Justice League Heroes is an unexpected failure for Snowblind.
DC Comics is home to some interesting superheroes but it has never managed to break into other mediums very well. The movies have always been a hit and miss affair, mostly miss, and the games have usually been horrific messes. The only major hit’s for DC have been the cartoons: Batman the Animated Series, Superman and Justice League were all great cartoons. So when it was announced that the Justice League would be coming to the consoles, I was pretty excited. If they could muster half of the coolness of the cartoons and pair that with Snowblind Studios great gameplay, then we could have a DC game that beat out the Marvel ones for once. But this wasn’t to be the case.
It’s nearly impossible to talk about this game’s plot without giving away some sort of spoilers, but then again, most anyone who knows anything about the Justice League can figure this plot out long before it unfolds. The game starts with Batman and Superman responding to a crisis in Metropolis. It seems that there are robots on the rampage and they need to stop them, as well as their leader, Brainiac. From here, it becomes a planet and dimension-spanning quest to stop a threat that endangers the entirety of the Earth. The only people that can stop them are the brave superheroes (and super heroines) of the Justice League. That would be you.
To any who are expecting X-Men legends with the Justice League, you can forget that silly notion right now. It seems that Snowblind forgot how much fun having four players at once can be and have opted to only allow you to control two characters at once. Also, in at least sixty percent of the stages your party will be chosen for you. That’s right, it doesn’t matter how much you like Green Lantern, you can only use him when the game assigns him to you or in one of the rare stages where you get to pick them. This is especially disheartening considering the game’s next "innovation" and its limitations.
Rather than giving your party equipment that is never represented on the character, like X-Men Legends or Ultimate Alliance, Heroes has decided to go with a somewhat nebulous Boost system. You will find these boosts by defeating enemies and you can slot them into your characters powers, up to one boost per level of the power. They come in levels from one to seven, each stronger than the last, as well as a variety of flavors; range, speed, duration, luck, damage and efficiency. You can even combine three boosts to produce a higher level one. By using these to enhance the powers you favor, you can easily destroy the plethora of enemies that get in your way. The major problem with this system is that once you assign a boost to your powers, its stuck there. So when the game refuses to let you use Superman for level after level, that boost in his heat vision is basically wasted. This seriously weakens this system as I found myself very leery of ever using these boosts until the final battle of the game.
The graphics are good, especially in the cut-scenes, but they don’t really look all that different from the other games like these. Everything is pretty much what you would expect from a game of this sort, with very little that stands out to the mind, even mere hours after playing the game. The same goes for the audio, although the voice work is actually very good with some noticeable names amongst the cast. There is banter that goes on between the characters during the stages and especially during boss fights that was fun to listen to as well. However, I would say this is one of the games best traits.
The cast is also basically what you would expect. You have the cast of the cartoon: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern John Stewart, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and the Flash. A new addition to the cast is Zatanna, a sorceress of a fair amount of power. You can also unlock a few additional characters as well, such as Aquaman, Green Arrow and two other Green Lanterns, by finding and spending Justice League shields scattered about stages. Unfortunately however, these characters can only be used in the rare few levels where you can pick your party and as such, they will always be underpowered compared to the main team.
The other unlockables in this game are of more interest. You can spend these shields to buy alternate costumes for your characters. These are actually worth unlocking since each costume that you equip has a different effect, such as giving you extra health at the expense of some of the energy that you use to power your special attacks. You can use these costumes to tailor your playing experience to what suits you best. So if you are using Batman’s special attacks more often than you’re using his melee attacks, unlock one of his costumes that does this as best you can. While you wont necessarily find one that suits your needs exactly, you will definitely find one that comes close.
Justice League Heroes is definitely a missed chance for DC to have some headway in video games. However it falls short in so many ways that it’s actually very disappointing. The game’s difficulty is incredibly unbalanced, with super tough AI in some stages and pathetically easy in others making Superman feel considerably less than super. Plus, the game only lasts about a total of seven to eight hours, at best. With all of this and a very bland story, this game falls quite hard of the mark. I’d rather play X-Men Legends for a fourth time than play this for a second time. It’s not a horrible game, but it is incredibly bland and I think that’s actually worse.
Score: 3/5
