Injustice 2: The Silent Protagonist Review
After repeat requests, WB Games actually provided Silent Protagonist with an advance review copy of Injustice 2. Despite being unable to play it on my Xbox One, I have managed to get it playing on my phone.
Every so often, a game comes around that is an exercise in false advertising. Recently, Silent Protagonist reviewed Bunny Pop, where no bunnies actually got popped. The original Watch Dogs was sold as a stunning looking game but was released in low definition. Alien: Colonel Marines was a true sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens in the sense that Alien vs Predator was a true sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens. However, none of these instances can compare to the false advertising that is Injustice 2.
With an advertised roster of 27 characters out of the box, and at least ten DLC characters, you would be forgiven for assuming that you would have a variety of characters to choose from, from the outset. You would be wrong, however. Instead, you are greeted with two characters at the start: 2016’s bad film Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn, and 2016’s badder film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s Batman. Further, after promising Darkseid as a preorder bonus, you are simply met with Catwoman, an existing character in the game’s roster. It also took WB Games and NetherRealm Studios almost a week to provide the character, after a large update. But at least you don’t have to unlock her, right?
The false advertising continues with its microtransactions, which appear to be the game’s bread and butter, despite promises that these will only be used for cosmetic armour. However, all armour is functional, and crystals, one of the fighter’s many in-game currencies, are purchasable. Characters are also purchasable, with Suicide Squad Harley Quinn (not to be confused with the readily available Harley Quinn) being purchasable with her upgrades for the bargain price of AU$61. Bundles of crystals, however, can be purchased for anywhere between AU$6 and AU$135, depending on how much you really want to win.
Where Injustice: Gods Among Us featured deep fighting mechanics, with special moves you need to work to master, Injustice 2 instead offers simplified controls. Tap to attack, move forward for a strong attack, move up for a high attack, and move down for a low attack. The game changes the pace as you move back to evade. You can launch special attacks and block by tapping the buttons on screen. There is no further movement in the controls, ensuring that newcomers can find the game accessible.
Injustice 2 does offer a wide variety of game modes, however. While there is no Arcade mode, you’ll find yourself fighting through the campaign. Also included is Arena, which provides your multiplayer goodness. Resource Missions include simplistic fights you can make your way through if you’re not paying to win. Operations allows you to level up your characters if you don’t want to use them. Story so far offers the depth you would expect from a NetherRealm fighter, however, at the time of writing, only the first chapter has been released. Story chapters aren’t all the game is missing, however, as the Leagues mode is still listed as coming soon. While there is fun to be had, the game is yet incomplete, so day one players will want to measure their expectations
Injustice 2 has been advertised as the next great AAA fighter, however resembles a mobile game to the point it is actually playable on your phone. With the majority of its story missing as well as game modes, it is incomplete. WB Games even advertised it’s preorder bonus falsely and illegally. While the gameplay is fun, it fails to come remotely close to matching the depth of its predecessor. A disappointment all round, it should be avoided by anybody other than die hard fanboys and girls.
10/10
A note about our review scores: Normally we play and evaluate the almost innumerable technical and narrative elements of a game, trying to distill those factors into a final figure that represents the entirety of our thoughts and feelings on the title. We then look up the user average on Metacritic, crowdsourcing a much wider audience that may have insights or loves or grudges that are in no way related to the written portion of our review, and use that number as our final score. As Silent Protagonist broke the review embargo by a few hours (we’re rebels), Metacritic has no score to copy and paste. As stated, only die hard fanboys and girls should play the game, and you won’t find a bigger die hard DC fanboy than me, so it gets a perfect score.
