Justice League Heroes Review

The whole Justice League concept offers a wealth of ideas for videogame designers, but for some reason when it's put in practice the final product never ends up as cool as what it could have become. Warner Bros. Interactive is new to the gaming scene this year, and its first big published product -- Justice League Heroes for the PlayStation and Xbox -- didn't turn out as hot as the promise. The Nintendo DS product, a similar-yet-different take on the console game, is even more disappointing; it's just a bland, half-hearted produced Double Dragon-style adventure that's incredibly repetitive, lacking the coolness factor that these heroes truly deserve on the system.

The Nintendo DS version of Justice League Heroes was handled by Sensory Sweep, a team that butchered Marvel Nemesis on the dual-screen handheld last year. It's the team's second superhero development for the DS, and though this portable rendition isn't nearly as terrible as the game those guys built for EA's fighter, Justice League Heroes is still a disappointment for those looking to exploit a few superpowers against an endless evil force.

For DC fans, you've got a nice assortment of playable characters. Though the introduction video -- a recycling of the console version's FMV -- reveals Zatanna as a headlining hero, only Flash, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman are playable. And at the start of the game, the only available team is Flash and Wonder Woman. On occasion you'll be able to call upon the help of other DC folk like The Green Lantern, Huntress, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, and the aforementioned Zatanna for an extra power or two. So, at the very least, it should tickle the comic book fan for including nearly a dozen characters in different capacities.

But that's really where the coolness factor peaks in Justice League Heroes, because the rest of the game is a extensively tedious Double Dragon-style action game. Use a hero to run up to an enemy, hammer down the action button to take him out, and repeat it without getting hit yourself. Some characters are better at distance attacks than others, but since the game's camera system is so wonky and keeps everything centralized with no zoom out feature, these distance attacks are almost pointless. If enemies can attack me while they're off-screen, why can't I do the same thing? There are very few different enemies in Justice League Heroes, and the lack of variety really starts grating on patience and enjoyment early in the adventure. The variety comes from the extra moves you earn throughout the adventure, but since the game's more about mashing buttons than utilizing skills, it's not much of a reward system.

The game really feels like it was originally meant as a stylus-exclusive game design, and at some point in its development someone pointed out that it wasn't working and reinstituted more traditional controls. The unusual amount of touch screen elements that are far too small for any normal-sized human finger to touch is probably the biggest clue that this is the case, as anyone with a smidgen of DS development experience would realize that clumsily swapping in and out the stylus for on-the-fly touch screen tapping is simply bad design. But yet, this game requires it because some of the touch screen targets are just way too tiny to hit. What's even more curious is that there's an optional "Styluse" mode in the control scheme, but it's absolutely horrible and clunky to utilize, and if this was what the team was working with during development thank the gods they switched. Not that this game's all that great using the traditional D-pad and button configuration, but it's far superior to the alternate options.

You know the wireless functionality of the Nintendo DS? Not used in Justice League Heroes. The console versions were of a cooperative game design where players could work together as different heroes. No so in this dual-screen version -- it's a solo outing. Maybe if the game was more fun I'd be more bummed about this omission, but since it's not in here, I can say it's a positive that I don't have to subject a buddy to play it in order to experience it with me.

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