Injustice 2 is the follow-up to Injustice: Gods Among Us. It introduces loot, character customization, and items to its fighting system. It also continues where its predecessor's story left off, focusing on the aftermath of Batman's successful insurgency against Superman's tyrannical empire.
With the game out now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, we've compiled our in-depth review and our most important features and gameplay videos detailing everything you need to know about NetherRealm Studio's latest fighter. Check back often as we update this article with additional articles and videos.
The Review
"With AI battles, online and local versus matches, the diverse and ever-changing Multiverse, and an impressive story mode, Injustice 2 offers numerous ways of engaging with its characters and testing your abilities without feeling repetitive. This variety is further bolstered by gear. Despite the needlessly complex economy tied to item management, the value of customization and expression that comes with gear ultimately makes up for it. And with over 25 characters to explore, it's easy to look forward to watching your next character grow while your understanding of the game continues to expand. NetherRealm has delivered a fighting game that can be enjoyed by new players and pros alike in ways that go beyond pure competition. It's a bar that every fighting game should meet, but one that has up until now seemed out of reach." -- Peter Brown [Full review]
By Anonymous on May 20, 2017 08:30 pm For fighting game fans new to Injustice 2, the game's mechanics may seem a little strange at first. So Joey has come up with six things that not only have helped him, but will hopefully help you in understanding Injustice's combat mechanics.
By Anonymous on May 20, 2017 08:30 pm Erick and Jean-Luc went to the Destiny 2 event and got to play a campaign mission, the new PvP mode Countdown, the new Strike Inverted Spire, and the PC version of the game.
By Anonymous on May 20, 2017 08:30 pm Lucy went to see King Arthur: Legend of the Sword last week, and got the chance to chat to star of the film, Charlie Hunnam about his experience working on it, Street Fighter 2 and his bromance with Marilyn Manson. Yes, really.
Nintendo's upcoming limb-centric fighting game Arms is shaping up to be an entertaining competitive experience for the Switch. Its design is simple and intuitive, and excitement creeps in the moment you throw a punch and realize how capable you are. The fact that Arms' characters and environments are infectiously vibrant and cheery doesn't hurt either. While Arms seems like a simplistic brawler on the surface, its mechanics offer a subtle dose of nuance and complexity that makes it far deeper than it initially lets on.
Arms' intricacies are exhibited by the freedom you have to customize your fighter's arm configurations before each round. Before a fight begins, you're given the option to select from three different arms that are exclusive to each character (the full game will allow you to mix and match all signature gloves regardless of the fighter you choose). This opens up a wide range of combinations and strategies based on factors like weight, elemental attributes, and attack styles.
When playing as the ramen noodle-armed fighter Min Min, you can use her Dragon arm's stationary laser attack to hinder your opponent's movement, while simultaneously sending out charged-up jabs from your electric-powered Megawatt Arm to stun and dwindle their health. Or as the dancing green blob Helix, you can opt for two bouncing Blorb arms: one to limit your opponent's vertical mobility, and the other to damage and blind them. With each arm sporting a unique combat advantage, the ability to mix and match is one of Arms' major highlights as a fighting game thus far.
Adding to the complexity of battles are special abilities unique to each fighter. These offer distinct perks to a fighter's attacks or maneuverability options. For example, Helix's elastic body allows him to shrink and stretch at will, making it possible to dodge incoming attacks; on the other hand, Twintelle can slow down enemy attacks or herself in mid-air. These options imbue Arms' combat with an extra layer of strategy akin to fighter matchups from traditional fighting games. In a fight, a specific arm configuration could prove useful, but if you're not careful, it could be easily countered by an opponent's special ability. Case in point: Master Mummy's slow Megaton arms against Min Min's quick, attack deflecting kick ability.
Despite the varying intricacies of Arms' mechanics, the major concern over its viability as a balanced fighting game is the reliability of its motion controls; if their execution is inconsistent in practice, then none of that is going to matter in the long run. Unintentional punches and missteps aren't unheard of in Arms, and while this is excusable for casual players, anyone looking for serious competition will no doubt be dissuaded by mistakes outside of their control. It has been confirmed that the game is playable using traditional controller setups, but it's currently unclear how that will work in practice.
Whatever your initial reaction to the game's appearance was, Arms isn't just about about flailing about like a crazy person to win--though you're welcome to try (and lose). Rather, it's about carefully considering which arms to use during a round and how they can be leveraged to defeat your opponent. The motion controls may prevent it from becoming a mainstay of the fighting game community, but its mechanics seem to offer a solid framework that makes it far more involved than most motion-controlled games.
Typical of most fighting games, Injustice 2 is packed with mechanics and concepts that aren't easy to fully understand at first. That's why we've compiled nine tips to help you understand the basics, find a fighter that works for you, and improve your chances in battle. Click ahead to get a crash course on Injustice 2.
Are there any other useful tips that we don't cover here? Let us know in the comments below.
Like any fighting game, Injustice 2 sports mechanics and concepts that aren't easy to execute just by playing the tutorial or messing around in Practice mode. You need practical training against an active opponent. While online multiplayer and the Multiverse are perfectly viable training tools, we recommend that you play the Story mode after the tutorial, so you can better familiarize yourself with the game's fighting system, as well as experiment with its varied roster.
Familiarize Yourself With The Lingo
Injustice 2 doesn't shy away from esoteric words and phrases. It's essential to learn these terms in order to better understand the language of a fight and how to describe what occurs during any given situation. For a full breakdown, we suggest studying our Injustice 2 mechanics and terminology guide.
Know Your Combos
Combos are among the most important things to learn in Injustice 2. It utilizes basic preset combos that are easily executed by pressing combinations of the Light, Medium, and Heavy attack buttons in succession. But unlike Street Fighter, combos don't require incredibly specific timing. As long as the buttons are hit quickly enough, it'll come out. This means the main thing you need to practice is linking a special move afterwards. Not all basic combos allow you to do that, but once you find the right ones, you'll be inflicting heavy damage in no time.
There's also one more big difference between Injustice and Capcom-styled fighting games: when using jump-in attacks, there's no need to wait until you land before pressing the next button. Once the jumping attack hits, you can start inputting the rest of the combo before you even hit the ground.
Pay Attention To Your Environment
Any time you're close to an object that you can interact with, it will glow, and a small icon will pop up near your health bar, indicating it's time to smash an alligator over their head. Different characters interact with objects in different ways. For example, bigger characters usually grab the object and throw it at your opponent, while smaller, more agile characters leap off of it. With the right positioning, you can incorporate the environment into your combos.
And don't forget about stage transitions. Hitting your opponent with Back+Heavy near the correct edge of specific stages triggers a stage transition, resulting in a cutscene, and a good chunk of damage inflicted. You can also cancel a combo into a wall bounce for the same effect.
Find Your Style
With 29 characters to choose from, Injustice 2 gives you a ton of different fighting styles to choose from. But which one is right for you?
Aggressive players who like keeping the pressure on are in luck, since many of the characters are capable of doing just that. Superman and Batman are ideal, as they're two of the most balanced and powerful characters. Wonder Woman, Cheetah, Robin, and The Flash are also well-balanced fighters.
If you enjoy projectiles and controlling the space between you and your opponent, then Brainiac, Green Arrow, and Doctor Fate are great to use. If you like playing grapplers, both Bane and Swamp Thing will satisfy your needs.
For those of you who just want to confuse and fluster your opponents, Harley Quinn comes highly recommended. But if you're feeling particularly sadistic, Captain Cold is also a strong choice; his icicles present great counter attack options.
Use Clash Wisely
If you find yourself getting stuck in combos more often than you'd like, the Clash mechanic is of great help. When you're on your second health bar, holding forward and R2 while being hit prompts a small cutscene between you and your opponent. Afterwards you're able to wager some or all of your Super meter to stop their combo and heal yourself. The recipient can also gamble a portion of their meter in an attempt to deal damage.
This is where psyching out your opponent comes in. If you have more meter than your opponent, you could bet it all to ensure you win. There's also a wealth of strategies you can implement to trick your opponent. While having a lot of meter is helpful, Clash can save you after a mistake.
Learn to Juggle
Juggling is probably the most crucial part of Injustice 2's combo system. It occurs when you launch an opponent into the air and continue the combo before they land. Some moves, like Back, Forward + Heavy, will cause you to bounce your opponent off a surface and give you a better chance of juggling. But each character has numerous moves that give you a chance to juggle as well.
It's all about linking together the right chain of hits to keep a foe in the air. It takes some practice, but there's nothing more satisfying than landing that perfect combo to take off half an opponent's life.
Burn That Meter
Using Meter Burn (R2/RT) with your special moves is a great way to extend combos and pile on some extra damage to your attacks, but it can take some time to get used to. A lot of moves require you to press the Meter Burn button right after a move connects, so it can be difficult to perform at times.
But Meter Burn can also be used in a variety of other ways. If you're in the middle of a combo string, pressing Down, Forward or Down, Back and Meter Burn cancels your combo into a ground or wall bounce. It's also a great defensive tool; with enough meter, you can use it to pop yourself out of a combo or execute a full-screen roll.
The game requires a good amount of resource management, so choose when to use Meter Burn wisely, lest you be caught in a deadly combo with no way out.
Don't Forget To Open Your Loot Boxes
After spending an extended period of time fighting, make sure to open up the multitude of loot boxes you acquire in the Brother Eye Vault screen. Contained within are randomized pieces of equipment you can use to increase the statistics of the various characters in the roster.
Treyarch's Zombies is the one that started it all, and the beloved mode has evolved a lot over the years and with different Call of Duty developers. For Black Ops 3, Zombies Chronicles offers eight remastered maps from World at War through Black Ops 2 with improved graphics, audio, and Black Ops 3's Zombies features. It's a greatest hits collection with enough variety to bring in new and veteran Zombies players alike, and it makes it worth revisiting Zombies at its roots.
Chronicles has a strong foundation in its map selection--it includes smaller, more manageable maps like World at War's Nacht der Untoten alongside more complex, story-centric maps like Black Ops' Ascension. If you're new to Zombies, you can hone strategies on the simpler maps, and if you've been a fan of Treyarch's Zombies for a while, at least one of your favorites is here. There's also good variety in map structure and the strategies they each call for, from the more open Shi no Numa to the small, easily-overrun rooms of Verruckt.
These maps are now better than ever thanks to the fantastic technical improvements. Atmospheric enhancements, from eerie screeches to subtle lighting changes, supplement the more straightforward graphics upgrade, and they make the same gripping, stay-up-all-night zombies rounds you remember feel fresh and modern. The most noticeable change, especially in the heat of the moment, is the enhanced audio--the horrible death rattle of a gunned-down zombie and the unearthly howling of the Hellhounds are grating in the best way. The guttural snarls behind you feel more urgent, and that translates to greater tension even on maps you played to death the first time around.
Years-old strategies need a bit of tweaking thanks to the introduction of Black Ops 3's Zombies features, and which further help in keeping the classic maps from feeling stale. Gobblegum and its various perks, for example, are optional, but depending on what you get, you might play a map differently compared to the way you remember. The change-up works well for groups that have a mix of new and returning players, too, since it gives newcomers an opportunity to be a bit more involved in the plan instead of just following someone who's already routed the map.
The Black Ops 3 features also work for newer players on their own, particularly those who started with Treyarch's most recent game. If you don't have the nostalgia going into Chronicles, small things like Gobblegum help to modernize the older, less-involved maps without overshadowing what made them favorites to begin with.
Atmospheric enhancements make the same gripping, stay-up-all-night zombies rounds you remember feel fresh and modern.
Chronicles also includes Black Ops 3 weapons, but they make very little difference in how you strategize--they're really just there to keep the collection in line with Treyarch's latest. It is nice to pick up the Kuda early on if you spent any time at all with Black Ops 3's multiplayer and want something a bit more familiar until you can get to the Mystery Box, but you'll still end up crossing your fingers and hoping for the Ray Gun anyway. Of course, that Ray Gun is as satisfying to fire as ever--it's just disappointing that the weapon additions are mostly fluff.
Zombies Chronicles takes a good combination of maps and upgrades them with great attention to detail. Newer Zombies features keep the collection modern, but its greatest strength is in the lighting and audio upgrades, which make the Zombies experience that many fans obsessed over before feel creepier, more tense, and more exhilarating than ever.
By Anonymous on May 20, 2017 06:30 am *Spoiler Warning* What happened at the end of Alien Covenant? @Buddyhutton gives you a breakdown of the film and Ryan Schubert(@anvilone) injects you with Easter Eggs. Does this film answer any of the questions from the end of Prometheus? Maybe.
We've teamed up with Ronimo Games to give away 10,000 Closed Beta codes for Awesomenauts on PC to redeem on Steam. Closed beta ends on Tuesday, May 23.
This is an instant win and you will receive an email with the code within 24 hours. Scroll down below to enter.
Awesomenauts is a 3v3 sidescrolling MOBA inspired by Saturday-morning cartoons from the 80s and 90s. After five years of continuous support on Steam, the game is going free-to-play on Steam on May 24th. Join the Closed Beta to get early access on the full experience and get a headstart on everyone else!
By Anonymous on May 20, 2017 05:30 am Free weekends are on the way for Overwatch and Arms, and here's everything you need to know about this week's Destiny 2 news!
Nvidia has released a new low-end graphics card in the GeForce GT 1030 for entry-level and budget-minded users. It's the latest GPU within Nvidia's 10 series (all equipped with the Pascal architecture), and is priced around $75.
The GTX 1030 provides a little more power than what an integrated graphics processor (IGP) offers and is targeted to those who mainly play less demanding games such as League of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It's also useful for 4K home theater setups, since many older IGPs cannot do 4K.
The single slot GT 1030 from EVGA.
The GT 1030 itself has 2GB of VRAM, a 64-bit memory interface, 384 CUDA cores, and includes ports for HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort. Its small form factor of 4.7 by 6.7 inches makes it easier to fit into compact systems, and the 30 watt power draw means it doesn't need much juice. Reference models have a 1468MHz boost clock speed. However, there are many different SKUs from several manufacturers, some offering fanless passive cooling solutions and higher core clocks.
AMD's low-end graphics card--the Radeon RX 550--is priced around $80 and features 2GB VRAM, a 128-bit memory interface, and a core clock around 1200MHz depending on the SKU.
AMD is also set to reveal the upcoming Vega line of GPUs on May 31 during Computex, so stayed tuned to our coverage on the latest in PC hardware. For now, check out our reviews of the newest graphics cards from AMD (the RX 580 and RX 570) and Nvidia (the GTX 1080 Ti).
Birthdays the Beginning, at first glance, looks like an interesting oddity. "God games" where you oversee the progression of an entire world and everything within aren't terribly common these days--much less one with cute, stylized visuals and a funny title. But beneath the charming veneer of Birthdays the Beginning lies a very complex simulation that takes you from the foundation of planetary life all the way to the creation of human civilization. Unfortunately, the road from plankton to the apex of humanity is so rough that you might not make it all the way through.
The game begins with a (rather unnecessary) framing story where you stumble into a cave one day to discover a strange cube and a voice asking you to help create and build life on its surface. The game then proceeds to guide you, via a series of overly wordy tutorials that are somehow simultaneously too long and short on information, into jump-starting the process of birthing life and the cycle of evolution and extinction that comes to define the game.
Interaction with the world is done primarily through flying around a time-frozen grid, raising and lowering blocks of land to form valleys, mountains, and oceans. These simple acts have a tremendous effect: lowering land below sea level creates oceans and heats up the entire cube, while creating peaks and mountains makes the world an overall colder place. Limited-use items allow you to create freshwater rivers, bringing essential moisture to areas that would otherwise be parched.
These various factors--elevation, temperature, moisture, and water type--determine what sort of life will come into existence and flourish. Once you're done shaping the land, you can step away and set time in motion, watching as the world moves on and waiting to see how your guiding hand affected the life on your cube. Some species will thrive, some will die out--and sometimes, if things are just right, you'll witness the evolution of something that sets an entirely new epoch in motion for your little world. When a new species comes into being, you can go down to the planet again, seek it out, and "capture" it, preserving its detailed information in your in-game library.
The process of birth and death is interesting to watch, and seeing how creatures interact with each other in a complex web is an engaging process...for a while, anyway. Unfortunately, things start to go sour quickly after you get going. Since free play isn't available until you've completed story mode, you're stuck in a long campaign where the game forces you to evolve life on your little planet in very specific ways. This generally means bringing species into being, which then serve as a touchstone for other species down the line.
Except sometimes, that doesn't really matter, such as when the game asks for a species that feeds on a creature that went extinct hours ago--meaning you now must spend far too much time figuring out how to bring them back into existence. At other times, it looks like you have every condition you need to cultivate a species that's required to progress, but despite fast-forwarding millions of years, they never begin to propagate in the cube due to some unknown factor the game fails to make clear.
The lack of information is perhaps the biggest frustration you'll encounter throughout the game. You're constantly left guessing as to why certain factors just aren't playing out the way you expect them to. For example, when you sit back and watch time pass and the lifeforms of your planet either propagate or die out, you can't get specific details as to why they're thriving or dying. This is particularly irritating when you need certain species' numbers at a particular level--are these creatures not reproducing or advancing because it's too hot? Too cold? Do they lack water? Food? Is there not enough habitat? All you can do is look at the library info, harbor a guess, mess around with some elevation, and cross your fingers for the next time you start the clock, because all the in-game help button does is parrot the objective of your next progress goal back to you.
It feels like there's a fantastic game somewhere in the heart of Birthdays the Beginning, ready to claw its way out of the primordial ooze of ideas to evolve into a wonderful god-game experience.
Interface issues compound the game's structural problems. Sometimes you'll decide to make drastic changes to your cube, such as flattening out mountain ranges or raising the sea, in order to hasten to birth of certain forms of life. You'll find yourself flying around an ever-expanding cube, raising and lowering the blocks you're hovering over with R1 and R2. While you can select multiple blocks to raise/lower at once with the D-pad, finicky analog controls can make selecting specific land areas feel imprecise.
Options that would help streamline drastic revamps, such as "make everything in this selected area the same height" and "start a river from here," are only available as limited-use items. The lack of an easy undo option means that it's shockingly easy to make mistakes, such as accidentally killing off that river source you just used. Topping it all off is an arbitrary HP system that determines how much land-shaping you can do in a particular period. Given the easy recovery of HP via recovery items and resting, its entire inclusion is an unnecessary annoyance.
It's a shame that the story mode is mandatory, because the game really starts to improve once you've unlocked free play mode. You're free to mess around with your cube however you want, observing with no pressure as life transforms, evolves, and mutates in response to the world you craft. This allows you to watch all of the game's cute visuals spring to life as new beings come into existence. The finer nuances of the game really come out when you don't have anything telling you how your world needs to work, and though a lot of the same frustrations with interface and lack of information remain, they're considerably less pronounced. A challenge mode is also available: Here the game gives you pre-made cubes and asks you to do things like evolve a certain species within a set time period. These challenges wind up being considerably more fulfilling and interesting than the main campaign.
It feels like there's a fantastic game somewhere in the heart of Birthdays the Beginning, ready to claw its way out of the primordial ooze of ideas to evolve into a wonderful god-game experience. But the conditions for it to thrive just aren't right: The interface is ill-conceived and cumbersome, the campaign's frustrations bring progress to screeching halts, and the frequent lack of information turns what should be a fun micromanagement experience into an exhausting guessing game.
Blizzard will once again offer a freebie for Hearthstone players this weekend. This time around, it's just a single card, though getting it is incredibly easy.
By logging in tomorrow, May 20, all players will receive the Fight Promoter card pictured below. There's no requirement that tasks you with playing or winning matches--simply hopping online with the game on any platform is enough to add it to your collection. But you'll need to do so on May 20, as this is a one-day-only offer.
Fight Promoter is a six-mana 4/4 card. It features a Battlecry that causes you to draw two cards if you control a minion with at least six health.
For fighting game fans new to Injustice 2, the game's mechanics may seem a little strange at first. So Joey has come up with six things that not only have helped him, but will hopefully help you in understanding Injustice's combat mechanics.
Erick and Jean-Luc went to the Destiny 2 event and got to play a campaign mission, the new PvP mode Countdown, the new Strike Inverted Spire, and the PC version of the game.
Lucy went to see King Arthur: Legend of the Sword last week, and got the chance to chat to star of the film, Charlie Hunnam about his experience working on it, Street Fighter 2 and his bromance with Marilyn Manson. Yes, really.
*Spoiler Warning* What happened at the end of Alien Covenant? @Buddyhutton gives you a breakdown of the film and Ryan Schubert(@anvilone) injects you with Easter Eggs. Does this film answer any of the questions from the end of Prometheus? Maybe.
Free weekends are on the way for Overwatch and Arms, and here's everything you need to know about this week's Destiny 2 news!
Here's some of what's to come in Overwatch.
One Piece: Unlimited World Red returns in this Deluxe Edition, boasting new features and content.
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