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It took me a few months to get through the Justice League cartoon series. When I first checked some of the episodes a few years ago, I thought it sucked. Later, Kyle told me Unlimited (Seasons 3-5 where the episodes expand beyond the core characters) was really good, but it still took me a while to actually get the series and watch it.

Totally worth it.

I actually started with Unlimited because I was expecting that to be good, and then moved to the original first two seasons. I tend to be pretty anal when it comes to superhero cartoons, but I think that happened only as I became older and started demanding in my head that the “reality” of the cartoon world be consistent. Really silly thoughts like, how can Superman have trouble stopping a train if he can stop asteroids? How can Flash be supersonic fast when he wants to be, and then get hit while running at normal fast-for-a-car-but-not-for-the-Flash speeds. WHY IS EVERYONE SO LAZY? They should be unstoppable!

Anyway, I digress.

Justice League Unlimited is fun. Greatly written. Sharp animation. Especially with Season 5, where you have individual 2 part episodes, but they all run into a central storyline for the season (with some elements spanning the seasons), there are some engaging storylines where it’s almost like you’re reading a graphic novel or trade-paperback in the sense of the extended story arc you’re getting. There are great characters, especially Luthor, though I’m not sure why he has to be pure evil, and why they couldn’t have made him more of a good guy who does bad things because he has an obsession with Superman. I forget if he’s portrayed that way in the comics or somewhere else, but I remember one of his character versions as not trusting aliens and really just wanting to do the best for the world as one with a lot of depth and sensibility.

The Diana (Wonder Woman) and Batman dynamic is awesome. I could probably say this about the other non-Batman characters as well, but I don’t think I ever found her interesting, but in Justice League, I thought her character was super hot, and I loved her.

When I went back to the beginning, I still thought Season 1 was terrible. I guess that’s harsh. Not terrible but a pale comparison to Unlimited. Just not that interesting. I thought Season 2 would be more of the same, but you can see some huge strides in the character development, along with better plotlines. Then, when you look at Unlimited, another level of quality is reached, and you find yourself wondering, how in the world did I come to care about Booster Gold?

My recommendation, buy Seasons 3-5, and then get Season 2 if you’re still loving JL.

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Finished my first XBox game in probably over a year, mainly because I didn’t bring back my XBox when I left the US in September. Justice League is basically X-Men Legends I/II/Marvel Ultimate Alliance with DC.

First thing that stood out for me is that JL supports 720P. I had the same feeling looking at it as when I saw Guitar Hero for X360 playing at Best Buy in May- “oooh, sharp”. So JLH is really good looking. Too bad most games I’ll be playing for the XBox will be 480P only. Gameplay is pretty similar to the X-Men games as well, it’s a team beat-em-up, just pick a character, destroy everything on the map, level up, and choose some powers to upgrade or learn.

It’s fun, fairly simple, but if you like comics or the heroes, should be a good time. A decent story is there, some nice CG for the cutscenes, the voice acting is fine, and the control is never a problem.

I think the main point in these games is to try out all the characters and see what each of them can do, especially if you haven’t had exposure to them. We all know what Superman can do, (there’s a movie about him!) but what about Zatana? The Martian Manhunter? I think this is where a lot of RPGs fail, not just JLH. In JLH, you generally play with 2 team members at 1 time, you can select who you want to play as any time, while the CPU takes the other character. You can choose how you want experience to be split (I chose 50/50) between the 2 on-screen players, but this doesn’t help the characters who are not fighting. You can also unlock other characters with bonuses you pick throughout the game, but guess what, these guys also don’t pick up any experience that your two member teams have been getting. This means that when you unlock them, they will probably be weakr than everyone else, which means they are less fun to play with, or perhaps even impossible to play with in order to advance.

Some characters, no matter what you do, are going to be weaker than others, just in pure leveling up. So later in the game, I’d notice one character be level 12, and another be level 7. Some of this perhaps could have been changed had I made sure to use everyone the exact same amount, but the reality is that there was no way I would know what was coming up (you don’t pick your own team most of the time). Also, the way the game is saved is that the game saves after you pick your team members. So, for example, if I pick Flash and Green Lantern (both of whom are terrible, useless characters) to play and try out, and then I notice they are too weak, there’s no way for me to change the lineup. For most of the game, I could play conservatively and get through the obstacles after retrying 10-15 times, but there came certain points I had to look up cheat codes on GameFaqs because there was no way I’d get through a level otherwise.

I think when you make everyone get an equal amount of experience towards leveling up, you allow the player to try different sets to see who’s good. Otherwise, you’re probably going to stick with who you know or who you’d like to play. What sucks about Green Lantern is that you can unlock Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan in addition to the original John Stewart, but they are all exactly the same, no different special moves, and they all suck. Almost everyone sucks until they get high powered, at that point some are ok to use (Batman), while others (Superman) finally start to play as you’d expect (buff). For me I could never see why any of the GLs would be fun, Huntress sucked, and I never tried Aquaman or Green Arrow. Maybe it was me, or maybe the character did suck, but how the game is set, it’s not in your best interest to pick new characters to try them out, just pick all the originals and hope for the best.

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