Metareview - Justice League Heroes

October 21st, 2006, 12:57 Posted By: wraggster

Via Joystiq:

The success of the X-Men Legends series proved that there is still a market for good hack-and-slash RPGs. But Warner Bros. Interactive wasn't about to let Activision and Marvel Comics have all the fun -- not when the WB is home to DC Comics and some of the most beloved superheroes of all time. The resulting Justice League Heroes falls a little short of its mutant counterparts, despite the efforts of Snowblind Studios (Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath) and Justice League Unlimited writer Dwayne McDuffie. Die-hard fans will be disappointed by the omission of some popular Leaguers, although the alternate costumes and their unique modifiers might make up for that. More unforgivable is that the members of Gotham City's impressive rogues gallery are absent from a JLH villains roster that sorely needs them. How about a Batman Legends next?

Game Informer (73/100) was generally displeased, but cited a first for The Man of Steel: "It only offers two-player offline cooperative play. Enemy types and environmental architecture are highly recycled. The plot reads like a kindergartner's first attempt at writing. On the plus side, this is the first game that successfully makes Superman a fun character to play."

1UP (65/100) wasn't content throwing down with Lex Luthor, Braniac, and Gorilla Grodd: "Maybe the drama would have been more believable if the villains weren't downright dumb. A talking gorilla, an intelligent robot, and a killer bee? That's all you got, DC? Where are all the Batman villains? The Joker, Two-Face, Catwoman -- now those are villains worth fighting. Not some dude who calls himself 'The Key'."

IGN (64/100) thinks JLH's character balance is a little off: "Surprisingly, Zatanna is the most potent character in the game. She can heal, cast an over-powered fire attack at low cost (when leveled up), and can turn 95% of all enemies into harmless rabbits. Sadly, Batman is easily the most useless and joyless character you can select. Even Aquaman is more fun to play. Batman's powers, such as calling in a fleet of bats, just don't cut it."

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