes to fight them properly. Doing poorly will make it harder for you.
A lot of these push button scenes go on for a bit too long without being particularly interesting, while other cutscenes showing combat might have been served better as playable segments; they could have possibly utilised a fight system similar to that in Heavy Rain.
Many of the fights in the story are silly excuses for combat, but again, in a fighting game, any excuse for a punch up has to be taken. Why talk things through when you can try to kill them? Many of the match-ups serve as giving the playing public what they want to see. Placing some heroes against enemies you just can’t wait to see them fight or sometimes allies that you know would make for interesting duels seems to be the pattern and that’s great! Batman vs Nightwing? Obviously.
Fan service is very much one of the high points of the game. In the background of many stages you will see familiar faces either watching the fights or doing their own thing. Hugo Strange appears in Arkham Asylum as do a number of other villains who have the same models as they do in the game of the same name. Many obscure supers show their face in some form or another, so for die-hards it’s good fun to have a game of ‘Where’s Wally’. I may be reaching here, but I thought that one of the policemen that Sinestro had lined up for execution was Diggle from the TV show ‘Arrow’.
The game does a great job of making each individual character feel like an individual. They all have their own unique movesets and special abilities that suit them. Some are more inclined to use gadgets like Batman and Green Arrow, while some are more brute force like Bane and Solomon Grundy. Some are a bit of a mixture.
When you are finished with the story mode, you can play classic one-on-ones, or try to complete various challenges either in battle mode where you go through a series of opponents, sometimes with an extra rule in place or go into the S.T.A.R. Labs where you complete challenges to win stars and unlock stuff.
Much of the re-playability is here.
There’s quite a bit of stuff to unlock, including costumes and concept art, as well as images to make your own online hero card for multiplayer. All playable characters are there to use from the beginning though.
You can also get a free app on iPhone which you can use to unlock even more stuff for you game. Besides this, there are DLC packs which include more skins and the future holds more characters.
One of the problems that the game has is repetitiveness. Not the way that every situation becomes a one on one fight, (that is to be expected with fighting games) but the super move animations and the one liners. Bane often says something along the line of ‘break you’ as though it’s the only thing in his vocabulary. The main thing that gets a little tiresome is the finisher move. 
Each hero has their own special attack that can be unleashed with a full hero bar. Each is exciting and fantastic to see the first couple of times and really shows off the character. After that, it gets a little dry. Especially if you manage to pull off the same move more than once in a battle and especially especially if you are fighting the same character that you are playing and they do the same move against you. The moves really are spectacular, but it would be nice if they could have two or three that play out at random to at least mix it up a little. The dent in the front of the Batmobile is only getting bigger.
The story tries to do what so many things in media are trying to do lately: make Aquaman cool. People don’t like him for some reason, so DC want them to. So here, you get one hard-hitting good guy, while his counterpart is a dark, arrogant anti-hero with a snazzy haircut. It’s sort of a way of having it both ways. If you don’t like this Aquaman, you might like this one instead!
Wonder Woman too is a character that they want to popularise. In a similar way, you get the righteous Diana and a villanous warlord amazon showing two ends of the spectrum. Both have impossible figures and enormous boobs, which of course make them instantly more likable than Aquaman.
A couple more notes on the mostly great character designs: Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent faces look almost identical, while Lex Luthor seems to have been modelled on Bruce Willis, leading me to believe he might actually make a good candidate to play the character in a future film.
My final gripe is the control system. Personally I feel that the button combinations for moves are completely illogical. For example while airborne with Superman pressing DOWN and X will make him perform a downwards smash, while DOWN, LEFT and X has him fire his eye beam. I can not see the connection that gives these moves such similar input methods. Batman’s batarang throw is LEFT,RIGHT, TRIANGLE. Again, I don’t see the logic, when for many characters LEFT,DOWN,TRIANGLE is a heavy uppercut. This may be my own preference however, but I like a control system that feels natural and makes sense.
Overall, the game is good fun. Even if you’re not a die hard DC fan, but you enjoy a fighting game, this is very much worth a play. The fairly unique element of being able to use the environment as a weapon is very novel and fun. If you’re not big on fighters, but you like DC, the fun of pitting your favourite characters against each other makes up for being out of your comfort zone.
I think the game may have been served better as a Double Dragon type beat-em-up with one-on-one inclusions, but that’s not to say that it’s not a lot of fun as it is.
