Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s EXACTLY how the video game industry works.

§ May 10th, 2013 § Filed under video games § 6 Comments

So former employee Josh #1 pointed me to this survey, asking which characters you’d like to see available as downloadable content for the Injustice: Gods Among us video game.

Well, if I’m mentioning it here, you can probably guess 1) which character is among the possible choices, and 2) how I voted. …I have no idea how official it is, or whether the results would have any impact. I half-suspect any DLC available for the game was prepped ages ago, but my knowledge of how the video game business works is fairly minimal. It’s all wizardry and deals-with-the-devil as far as I know.

I did actually play the Injustice game, or at least the free demo they offer for cheap bastards like me who will settle for just the demo in place of dropping sixty bones on the full game. And…well, I’m not really much of a Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter-type fighting-game guy, as previously mentioned when I wrote about my previous interaction with this type of game. But it was a game with DC Comics characters, so at the very least I thought I’d give it a looksee and “dig” what all of you kids are “hep” to these days.

And…yeah, it was certainly a fighting game. I really do prefer the video games that allow you to explore environments and interact with characters and solve puzzles and such, so my attention was generally drawn to “I wish I can explore the background setting the characters are fighting in” versus “if I repeatedly hit this button, I’ll keep kicking Wonder Woman in the shins.” I do like that in the background of one scene you see Atom Smasher fighting it out with…Giganta, I guess? I kind of wanted to send my Batman avatar over there to check out what was going on, but no, I had to stay on the main screen there and fight Lobo.

It was an interesting diversion, but I think the demo slaked any desire I had to play this game…there’s just a sameness to it all that doesn’t keep my interest, he said with no ironic critical side-glance at the superhero genre whatsoever. And it’s sort of bland…the Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 game at least had some interesting visual flourishes and voicework. Injustice gives you a thin-sounding “stay down” from Batman when he vanquishes his opponent. Maybe there’s more in the main game, playing in the story mode or whatever, that provides a more enriching experience, but the novelty of a fighting game with DC characters wore out right quick.

That’s not to say I won’t buy it if Swamp Thing becomes available. But even in that case, I’ll wait ’til the game drops under $20. That’s about the right price for it.

Plus, Batman fighting and beating Doomsday? I call no way.

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THIS POST: it was going to be my Iron Man 3 review. No idea how I ended up writing about this.

6 Responses to “Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s EXACTLY how the video game industry works.”

  • Elkhound Bob says:

    You can enjoy the “story mode” (with almost all of the repetitious game-play fighting cut out) on YouTube. It’s not too bad of an amalgam of all those Evil Alternate World stories (from Bruce Timm’s “Justice Lords” JLU episodes to Morrison’s Earth-2) although a few things go unexplained.

    It is “adult” at times, with Green Arrow muttering “shit” once or twice and a certain character graphically getting his brains burned through with heat vision. There’s some nonsense about Kryptonian nanotech that allows all the characters to boost up their durability so that anyone can be punched through a building, shot point-blank, or fall a thousand feet and get right back up, and a fun bit in which one of the characters gets hurled into the midst of the Giganta/Atom Smasher match–so you can at least see that bit a little closer.

  • Jack says:

    The best part of the game-and usually the area where there’s some fun cameos-are when you do a level transition move, which knocks your opponent from one zone to the next. Arkham Asylum has two of the best-you knock your opponent into a ward where they’re pummeled mercilessly by Killer Croc, the Penguin, Two-Face, and the Riddler, as well as a transition where you knock your foe into the Scarecrow’s cell, where he injects your with his fear drug and you hallucinate a vision of him that kicks the crap out of you. The Hall of Justice features a transition where you can boom tube someone to Apokolips to get beat down by Darkseid. The best thing about Injustice is the over the top nature of some special moves-Superman knocks his opponent into orbit and back down to the ground, Doomsday just punches you completely through the earth’s core and back-but if you’re not a fan of the Mortal Kombat styled fighters, it’s not that deep a fighter at all. But basically, since story mode largely uses the voice cast of Justice League Unlimited, that’s the real appeal to a nerd.

  • Tristan says:

    It’s “hip” Aunt Harriet, they changed it.

  • adam barnett says:

    I agree…. fighting games are too ’90s for me. I’d much rather explore. Just trading shots with people doesn’t sound like much of a draw.

  • IT says:

    Pretty much… if you’re playing a fighting game, you’re going into it expecting to beat up other people. No one expects a really good story mode, they expect flashy super-moves (and amusing ‘How did you get a shark here, we’re 50 miles inland?!’ gags).

    This is why games have different genres, as poorly defined and archaic as many of them are. RPGs have fighting, but there’s also a lot of exploration. Fighting games have little to no exploration and a ton of fighting.

    As obnoxious as it is to say ‘it’s probably not aimed at you’, it’s… not, really. You don’t fall into the Venn Diagram crossover point.

  • Snark Shark says:

    “asking which characters you’d like to see available as downloadable content for the Injustice: Gods Among us video game”

    Ambush Bug! AMBUSH BUG!!!

    ” ‘How did you get a shark here, we’re 50 miles inland?!’ ”

    “AQUAMAN GOT MAD SHARKS!!”