Injustice: Gods Among Us – Demo with Ed Boon at EVO 2012

Moments before the Mortal Kombat Finals at EVO 2012 this past Sunday, Ed Boon took to the stage to give an exclusive fifteen minute demonstration of their next fighter: Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Although not obvious at all from its title, Injustice is a DC Comic’s driven game much like Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was, back in 2008. Before then, there hadn’t been a DC one-on-one fighter since 1995, with Marvel and Capcom racking up 8 titles within that time. So, Injustice is a fighter long overdue to at least add some comic balance.

The demo began with a first look at the main menu screen, which itself looked very impressive. The text and effects around it were superb, and certainly isn’t your typical fighter menu screen. Key characters from the game are seen walking boldly forwards, and looked magnificent.

The visual dominance continues in-game too, with Ed first showing one of two arenas within the demo: The Batcave. The arenas are huge, with many items available to assist in battle such as cars or grenades. The characters look simply awesome too; their costumes are more from Earth-2 DC, but with Netherealm’s own unique spin on them.

Smashing each other through the arena’s walls to other areas is a prominent feature, mostly for visual effect from the looks of it. Seeing Superman smash someone through a wall is always spectacular. Although I’m not a fan of this, it’s evident Netherealm Studios have gone to great lengths to keep this feature as varied as possible, and not something to rely on for victory. In the Batcave for example, you can smash through the right hand wall, yet on the left is an elevator which, once penetrated, cues a sequence showing the elevator being pummelled by both fighters inside.

As you can see from the video, it’s very much Mortal Kombat (MK) in nature, without the horrific violence of course. The action is fast and furious, yet like MK, the fights seem to last an age at the same time. Instead of a round system, each player has two health bars that deplete when hit.

The most noticeable change from MK is the replacement of Fatalities with super moves, which makes perfect sense. MK’s characters kill, DC’s do not. They are still pretty brutal moves though, as shown below.

This leads to my only slight concern; just how does The Flash get up after a beating like that from Superman, a near invincible alien? Expect him to be banned from all EVO tournaments, should the game get the nod.

Injustice: Gods Among Us could well be Ed Boon’s first major success outside of the Mortal Kombat franchise. From the looks of this demo, it owes a lot to MK for its foundations, but the last MK was great fun, so it can only be positive from here.