Reviewed: December 13, 2002
Reviewed by: Loki
Publisher
Midway
Developer
Saffire
Released: November 21, 2002
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone
4
4
4
4
4.1
It is truly depressing to see an amazing opportunity get squandered away on a poor game design. When I first heard about Justice League: Injustice For All I was admittedly excited. After all, Super Friends was one of my favorite Saturday morning regulars and I still try to catch it whenever its on the Cartoon Network.
Just imagine the possibilities; seven superheroes, each with their own unique abilities that you can use in various combinations to battle evil and solve various puzzles, etc. My mind was racing with the possibilities, but once I started playing this game I realized that my fantasies were going to go unfulfilled this time around.
Justice League: Injustice For All is based on the Justice League animated television series where the greatest super heroes of all time are called in to save the day. Fighting for truth, justice and freedom (apparently the “American Way” is no longer politically correct – we don’t want to piss off any GBA-owning Iraqis), Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter have banded together to fight for the common good against the Injustice League: The Joker, Lex Luthor, Mongul, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, The Shade, Star Sapphire, Copperhead, Gorilla Grodd, Felix Faust and The Manhunter Robots.
The game takes place across 14 unique levels spanning the globe, and each level offers you two superheroes you can use together and separately to complete the mission. My first big complaint is that your choice of characters is not your choice but rather a predetermined selection. The game would have had so much more replay value if you could have played and replayed each mission picking any two characters for each level.
One word of warning to those with an itchy trigger finger. The story is told through cutscenes that can be easily (and unintentionally) skipped by pressing the A button. With no easy way to go back and replay these, you can often get into a part of the game and not know why you are there – not that it matters that much.
Gameplay is pretty generic. You use your superpowers to defeat the enemies, collect keycards, access locked areas and eventually fight and hopefully defeat one of the eight super villains that is waiting for you at the end of these levels.
Even the simple stuff like controlling your heroes is made more difficult than it should be with some stiff and unyielding controls. Combined with an unforgiving collision detection system that makes fighting a real pain, you are left with a game that is more of a chore than a joy to play. You won’t even find the boss battles much of a challenge. Apparently they know that good always defeats evil so they let you pummel them into submissions with little to no resistance.
Given the simple 2D nature of the animated series you would expect some nice flowing sprite animation. Not so. For some reason the designers have decided to model the characters in 3D rather than hand-drawing them. These 3D models are rendered at the key angles to generate the sprites used within the game and what you end up with is a jerky mess where the movements are neither smooth or natural.
The level design is fairly uninspired and this is reflected in the sub-par background art that is riddled with repeating textures. If there is a surface of any substantial size you will see a texture repeat multiple times across that surface.
The music in Justice League is about as generic as the overall game. It doesn’t seem based on anything I’ve heard in the television series and doesn’t even suit the gameplay. Sound effects are decent enough, but with so much to draw from the series I was hoping for so much more.
If you can muddle through the controls, the buggy levels, and the poor combat and collisions system you can fight your way through this game in a day or two. The 12 levels aren’t that large and extremely unbalanced in length and difficulty.
Even more surprising is the lack of link-support. Since you are playing two superheroes at any given time this game begs for a cooperative campaign mode or even a versus mode for some arena action to create some ultimate battles of good vs. evil. Justice League is a solo experience and not a very long one at that.
Justice League was a major letdown for me. Having grown up with Super Friends I had certain preconceptions about what this game was going to be and none of them were realized. Secretly, I was hoping for a Lost Vikings type of game with superpowers, but even the symbiotic gameplay that is present in this title just doesn’t explore the concepts thoroughly.
Only the most diehard superhero fanatics should even consider renting this game. Everyone else can skip this and wait for the upcoming Lost Vikings game. Those little Norse dudes might not have x-ray vision or be able to fly, but they do have style; something this game lost in the rush out the door to meet some holiday deadline no doubt.
