Injustice 2

So before I go on, I should make mention that I really love this game. As far as gameplay goes, not only did they keep the fighting styles and high intensity that was so great in the first game consistent in the sequel, they also improved upon the game, allowing for more customizable and easy to access characters. I could do an entire post on all the needless money that is spent on down loadable content and how some games really don’t deserve that extra money spent on them, but the Injustice Games, whether I think they should be doing so much DLC or not, I will spend pretty much as much money as possible to get the best experience in this game and think it’s totally worth it.

For those not tracking, Injustice 2 is the sequel to Injustice: Gods Among Us. A fighting game set in the DC superhero universe. It pits your favorite DC superheroes and villains against one another. Since I don't review games as much as I review movies, this review will be centered more on the story rather than actual gameplay. I have already mentioned how the second game improved on the first and that is one of, if not my favorite game on the PS4 right now.

Injustice 2 takes place five years after the events of Injustice: Gods Among Us. Superman is imprisoned after his defeat in the first game but the world is still trying to recover from his regime. Bruce Wayne is trying to put the pieces of the world back together. To cause trouble, Gorilla Grodd is putting together a team of supervillains and Bruce Wayne is having a hard time getting enough heroes together to defeat them. Things get worse when the mastermind behind Gorilla Grodd and his "Society" is the alien Brainiac who has come to Earth to harvest the best Earth has to offer in his collection of worlds across the galaxy and then destroy the rest. 

Batman must bring together as many heroes, proper and fallen, together to defeat this new threat, and when it isn't enough, he must consider releasing Superman, his arch rival, as well to help him defeat Brainiac. 

There are a lot of really great things about this game's story. Like the first game, I was drawn in from the beginning and there wasn't really a need for a lot of backstory on the characters because the game assumes the audience knows about The Justice League. And if you don't, it's alright because it's a game, not a full movie. 

Something that I found to be really interesting in this game was how good of a continuation of the story set up by Gods Among Us it was. The first game was intriguing because it mainly followed the Justice League from the universe we are most familiar with in a new alternate universe. This game took a turn and decided to have the entire game centered on the alternative universe and it worked out really well. The first game was a good introduction to those versions of beloved characters and this one goes all the way.

They continue the exploration into a legitimate difference of ideology between Batman and Superman that began in the first game. While Superman is the villain, he does bring forth the interesting possibility of what would happen if Superheroes crossed that line and took ultimate power. I mean every hero we watch in movies has the ability to create just as much destruction as they do good, what would happen if Superman crossed that line. It’s also great because the best villains are the ones who believe that they are the good guys and doing the right thing. Superman definitely doesn’t see himself as a bad guy, he just sees himself as taking it to the level he should have taken it a long time ago.

Not to mention that they form an uneasy alliance to fight Brainiac and I really like that dynamic. Superman and Batman are already two sides of the same coin, light and dark, alien and human, hopeful and dower. Imagine if that already tense relationship was pushed to a point of antagonism and yet the two had to work together. That is exactly what happens in the game and it’s done very well. And when Brainiac is defeated, all bets are off and that fragile relationship goes away quick, but it’s still a tragedy for both of them because they recognize what they’ve lost.

The villain in Brainiac is actually pretty good in my opinion. He is a villain that needs a live action appearance pretty quickly as he is cold, calculated, and in the comics, he’s not necessarily one with a plan that is a direct result of the existence of a hero, something that is continuously done in Marvel movies today. In Injustice 2, he’s an invading force trying to collect and analyze the beings of the galaxy, keep the strongest and the most unique as prisoners and discard the rest. I didn’t necessarily understand why he aligned himself with The Society, but hey they needed to give an excuse why Gorilla Grodd was in the game so I’ll give it a pass.

I’m going to talk about the amount of unnecessary characters later on and why a lot of them are pointless, but there are a couple of characters I actually really liked. If you haven’t figured out already, I really enjoyed Batman and Superman and their dynamic. But Supergirl was also a welcome addition to the games. I understand why as Supergirl is a really popular show on the CW right now, one that this game has made me want to check out even more, but throughout the game she was actually a really interesting character and necessary to the plot. 

In this alternate universe, Brainiac is the one that destroys Krypton and Kara saw the destruction first hand. She is sent in a pod to Earth like she is in the normal universe but she is set off course and doesn’t make it to Earth until after the events of Injustice 1. When she does make it to Earth, she is intercepted by Wonder Woman and Black Adam. Those two harbor her in secret and train her to eventually fight Batman and free Kal-El. That idea is phenomenally interesting and really turns the idea of bad guys and good guys on its head as Wonder Woman is actually one of the more evil people in the game. (Something that was really interesting considering the character from the movie and how different those two are).

Wonder Woman is a good example of characters in this game that really take a back seat to the main characters like Superman, Batman, and Supergirl. She kind of falls in between the line of important characters and characters who were just there to change characters as she is slightly developed and interested me as a character, but there wasn’t quite enough to make her super memorable or make her actions have quite as big as an impact as they should have.

The Flash is a good example of this too. In the first game, the Flash was a part of Superman’s regime but eventually changed sides when he realized how far Superman had fallen. In this game, he’s been pardoned by Batman and he’s trying to regain that title of Hero. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough time to focus on that redemption story because it’s just not as pertinent as the main story of an invasion by Brainiac and the duality crisis happening between Superman and Batman.

The same goes for Aquaman. Atlantis is lost off screen and that should have been a bigger deal but the reason it’s not is because the only time we’re in Atlantis is when we’re playing as Green Lantern and he’s having his own issues that really pan out to nothing. While we’re wasting time fighting Atrocitus, a character that shows up once in the entire story of the game, we could have been playing as Aquaman and figure out what he’s been up to since the last game. And he wasn’t even a big part of the last game either so we really have no idea what the Aquaman of this universe is like. That’s why when Aquaman does such a malicious act in killing Gorilla Grodd in cold blood, it really doesn’t have much of an effect on the player.

There are so many useless characters. There are the characters who are only there to give the player people to play as or fight (Deadshot, Poison Ivy, Bane, Captain Cold). In that same category are the people who you think are going to have larger impacts on the plot but really have no bearing whatsoever (Doctor Fate and Atrocitus). But also there’s the storylines that just get discarded and we just forget about them (Firestorm, Beetle, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Black Canary). Even the characters that had legitimate roles in the story are often forgotten about and really just used to get the shit beaten out of them. Harley Quinn had a decent set up in the beginning where she faces the demons of her past (or the poor excuse to include the deceased Joker in the game) but after her four battles are over, literally has three moments where she gets knocked out by other characters so that the character you’re playing as can fight them.

The biggest problem this game has is that while the first one utilized characters in support of the story, this game had it's story work in support of the different characters they wanted to put in the game. The only reason Deadshot is in the game is because he was popular in Suicide Squad. The only reason Captain Cold was in the game was because he's a character in The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. The only reason the Joker is in the game is because the Joker is DC's best villain at the moment and god forbid you do any kind of game or set up any kind of universe without him involved in one way or another. 

Unfortunately, this is the reason that Injustice 2's story is not nearly as good as Injustice God's Among Us. Gameplay-wise, Injustice 2 is as good if not better than its predecessor, but since I mainly focus on the story, I must say that the story definitely has things to improve on.

So what can the DCEU learn from the good and the bad of the Injustice games? 

1) Doing something with the characters is a good thing, you just have to know where you're going with it - Injustice took a risk in taking the hero who is most well known for being a symbol of truth and justice and turning him into a villain and they did it well. So doing something different with a character is fine. If you want to make Batman an older more experienced Batman who is okay with killing, that is fine, but make sure it's consistent and there's an explanation as to why this is something different than the character we've come to know. 

If Superman is not the bright and hopeful hero we remember him as, then give him dialogue and motivation for why he's so dower and depressing. If Superman is evil in a nightmare, maybe that nightmare should have a little bit more bearing on the movie at hand instead of just being a set up for future movies. Get the plot for the current movie set in stone and solid before you start setting up the characters and motivations for future movies. Look at Wonder Woman, that is a movie that focused on the task at hand, making Wonder Woman a compelling character and telling a great story about her. It didn't waste time trying to set something up in the future, it just gave you a solid story and that's it. 

2 A lot of characters does not always mean better stories - This is not necessarily a trope that can be learned just from the Injustice games but from a lot of movies. Injustice 2 had so many characters that the moments with the main characters got short changed and their emotional moments were not as powerful. 

So DC, don't do what you did with Batman v Superman and just throw familiar characters at the wall and hope that it sticks. Focus on the important ones, build their stories, and write them well. Yeah it was cool to see Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg in Batman v Superman, but it didn't really fit well in the cut of the movie. If you have a good story and there's time to throw in easter eggs, fine. But focus on the story at hand. 

3 Don't assume the audience knows every single character - Atrocitus did not need to be in this game for so many reasons. But part of the reason I hated that he was in this game so much was because I have no idea who he is. The only thing we really know about him is that he's a member of the Red Lantern Corp. Red Lanterns are like Green Lanterns except instead of Will, they utilize their rage. 

But there are so many questions I have about Atrocitus. What's his story? Is he a bad guy just because he's red? What's up with the cat he travels and fights with. There are so many things I was really confused about when it came to Atrocitus. And here's the thing. In the game, it doesn't really matter. They understand that they're not going to have the audience that movies get and while there's still a lot of people who don't know who Atrocitus is, they're going into a video game with different intentions than a movie so it doesn't matter as much. 

But you know another character who we knew just as much if not less about in one of the DCEU movies? Katanna.

The only thing we know about Katanna is that perfectly stupid line, "This is Katanna, she's got my back. I would advise not getting killed by her, her sword traps the souls of it's victims..." That is it. We never know anything more about this character and all she does is just swing a sword and look cool. 

If you want to add cool characters, they have to be an actual part of the movie and not just there to look cool and be fan service to the few people that have actually read those comics. I have no doubt that the Katanna comics are great, but not a lot of movie going audiences have read them so you can't assume that when you introduce a character, and give her a vague introduction, that we all know who she is. If you do, you get made fun of for the rest of that year because that line was one of the most iconically stupid lines of all of 2016. 

4 Embrace how weird DC comic book characters and stories can get - Superheroes are weird. They're people in costumes fighting bad guys and trying to save the day with crazy powers or abilities. These are not things that take place in the real world, so stop trying to Nolan-ize this stuff and just embrace how strange these characters are, but also how rich of a mythology they have. 

This is something that the CW TV shows have actually embraced pretty well. They have managed to create a world with a guy who shoots Arrows like Robin Hood, a kid who melds his mind with a professor to create a nuclear reactive man, as well as incorporated a criminal mastermind with a freeze gun. Sure these things are explained in a way that makes sense for the world that they live in, but they don't really betray the essence of the characters. Not to say Christopher Nolan wasn't great in his creation of the Dark Knight universe, but the current DCEU's first scene in their first movie Man of Steel took place on an alien planet and two of their main characters are super powered beings, one from space, and the other is a demi-goddess. Also there's a guy who dresses up like a bat. Have fun with the mythology a little bit. You don't have to go full Marvel and crack a joke every scene, you can take the subject material a little bit seriously because we are definitely going to, our money at superhero movie box offices have told you that very clearly. 

I think that if DC utilizes the storytelling talent they used in Wonder Woman and use some of the imagination and creativity they used in the Injustice games, I think the cinematic universe could be something really great. 

But on a simpler note, Injustice 2 is a fun game with a good story, but not as good as the one from Gods Among Us. I think Injustice 2 is a case study we can all learn from and hopefully DC can learn from the mistakes of both their previous movies and Injustice 2 and this cinematic universe can keep on going and be better than ever. 

But those are my thoughts. What about you? What do you think of Injustice 2? Comment and Discuss below! you can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for future movies, TV shows, and games I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog as well as live tweets I put out while watching TV or movies sometimes. 

I'll leave you with this. I give Marvel a lot of crap these days because I've seen a slight decline in their movies and felt as though they have become formulaic and predictable. However, they did begin a franchise, something that DC (and many other movies) are trying to replicate. This gives a slight look into how that began and maybe we can learn something from it as well.