Two days ago, I read (well, more like watched) an article debuting the Infinite Crisis video game trailer over at Comicvine (if you haven't seen it, watch it here). I've been hearing rumors about a video game that would focus on Infinite Crisis for a couple of years, and have always been mildly curious about what type of game it would be, what developer would tackle it, what platforms it would be on, and on what scale would I measure my disappointment when it finally came out. That being said, Warner Bros latest licensed product looks like it's already falling prey to the same recurring issues that seems to plague most of DC/WB's products. What do I mean when I say this?
Infinite Crisis is being developed by Turbine Inc (Lord of the Rings Online), a subsidiary of Warner Bros. The game is to be a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game, which is fancy speak for your DotA and League of Legends style gameplay. Free to play PvP, arenas, and weapons, with an overlay of heroes and villains from the DC Universe. To me, this scheme is reminiscent of Mortal Kombat vs DCU: a Mortal Kombat style fighting game, with Mortal Kombat elements and an overlay of heroes and villains from the DC Universe, and then even the subsequent Injustice: Gods Among Us launching April fifteenth, which runs off of the MK9 engine, with an overlay of DCU characters that takes place in the DCU. "Overlay" being the operative word here. Seriously, you can pinpoint which DC fighters play like which MK fighters, as if they left the coding and just gave them new skins. I could keep going back further, with the Lego: Batman series, to DC Universe: Online, to Justice League Heroes to the 64, and any of their side-scrolling action games on handhelds to show how formulaic and bland WB Interactive games tend to be. There's no risk-taking, the project isn't melded properly to the medium, and as a result, the final product is mediocre at best.
I'm not saying all WB games are like that obviously, and I'm certainly not saying that all of the titles listed above are complete trash because of it (even though MK vs DCU is complete trash, and that's not up for debate). But imagine one company walked around just copying the style, method, and code for all of their games (action, adventure, rpg, rts, simulation) and then pasting under another genre and saying it was for comic books, or another genre entirely. It doesn't work that way, and it shouldn't work that way with our comics either, but WB continues to suck at this, and thus their games continue to be uninspired and lackluster in the grand scheme of things. I guess they take us for shmucks, and assume we'll throw our money at anything with a comic book label at it in any form. That's only half true.
The thing is though, I think, if you sprinkle comic book (or video game) themes on anything, you instantly have the power to make it more appealing and more engaging, but it's a double edged sword. You've just opened yourself up to a wave of new ways in which it can all go terribly wrong, terribly fast. "Comic book" hasn't translated into "campy" in a couple decades, so operating under the assumption that you don't need to work an entirely new strategy when developing a game or movie with comic book themes, and that you can get away with anything ruins us all, and you're going to piss a good amount of people off. Unsurprisingly, WB struggles with this same uninspired yet formulaic approach when it comes to most of their movies.
All of that being said, I have previously admitted to pre-ordering Injustice because MK vs DCU sucked so hard I'm hoping it will be good, and I have nothing to satiate my comic book hunger on the gaming front after Arkham City. This is a problem, and there could be solutions (and I like to suggest them so as not to be part of the problem), if WB would actually utilize the "active" in their "Interactive" namesake.
Instead of rehashing their same crap and making it obvious, would it kill them to actually get creative? If you don't want to let comic writers and creators on the creative team, then do something. I'd like to possibly see real "out there" stuff, with potential, like a DCU type rts. Make it a completely unique campaign, but also give one or two short storylines so that your players can command their favorite heroes and their "armies" through. This concept isn't too hard, since Leaguers and individual heroes are constantly interacting with their local police force, they generally have sidekicks or other heroes operating in their city or nearby that can be acting generals or even opposing forces at times, and obviously your villains would make for good opposition (especially when it's alliance time). I'd like to see action rpgs that take us through one or more of DC's Multiverse storylines, or just expands on the quirkiness of the other Earths, like the Search for Ray Palmer. That arc is killer, and I have yet to play a game that features it. Why!? That's nonsense! DC has a rich history, but even if they're trying to rewrite it (with the not-so-nu52) then get to work on something nsn52 related, but stop. Regurgitating. That. Same. Filth. Conclusion? I'm probably cancelling my Injustice pre-order...collectors anyway.
Seriously though you guys, stop, or I'm going to punch you in the throat.
-PR
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