Review of “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” – Balancing on the edge of excellence and mediocrity | Game

WWhen Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight was released in theaters in 2008, it appeared like a demon in the night. Rated at 12A, this brooding, nihilistic monster was very different from his character in Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. As Heath Ledger's Joker gleefully thrusts a pencil into the eye of a mobster and flames tear the flesh from Harvey Dent's cheek, his then-girlfriend's brother leaves the theater looking mildly traumatized. . Adam West used to fly around in tights, but this wasn't one of them.

Nolan's Batbuster, nominated for eight Academy Awards and winning two, was a triumph for the genre. Batt returned and immediately gave his game a Gotham-inspired sheen. His critically acclaimed Arkham Asylum quietly emerged from the shadows in 2009, pulling licensed games out of the bargain bin and firmly into the spotlight. Now, nine years after his debut in 2015's Arkham Knight, Gotham's golden boys are back with his fourth DC adaptation, Suicide Squad.

It's up to the prisoners of Arkham to step into the bloody boots of Harley Quinn, Boomerang, King Shark, and Deadshot to protect Metropolis from an alien invasion. You may be wondering where Batman is. Now, unfortunately, Earth's heroes wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and the once noble Justice League is brainwashed into following the evil orders of the alien Brainiac.

As UFOs rain lasers from the sky and Green Lanterns gleefully slaughter human resistance, it's up to a group of famous losers to save the day and defeat the Justice League. This is a great setting for a story, and the writers use it to great comic effect. But with the welcome change from playable heroes to villains comes an even more eyebrow-raising switch. It's a transition to online looting shooter games. Taking cues from Destiny and the much-maligned Marvel's Avengers games, this live-service approach sees Rocksteady blend a tightly choreographed cinematic story with random number-crunching gun drops.

In Suicide Squad, players populate a cast of timeless and iconic super-powered DC villains, only to spend countless hours clutching common assault rifles. Few films emulated Nolan's cape-and-cowl interpretation, but Rocksteady's up-close-and-personal combat became the gold standard for video game brawls. Still, it's annoying that Suicide Squad's combat feels so bland. Trading in Arkham's combination of stealth and bludgeoning victories for flimsy firearms, the antihero spends the game flying through Metropolis' bland sandbox, unraveling forgettable lead-filled humanoid zombies. Where Rocksteady once championed innovation, Suicide Squad's mindless XP-gathering side missions feel, inexplicably, like the soulless licensed games it rebelled against.

It's telling that the best parts are when it feels the most Arkham. The game shines as hordes of faceless enemies disappear from view and the camera zooms in, pitting the brilliantly rendered team against corrupt Justice League members in gloriously stupid villainous scenes. Whether it's tracking down a MacGuffin with Lex Luthor or battling a particularly sociopathic take on The Flash, watching the Justice League fall apart is a joy to watch. From watching Batman mercilessly murder cops to witnessing Superman melt heroes with his laser eyes, this darker side of his DC has touches of The Boys and Invincible. There's more than that.

Suicide Squad's gory gore and insane gags are also convincingly acted, achieving the rare feat of not just being “funny as a video game” but actually being funny.

But every time Rocksteady tries to restore Gotham's former glory, they find themselves drawn back into a boring world. Combat improves as you upgrade your weapons, but the combination of bullet-sponge enemies and flashy finishers doesn't allow you to take down goons as fluidly as in 2009's Batman.

Ultimately, Warner Bros.' live-service ambitions rob players of any surprising comic book enthusiasm. The result is a game that's as confusing as its title character. Just as these reluctant heroes struggle with their villainous natures, Rocksteady's storytelling ambitions struggle to break free from the trappings of live service. Since its release as a looter shooter, the internet has declared Suicide Squad an abomination, the antithesis of Rocksteady's previous classics. The reality is somewhere in between, a game that straddles both the great and the mediocre. As Rocksteady certainly learned from Suicide Squad's hostile fan reaction, you either die as a sanctioned game hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. is.