Kefkataran
12-28-2006, 09:55 PM
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Title: Justice League Heroes (http://justiceleagueheroes.warnerbros.com/)
Platform: Playstation 2
MSRP: $39.99
Publisher: Warner Bros., Eidos Interactive
Developer: Snowblind Studios
Review by: Philip 'KefkaTaran' Kollar
Apparently no one ever taught Snowblind Studios not to shoot their load in the first five minutes. Justice League Heroes is a X-Men Legends style beat-em-up that lets players take control of a smattering of DC’s biggest superheroes. You can only have any two of the heroes fighting alongside each other at the same time, and in the first level of Justice League Heroes those two characters are Batman and Superman. What’s perhaps even more interesting than this cutting to the chase is that the very next level forces you into the shoes of C-list heroes Martian Manhunter and Zatanna, probably the two most obscure characters in the game. These two are both interesting characters, but do you really want to be them in a video game? After having just played as Superman and Batman?
This first crack of bad design ends up expanding into a gorge of an ill-conceived game. The problem is not the actual gameplay here, repetitive as it may be. Both the X-Men Legends games and Marvel Ultimate Alliance have shown that repeated pressing X to punch nameless bad guys can be fun enough if you’re doing it as cool characters in cool situations. The DC universe and their Justice League have enough fascinating people to provide this same experience, but Snowblind settled for quickly aping Raven Software’s much more successful efforts without actually studying them long enough to figure out why they were fun.
So you start the game as Batman and Superman, and you’re fighting Braniac (rather than one of the numerous better-off-unknown villains that appear throughout the game). Even better, Batman and Superman actually feel suitably different. Superman has high hit points and destroys enemies much faster, not to mention he can fly. Batman, meanwhile, is better off staying a ways behind and whipping out various tech tricks to take out the baddies. Sure, there are the fanboys who will complain about the fact that Superman can die at all, but with video game necessities given, this is a nice start. Then the first level up comes.
Leveling in Justice League Heroes is a fairly straightforward affair. You kill enemies, enemies drop green orbs, you collect green orbs until your meter is full, and poof, you’re more powerful. Along with the normal stat increases, you’re given two to three skill points per level. These can be applied to increasing five different “superpowers” or the mundane RPG stuff: combat, health, recovery, etc. Each superpower and stat can be raised up to five times, and for each time it’s raised, you unlock a slot to put “boosts” into the power. If this sounds very familiar to City of Heroes players, it should. There are only a few kinds of boosts – luck, damage, efficiency, range, speed, and duration – but how they help your powers is fairly self-explanatory. You can also combine boosts to make more powerful bumps to your stats.
What becomes obvious far too fast, though, is that these boosts are fairly useless. In fact, most of the game’s superpowers are fairly useless. A handful – Superman’s heat vision and Batman’s batarang spring to mind – are perfect fallbacks for the few situations in the game that require long-range tactics. Beyond that, though, it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to move past repeatedly punching and kicking whatever is in your way, so upgrading a character’s health, recovery, and combat skills are much more important, albeit a lot less interesting. The boosts never help in a noticeable enough way to require much thought when equipping them.
Justice League Heroes does allow a second human player to take control of whatever hero you’re teamed up with during any of the game’s episodes, but it’s not an especially fun co-op game. Furthermore, even with the game’s terrible AI pathing problems, passing solo on Medium difficulty is a breeze. The only time you’re likely to have trouble is when the game forces you to use two characters who are just slightly under-developed. During one memorable occasion I was stuck with Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, two of my least used guys, in a level where enemies were continuously churned out at me for twenty minutes leading into a boss fight. Wow, was that ever… not fun. Finishing the game once unlocks two difficulties above Hard, but these are simply mind-bogglingly difficult, a-few-hits-and-you’re-dead settings, even with the “Continued Play” feature. Not many people are likely to find any real desire to replay much less in a mode that makes the game even more of a chore.
The game suffers from some serious problems when it comes to motivating the players. The storyline and voice acting, to begin with, are very weak. A yawn-inducing plot may have been manageable if, like X-Men Legends, the game provided sidequests that pulled together some great storylines from DC comics past or even just from the Justice League cartoon, but alas, there’s nothing of the sort. The unlockables here are mostly made up of alternate costumes, which you pay for with “shields” that are, for some reason, the game’s currency. There are four or five new heroes to unlock, but there are some really strange choices here. Seeing Aquaman and Green Arrow was nice, but I didn’t even realize Huntress had ever been a major member of the Justice League. And for some reason there are TWO separate unlockable Green Lanterns (in addition to the one already available from the start), but the Golden age Green Lantern and Golden age Flash (who are actually quite a bit different from their other namesakes in game) are merely alternate costumes.
Conclusion:
Justice League Heroes is a competent enough product to provide a few hours of satisfaction if you’re a big fan of the DC universe or you just want a quick, fun button-masher. But in the end, the game is so short (less than eight hours on my first play-through) and so full of head-scratching design decisions, that even the $40 price tag is going to leave most people who bought this at retail put off. A great rental if you want to blow a weekend with a friend on the game’s co-op. Otherwise, avoid.
<div style="float:right; margin-right:60px; margin-left:5px">
<br>
Verdict:
http://www.evilavatar.com/images/icons/e2.jpg
2 out of 5 Evil Eyes
</div>
The Good:
+DC heroes finally getting some video game love that's not complete crap!
+Somewhat amusing distraction for a few hours; add some fun if playing co-op
The Bad:
-No variety
-No cool side-missions
-No interesting plot to speak of
The Ugly:
-Those don't sound like the voice actors from Justice League Unlimited! Wait, they're not? Oh...
Title: Justice League Heroes (http://justiceleagueheroes.warnerbros.com/)
Platform: Playstation 2
MSRP: $39.99
Publisher: Warner Bros., Eidos Interactive
Developer: Snowblind Studios
Review by: Philip 'KefkaTaran' Kollar
Apparently no one ever taught Snowblind Studios not to shoot their load in the first five minutes. Justice League Heroes is a X-Men Legends style beat-em-up that lets players take control of a smattering of DC’s biggest superheroes. You can only have any two of the heroes fighting alongside each other at the same time, and in the first level of Justice League Heroes those two characters are Batman and Superman. What’s perhaps even more interesting than this cutting to the chase is that the very next level forces you into the shoes of C-list heroes Martian Manhunter and Zatanna, probably the two most obscure characters in the game. These two are both interesting characters, but do you really want to be them in a video game? After having just played as Superman and Batman?
This first crack of bad design ends up expanding into a gorge of an ill-conceived game. The problem is not the actual gameplay here, repetitive as it may be. Both the X-Men Legends games and Marvel Ultimate Alliance have shown that repeated pressing X to punch nameless bad guys can be fun enough if you’re doing it as cool characters in cool situations. The DC universe and their Justice League have enough fascinating people to provide this same experience, but Snowblind settled for quickly aping Raven Software’s much more successful efforts without actually studying them long enough to figure out why they were fun.
So you start the game as Batman and Superman, and you’re fighting Braniac (rather than one of the numerous better-off-unknown villains that appear throughout the game). Even better, Batman and Superman actually feel suitably different. Superman has high hit points and destroys enemies much faster, not to mention he can fly. Batman, meanwhile, is better off staying a ways behind and whipping out various tech tricks to take out the baddies. Sure, there are the fanboys who will complain about the fact that Superman can die at all, but with video game necessities given, this is a nice start. Then the first level up comes.
Leveling in Justice League Heroes is a fairly straightforward affair. You kill enemies, enemies drop green orbs, you collect green orbs until your meter is full, and poof, you’re more powerful. Along with the normal stat increases, you’re given two to three skill points per level. These can be applied to increasing five different “superpowers” or the mundane RPG stuff: combat, health, recovery, etc. Each superpower and stat can be raised up to five times, and for each time it’s raised, you unlock a slot to put “boosts” into the power. If this sounds very familiar to City of Heroes players, it should. There are only a few kinds of boosts – luck, damage, efficiency, range, speed, and duration – but how they help your powers is fairly self-explanatory. You can also combine boosts to make more powerful bumps to your stats.
What becomes obvious far too fast, though, is that these boosts are fairly useless. In fact, most of the game’s superpowers are fairly useless. A handful – Superman’s heat vision and Batman’s batarang spring to mind – are perfect fallbacks for the few situations in the game that require long-range tactics. Beyond that, though, it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to move past repeatedly punching and kicking whatever is in your way, so upgrading a character’s health, recovery, and combat skills are much more important, albeit a lot less interesting. The boosts never help in a noticeable enough way to require much thought when equipping them.
Justice League Heroes does allow a second human player to take control of whatever hero you’re teamed up with during any of the game’s episodes, but it’s not an especially fun co-op game. Furthermore, even with the game’s terrible AI pathing problems, passing solo on Medium difficulty is a breeze. The only time you’re likely to have trouble is when the game forces you to use two characters who are just slightly under-developed. During one memorable occasion I was stuck with Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, two of my least used guys, in a level where enemies were continuously churned out at me for twenty minutes leading into a boss fight. Wow, was that ever… not fun. Finishing the game once unlocks two difficulties above Hard, but these are simply mind-bogglingly difficult, a-few-hits-and-you’re-dead settings, even with the “Continued Play” feature. Not many people are likely to find any real desire to replay much less in a mode that makes the game even more of a chore.
The game suffers from some serious problems when it comes to motivating the players. The storyline and voice acting, to begin with, are very weak. A yawn-inducing plot may have been manageable if, like X-Men Legends, the game provided sidequests that pulled together some great storylines from DC comics past or even just from the Justice League cartoon, but alas, there’s nothing of the sort. The unlockables here are mostly made up of alternate costumes, which you pay for with “shields” that are, for some reason, the game’s currency. There are four or five new heroes to unlock, but there are some really strange choices here. Seeing Aquaman and Green Arrow was nice, but I didn’t even realize Huntress had ever been a major member of the Justice League. And for some reason there are TWO separate unlockable Green Lanterns (in addition to the one already available from the start), but the Golden age Green Lantern and Golden age Flash (who are actually quite a bit different from their other namesakes in game) are merely alternate costumes.
Conclusion:
Justice League Heroes is a competent enough product to provide a few hours of satisfaction if you’re a big fan of the DC universe or you just want a quick, fun button-masher. But in the end, the game is so short (less than eight hours on my first play-through) and so full of head-scratching design decisions, that even the $40 price tag is going to leave most people who bought this at retail put off. A great rental if you want to blow a weekend with a friend on the game’s co-op. Otherwise, avoid.
<div style="float:right; margin-right:60px; margin-left:5px">
<br>
Verdict:
http://www.evilavatar.com/images/icons/e2.jpg
2 out of 5 Evil Eyes
</div>
The Good:
+DC heroes finally getting some video game love that's not complete crap!
+Somewhat amusing distraction for a few hours; add some fun if playing co-op
The Bad:
-No variety
-No cool side-missions
-No interesting plot to speak of
The Ugly:
-Those don't sound like the voice actors from Justice League Unlimited! Wait, they're not? Oh...