Friday, August 29, 2014

The Flaws With: Call of Duty franchise

Before people look at the title and start getting mad, let me set things straight.  I do find Call of Duty to be fun and entertaining when playing with friends.  It's a great multiplayer game to play with friends along with other shooters like Halo and GoldenEye.  That doesn't mean I think the game is flawless though.  There are some gripes I have with this franchise, and I'm going to tell them to you.

First off, the biggest problem is the lack of innovation.  I know we need mindless shooters to counter the smart wonders in gaming, but that doesn't excuse a lack of creativity.  You're always some buff meat head who has to stop some form of terrorists ranging from Russians to to anything that isn't from North America or the U.K.  Why can't we change up the formula.  While some complain about Battlefield give Dice credit for experimenting with their games, 2142 had titan mode, 4 had destructible parts of the battlefield, and Hard line will be about cops and robbers.  Call of Duty doesn't change many things.  Why don't they try doing something similar to Far Cry 3, you could be this scrawny weakling, but as the game progresses you become an expert of war.  If you have some good ideas for a good new Call of Duty story, comment below.

Another problem is how very little of your actions affect your character or the story.  I know there are moments where you decide who lives, but that doesn't change a lot of the story.  There should be a moment where one bullet could impact the entire game.  If you shoot a certain person, your character debates on whether or not how their handling the issue is the wrong way.  This is a small idea, but it could leave a big impact to your character.

Finally, this is a bit more personal, but why are we allowing little kids to play these games.  There's a reason we have the ESRB system.  If you want your kid to play games like this, wait till there older, and can understand what's happening.  If you let them play at a young age, it will make kids a bit more violent, and they might gain a bad mouth.  If you want your kid to play games like this, wait till there older.

That's all of my gripes with Call of Duty as a whole.  Again, I do enjoy playing this with friends, but multiplayer can't be the only thing you stand on, you have to have a good single player part as well.  I know we need games like this to counter the smart masterpieces but that doesn't excuse this franchise.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Spy Hunter(N.E.S.)

 The N.E.S has had some great games, one great developer the N.E.S had was Sunsoft.  Sunsoft made some entertaining games for the N.E.S, and probably their most popular was Spy Hunter for the N.E.S.  This is actually a port of the popular arcade game of the same name.  So, without further delay, let's look at Spy Hunter.

There really isn't a story for the game, since most arcade games didn't really have a story at the time, along with any ports made.  Instead, I'll tell you what is going on.  You're some spy hunter(hence the title) who drives an epic car called the interceptor.  The player tries to kill any enemy spy cars(the dark blue cars).  You have to avoid killing civilians, and try to not die yourself.  Along the way, semi trucks will come to give you gadgets that you can use.

Let's look at the positives:  First off, this game is hard.  It's so hard, that you have a grace period that allows you to die however many times you want, without losing a life.  I like this though, challenge is a great aspect that makes you more determined to beat your high score, and gets you addicted to the game.  The music is entertaining, it's just an eight bit version of the theme to a show called Peter Gunn, and it's memorable.  You won't get the song out of your head.  You have to go faster to gain points quicker, but the faster you go, the harder it is to see other cars, giving you easier chances to die.  If you kill a civilian, you get penalized and stop gaining points.  The challenge is great as I said before, in most games now a days, there would be difficulty selections, tutorials, and other things, back then, they challenged you and knew players had intelligence.  As you go semi trucks will come that will allow you to get helpful gadgets when you enter the semi's back.  These gadgets include oil slick, smoke screen, and a missile that takes out enemy helicopters.  Each gadget is helpful, and if you don't have gadgets, you can use the main guns on the car.  This game is a fun challenge.

There are negatives though:  First off, the game does have glitches.  The original arcade version was better on glitches I hear, but the N.E.S does have some glitches when it comes to collision detection.  Also, sometimes, the Peter Gunn theme won't play sometimes, just giving you silence, which seems dull sometimes.  Also, while I like the difficulty, others might like things to be easier(I guess they can't handle the heat that is the N.E.S.).

Overall, Spy Hunter is a fun port of a fun arcade game.  If you like the challenge, you'll love this game, if you don't however, then you might not like this game.  We don't see Sunsoft a lot now a days.  It's sad though, because they had games with really awesome soundtracks, and Spy Hunter is a good example of this.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The Flaws With: Old N.E.S save abilities

This might sound odd to talk about, as this was a revolutionary feature for games when it came out.  However, this was when it was in it's early stages, there were still flaws with saving at the time.  So I'm here to look at the flaws.

First off, the biggest flaw is that the battery for the save feature could run out.  This might not seem bad, but believe me it's a major flaws.  Here's my story,  I bought the Legend of Zelda for N.E.S. on Amazon and played right away.  I loved the game, it had great music, game play, and was a great adventure(see my review for more details).  One day, I had all of the tri force pieces and was ready to fight Ganon.  So I was at the last boss, and died.  I didn't think this was bad, I just saved and decided to play it later and beat Ganon.  When I turned the game back on, my save file was gone.  I was so mad at this, all of my work, hours spent fighting through dungeons, finally making it to Ganon, and my save file disappears.  It was terrible.  So now I have to go through the entire game all over from square one.

This is the main gripe I have with it.  It was revolutionary though.  You didn't need long passwords anymore to save your progress.  It did have some flaws early on, thankfully they fixed these issues later.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

The Legend of Zelda

 The N.E.S is undeniably Nintendo's name maker(if you know what I mean).  It ended the game crash of 1983 (with Mario's help) and brought us some of the best games known to man.  These games include Super Mario Brothers, Contra, and, of course, The Legend of Zelda, which I will be talking about today.  This game made the Zelda franchise legendary and widely known.  95 percent of gamers will say that one of there favorite games is one of the Zelda titles.  Anyway, let's look at the game that started it all, the Legend of Zelda for the N.E.S.

The story goes like this:  Princess Zelda splits the tri force of wisdom into eight pieces to prevent the dark prince Ganon from stealing the tri force of wisdom.  Ganon already has the tri force of power, so if he gets the tri force of wisdom, then he'll be an unstoppable force.  When Ganon raids Zelda's castle, it's too late the tri force of wisdom has been broken into eight pieces.  Ganon decides to kidnap Zelda to instead.  It's up to the hero Link, to find all eight pieces of the tri force, defeat Ganon, and rescue Zelda to bring peace to the kingdom of Hyrule.

Let's look at the positives:  First off, the game has a great sense of adventure.  You will travel across the map and fighting evil monsters along the way, giving you a great sense of achievement.  When you find a secret, you feel like an adventurer.  The game has great immersion when you play it.  You feel like you're the hero of the game, every time you defeat a boss or find a new item, you feel rewarded every time.  The music is memorable, there's only around four tracks, but everyone remembers them, especially the main theme.  I would consider the theme for The Legend of Zelda being the anthem for gamers everywhere, you listen to the song and you instantly think of Zelda.  Every item is useful, none feel like a waste, and they're all useful at one point of the game.  This game is just a masterpiece.

These are just some nit picks that I have:  First off, I would've liked to have been given a little more direction to the next dungeon.  I don't mean they tell me where it is directly, I just mean a little hint as to where it is.  This is just a nit pick though, The game is still great.

Overall, The Legend of Zelda is a masterpiece and deserves all of its praises.  With Hyrule Warriors coming soon, and a hint to a new Zelda Title, this shows that The Legend of Zelda is still going strong today, and it all started with this game.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

The Flaws With: The Xbox One

This is a new segment I'm going to do where I look at the flaws with certain parts of gaming.  I'm going to start this new segment off with the Xbox One.  First off, I'm not saying the Xbox One is a terrible console, I'm just saying they did some things wrong with the console.  Anyway, let's dive write into the Xbox One.

First off, the biggest flaw for me is that they mostly advertised it as a media center than a game console.  This could work...if they didn't already set up the Xbox line as being a console.  This doesn't seem right, the games should be top priority, and the other aspects, like for example Netflix capabilities, should be second to the games.  You can tell me the N.E.S. was advertised as a toy not a console so my argument is invalid.  However, remember that before the N.E.S. came out, the game crash of 1983 occurred.  No one wanted a game console at the time, so Nintendo had to find a way to reach out.  With the Xbox One, however, we have an abundance of consoles now, ranging from the Wii U to the PS4, to last gen consoles to PC gaming, which is getting big now, and we are very pleased with what we got.  Plus, as a minor note, the launch titles weren't really that appealing to me.

Also, I find the whole idea of the Xbox One trying to make TV being hand and hand with my gaming a bit off.  Basically, I can watch TV, while I play games, and I can use the Xbox One as to change the channel.  I don't watch a lot of TV, only when I'm having a meal or something like that, so why is a device that I used to not watch TV, is having TV be one of it's biggest features.  I remember an argument I had with a friend of mine telling me the Xbox one is cool, I told him the concept of making TV be a big part of the console is bad, but he kept telling me a lot of people buy Xbox's for Netflix.  I find this flawed because, I already own a computer, a smartphone, a Wii, a 3DS, and an Xbox 360, and all of these can play Netflix, so why should I buy an Xbox One to watch Netflix, when I have endless ways to watch it that are also cheaper.  Even if you don't own an Xbox 360 you can still watch Netflix on other platforms.  Now first off, I'm not bashing the Xbox 360, I like it, it's a great console, and better the the One in console wise, it's cheaper(price I'll get to later) and I have a big library, also I'm not bashing Netflix, it's awesome.  However, I find it dumb that Microsoft tells me I should buy an Xbox One for Netflix when I already own a 360.

My last point is this, the price is ridiculous.  They want you to pay 500 dollars for an Xbox One.  Really 500 dollars Microsoft, first off I'm pretty sure every kid doesn't have 500 dollars lying in there pockets, and second were you expecting aristocrats to buy the system.  This just seems flawed.  This could seem fare, if they didn't say there was no backwards compatibility.  Why no backwards compatibility, I wouldn't of written this article if there was backwards compatibility.  I hear they fixed this, but I don't know exactly, this is just a big flub for Microsoft.

I'm going to have to end this hear, there's a lot more issues I can name for the Xbox One, but if I did, I'd be here all day.  Overall, if could, I'd say stick with a 360.  It's cheaper, has great games, and you can play your old Xbox games on it.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Pokemon Red and Blue

 The handheld gaming market is great for people that want to game while on the road or not at home.  The Game Boy made the handheld market big with it's ability to play while on the go.  No one cared that the screen wasn't in color, the Game Boy had great games like Tetris and Super Mario Land.  However, the game (or games) that helped the Game Boy in sales is Pokemon Red and Blue.  These two games not only made people buy a Game Boy, but they also made Pokemon one of the most popular games on the market.  They were so popular that they started a craze in the 90's, getting a card game, toys, and even an anime.  Let's dive right into this craze maker that is Pokemon Red and Blue.

The story is pretty simple: You play as a nameable character(his default name is red, but you can name him whatever you want) who is about to get his first pokemon, animal like creatures with special powers, from Professor Oak.  When you go to Oak's lab, you encounter his grandson(his default name is Gary, but you can change it to whatever your messed up mind wants it to be) who takes the pokemon that's stronger in type then yours.  After a brief battle, you get the pokedex, a tool that explains everything about a pokemon, from it's type to where you can find it.  When you have everything you need, you're ready to go on your journey around the Kanto region, defeat all the gym leaders, beat the elite four and the champion, and stop the evil Team Rocket.  Also, you try to catch all 151 pokemon(get ready to lose your social life).

The game play is pretty good for an rpg, it's a turn based battle like most rpg battles, but they add the concept of pokemon types.  Each pokemon has a different type that is stronger than one type but weaker to another type.  For example, fire is stronger than grass type pokemon, but is weaker to water type pokemon.  Also, you can catch pokemon.  When you weaken a wild pokemon, you can throw a pokeball at it to catch it, however the pokemon can break free.  If the pokemon is caught, it's data will be put into the pokedex, and you will then have the option to nickname the pokemon, the pokemon will then join your party or be put into a computer if your party is full.  After each battle, your pokemon will gain XP, if enough XP is gained, your pokemon will level up.  At a certain level, your pokemon will evolve into a stronger form.  This may seem complicated talking about it, but it's really simple game play mechanics.  You will encounter other trainers and fight there pokemon, you can't catch there pokemon or run away from the battle, so you'll have to fight them and see who stands tall.  The game play is simple to understand and is fun and addictive.  You will lose a lot of hours to this game, trying to catch all of the pokemon.  When you hit another town, you there will be gym there, with a gym leader, you will have to fight him to get a gym badge, when you have all the gym badges you will be able to go to the indigo league and fight the elite four and the champion.  There are a lot of aspects to this game to talk about, so you'll have to play the game to find out more about the game.  Basically, what you need to know is that it has easy to understand game play mechanics, with an interesting idea of catching as many pokemon as you can, and trying to be the best pokemon trainer in all of the Kanto region(or losing your life to catching all 151 pokemon).

There's only one negative I can think about.  There's a lot of random battles, which are good if you want to catch pokemon or level up, but if you just want to get to the nearest town, it gets annoying.  This is a staple for most rpgs though so this can be dismissed.

Overall, Pokemon Red and Blue is a very addictive and fun game for the Game Boy.  I recommend the original Game Boy version to anyone that has one, or the remade Fire Red and Leaf Green versions on the game boy advance.  It doesn't matter which version of the game you get, there both the same game, they just have pokemon exclusive to one version and other pokemon exclusive to the other version.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

R.I.P Robin Williams

I know film isn't really what I do, but a great comedian, Robin Williams, has sadly died recently so I think it's right to give him a special post.

Robin Williams was a funny man, making me laugh in movies like Aladdin and R.V.  He will be missed.  While I have no connection with him, his movies gave me a good feeling inside whenever I watched them.  Pray for his family people.  Thanks for reading.

Lost Planet

 Capcom is one of the best third party game companies out there.  Making popular game series's such as the Mega Man and Resident Evil franchises.  While they aren't as big as they were back then, they still make some good games.  One of there games being the science fiction game Lost Planet.  This is a game that, while isn't as good as past Capcom games, is still fun to play now and again.  So let's dive right into Lost Planet.

Let's look at the story: In the future, Mankind has colonized the planet E.D.N 3, and was successful at first.  However, things turn for the worst when a hostile alien race called the Akrid start attacking the colonies and Man is forced to leave.  Humanity decides to fight the Akrid, and take E.D.N 3 back using giant mech suits call vital suits or VS for short.  While fighting the Akrid, Humanity finds a thermal energy inside the Akrid, that can be used as an energy source.  You play as Wayne, a soldier who lost his memory(but still remembers his name, and his father being killed by an Akrid).  However, Wayne was saved by a group of snow pirates, colonists that were left behind after Humanity left the first colonization of E.D.N 3.  Wayne must help the group of snow pirates destroy Akrid Hives and find the Akrid named green eyes that killed his father.  Along the way you'll fight Akrid, other snow pirates, and a group called NEVEC that want to wipe out the snow pirates.  As Wayne continues on he learns that there's more to what happened to his Father, than what he thinks happened.

Let's look at the positives:  This may sound odd, but I like the lore behind Lost Planet.  I like the idea of Humanity reaching out to the stars and colonizing, I like the VS and the thermal energy, I like the lore overall.  The combat is also great, it's your standard third person shooter, but there's two features that make this cool.  The first feature is the anchor, a special tool that allows you to reach new areas.  This is cool, because you get can hang from certain areas using your anchor and shoot away at enemies below you, making you look like an action hero in the process.  The second feature are the vital suits.  When you see one you can either take off one of the weapons on the VS and just use the weapon, or you can ride the VS and take out anyone that you encounter with ease.  There are different types of vital suits as well, ranging from basic ones, to vital suits that can double jump and and drop smoke screen.  Thermal energy is another aspect of game play that's unique.  Along with the health bar, you have a thermal energy meter that tells you how much thermal energy you have.  You need to keep collecting thermal energy and keep the meter up, because when the thermal energy meter reaches zero, you slowly lose health.  Also, thermal energy can regenerate your health if you have a lot of it.  The game play and combat is fun and entertaining.

There are a good amount of negatives as well:  First off, while I said that I liked the lore, the story, on the other hand, was okay, not really that impressive, just your typical stop evil forces plot.  The characters weren't that interesting, and were kind of generic.  We don't get much development on the characters, and there's no part of the game where you can interact with them, you only watch them in cut scenes.  The voice acting isn't really that good as well.  Maybe if they did one more take it'd work, but it just didn't work for me.  The controls are a bit off as well, they aren't game breaking, but they could fix some things in the controls.  First off, there's no sprint button, which may not seem big, but your character is slow, it'd be great to sprint.  The left and right bumpers are used to turn your character around quickly, which is nice, but you could have made the character turn quicker using the right stick, but he doesn't turns pretty slowly using the right stick.  If they didn't have the quick turn on the bumpers, they could of used on of the buttons for maybe sprinting or something.  The enemies do knock you down, which gets annoying when they spam their attacks.  Objects can be used as weapons, for example gas cans can be shot at to blow them up, which is a cool feature, but sometimes it gets frustrating.  For example, I was trying to use my anchor to reach a platform in one of the levels, but a couple of gas barrels were blocking my way and made me stop using my anchor.  So I had to shoot them, but when one blew up, the other didn't, and they were right next to each other.  They should have added a chain reaction feature in the game that would make one can blow up if in the radius of another can's explosion.  So I had to destroy each individual can.  The flaws are frustrating, but they don't ruin the game for me.

Overall, Lost Planet is a fun game, and while the characters, voice acting, controls, and some frustrating parts are annoying, it didn't ruing the game for me, and I still enjoy the lore, combat, and game play.  I recommend the Xbox 360 version to anyone interested.  Hopefully, Capcom will fix these errors in the sequels to Lost Planet.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Batman Forever (snes)

Batman is undeniably one of the greatest super heroes of all time, and it seems right to give him his own games.  His best video games are probably Arkham series.  However, for every good game, there's a bad game, enter Batman Forever for the snes.  Like Dennis the Menace, I liked this game as a kid, but as a I got older, I realized there's a lot of flaws.  So let's dive right into this mess.

The story loosely follows the plot of the movie of the same name.  Batman must stop the Riddler and Two Face, and also Robin joins Batman in his fight against evil.  That's basically the game in a nutshell.

There's only one positive I can think of about this game.  The controls are like Mortal Kombat, in fact it was made by Acclaim, the same people who ported Mortal Kombat to the snes.  So anyone used to fighting games will follow the controls well.

The negatives, on the other hand, are easy to find:  First off, when you start the game, you get to choose what weapons you want to bring with you.  This sounds cool, however you have to do ridiculous button and D-pad combos in order to use any gadget, even a simple batarang requires some dumb combo.  Your grapple is needed for many parts of the game, but you have to do a weird combo to get it to shoot upwards.  Enemies have a lot of health, so you will need to do a lot of punches and kicks, and gadgets, if you've figured out any button combo to use one.  Even going down to another floor requires you to do a button combo.  There's no set button for doing a simple task, you have to all these complicated combos for one easy task.  There's riddles left for you to find, but they aren't that important, all they do is tell you about what's going to happen next.  I can keep going on the negatives, but that would kill time, so I'm going to wrap it up now.

Overall, Batman Forever is a clunky game with complicated button combos needed for simple tasks.  I don't recommend this game to anyone, it's terrible.  At least Dennis the Menace had a catchy soundtrack, and was fun to use as prank to a friend who didn't know about Mr. Wilson.  This game is just bad.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Age of Empires 2 HD edition

 I don't do a lot of PC gaming whenever I want to do something fun on my free time.  I usually play snes or some game that I've forgotten about.  However, after having my wallet give money to Steam with their alluring sales, I decided to do some more PC gaming.  The game that I bought was Age of Empires 2, the HD edition, because everything is better in HD as some rich guy would tell you.  So now let's dive right in.

There isn't really one main story in the game.  Instead we get several campaigns with a couple missions for each campaign.  Each campaign involves a famous historical figure from different eras, ranging from William Wallace to Fredrick Barbarossa.  Along with the campaigns from the main game, the HD edition that I got includes the conquers expansion as well, with campaigns focusing on famous conquerors such as El Cid and Montezuma.  You can start with any campaign, but they give you William Wallace's campaign as a training campaign.

Let's look at the positives:  First off, this game is pretty educational and fun at the same time.  You can learn about these civilizations in a history section, and you can play as them and see what there unique skills are.  You start out with villagers and some soldiers, what you have to do there is make a town center, build houses, barracks, etc, and gather materials.  I like seeing progress happen in the game, when you get enough materials to make an army, you feel good inside.  Whenever you get into a battle and try to defeat an opposing civilization, you feel like you're watching a big battle scene from a movie.  Advancing to a new age is great as well, when you have enough materials, you can advance to a new age.  You start in the Dark ages, and then you can go into the feudal age, the castle age, and the imperial age.  What's great about advancing to a new civilization is that you really feel like time has changed.  Also, you can get new buildings, units, and upgrades to units when you advance to a new age.  This game is just fun and exciting.

There are flaws with this game though:  First off, I don't know if it's because I use Ubuntu, but it was hard to get this game on my computer.  I had to get my brother to help me get Play on Linux on my computer and do some special modifications to get the game on.  I hear it was a problem for other computers, but it is frustrating.  Also, when an attack on another civilization doesn't work, you get frustrated and set back.  I know that's how war works, but it's still annoying when an attack goes wrong.

Overall, Age of Empires 2 HD edition is a fun and surprisingly educational game.  I recommend getting this game, along with a new expansion called the Forgotten on steam.  The Forgotten adds new civilizations and campaigns, and it was released in 2013, making it the first expansion in almost a decade since the original game was released.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Super Mario World

 Mario is undeniably the biggest character in video games and has helped make Nintendo a household name now.  Nintendo has been milking Mario like Activision has with Call of Duty.  However, unlike Activision, Nintendo has added something new to each Mario game.  It may be a power up, a new character, anything really, but undeniably one of the best things Nintendo has added was Yoshi in Super Mario World, in my opinion the best Mario game made.  Now it's time to look at this masterpiece.

Let's look at the story:  Mario, Luigi, and Peach are on Dinosaur island for...I don't know really, I think it's for a vacation, but what ever I'm getting off track.  There having a fun time, until Bowser arrives and kidnaps Peach...again(you'd think she'd up security after getting kidnapped).  So it's up to Mario and Luigi to save the Princess.  Along the way they encounter Yoshi, a dinosaur that has had his friends imprisoned in eggs by Bowser.  So Mario teams up with Yoshi to save the princess and Yoshi's friends.

Let's look at the positives, and trust me there's a lot:  Like all Mario games, they have great controls and feel.  This was a launch title for the snes, and this game is a great way to show off what the snes can do.  You can hold down the run button and jump at the same time.  The music is awesome, Nintendo has given every Mario game a great soundtrack, and this game is proof of that.  With the Super Nintendo's power, Nintendo gave this game a great soundtrack, from the peppy opening to the chilling castle theme, each area has a great song to it.  Like I said earlier, this was the first game to include Yoshi, and he's a great new feature to the game.  Yoshi can eat enemies and sometimes give you 1 ups by pooping them out(yes I know that sounds gross, but that's basically what he does).  Yoshi can also use koopas as weapons by spitting them out, some even give him a power.  For example, green shells are spit out as shells, red shells are spit out as fire, blue shells make him fly, and yellow shells give him a stomping ability.  The over world is huge in this game, you really do feel like you're in this big world, hence the name Super Mario World.  This game is just perfect.

I can't think of any flaws really, but if I had to nitpick, I'd say the sprite for the princess in the final level look bad.  This is just a nit pick, but they could have updated it.

Overall, Super Mario World is a great game.  This is, in my opinion, the best Mario game ever, I recommend the snes version to anyone that wants to buy it.  While everyone does have their own opinion, I still stick with this as being the best out of them all.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Injustice: Gods Among us

 I think it's time to step out of the old and into the new to add some more variety to my reviews.  To start us off is Injustice: Gods Among Us, the hit fighting game last year.  Now it's time to dive right in and see if it's good.

Before I start, let me say there might be spoilers, okay now that that's out of the way lets look at the story:  In an alternate universe, Superman loses Louis Lane, his unborn child, and Metropolis to the Joker and decides that man shouldn't rule any more and starts a one world order with himself on top and those who follow him making up the Regime.  He looses his morals and goes so far as to kill the Joker.  Batman leads and Insurgency to oppose Superman and his Regime, while the Insurgency isn't doing that well, Batman finds hope in another universe where the Joker's plan didn't work.  So he decides to take some of the heroes from that universe into his universe to help him defeat Superman, and restore order and peace.

Let's look at the good aspects:  The combat is, in my opinion, the best combat I've seen in a fighting game.  It mixes the best aspects of great fighting games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and even Killer Instinct into one game, and even added in their own unique features.  You can use the objects around you as weapons and they do it incredibly well, and some objects react differently to different characters.  For example, if you use a chandelier with Green Arrow, you will use it to get out of a bad situation quickly, while strong characters like Superman will use it as a weapon.  You can knock people out of arenas and into different areas, causing damage and changing the environment and usable objects.  Each character has their own unique move similar to a fatality, except you can do it when a meter on the bottom half of the screen is full.  The combat's great overall.  I've heard people complain that the story should stay in one universe, which I do agree would make interesting scenarios in the game, but I think it's a two sided coin on the story, and I actually like the story.  The heroes from the other universe see their alternate selves and the one world order Superman has made.  Also, it brings up the idea of what if Superman lost it, he has the power to overthrow every government in the world without a lot of problems.

There are some negatives though:  First off, evil Superman has no heart whatsoever.  I know he lost Louis and his unborn son, but I think he would show a bit more emotional distress.  He doesn't even care about his own friends on the Regime, if one of them falls out of line, he'll kill them without remorse.  It doesn't feel like Superman would act like this if he lost everything he cared about.  Also, while I said I do like the story, it would have been cool to see this in one universe.  You could play as characters on both sides of the story and see what each character has to go through.  I still like the story, but it would have been cool to see it all in one universe, not mixing two together.  Finally, there's this one feature in the combat where you can wager parts of the bar on the meter below to either give damage, or gain a bit of health that felt awkward at first, but you get used to it later.  It would have been nice if they either took out the wager system, or made it feel more natural.

Overall, Injustice: Gods among us is a fun game with great combat and an interesting story.  While there are some flaws, like the heartless superman, the game is still enjoyable.  I recommend the console versions, as I can't really see a fighting game on the PC.  I've heard that there might be a sequel to Injustice after Nether Realms is finished with the new Mortal Kombat game, and if so, I hope they fix some of the flaws in the sequel.  Thanks for reading, and remember to keep ranting n' raving.