Infinite Crisis

Infinite Crisis is the soon to be released free-to-play, multiplayer online battle arena by Turbine. Is the name Turbine ringing some bells? That may be because Turbine is behind some of the biggest MMORPGs around, Asheron’s Call, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and their latest release, Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine has quite the track record, but Infinite Crisis is a bit out of their bubble. Infinite Crisis is their first non-MMORPG, and the first game they’ve produced since Warner Brother’s bought Turbine in April 2010.

Infinite Crisis is loosely based on the 2005/2006 DC comic of the same name. It features, on release, 14 playable characters, and one map mode. Gotham Heights is a circular map where the blue team starts at the right side and the red team the left. Five controls are evenly spaced around the circumference of the circle. Each team starts with 300 points that deteriorate depending on how many controls the other team possesses.

Infinite Crisis opens up with three options, worded as noob, normal, and pro. You can then choose to join a match solo or as a group. After joining a game (average is 42 seconds) you will be bombarded with the 14 available characters and about one minute to make your selection. Needless to say, I panicked and went with my fave DC lady, Wonder Women. The match loads with a cheesy cutscene of the characters of your team falling from the sky and saying an equally cheesy battle phrase. Now, up until now all we had seen were gorgeous loading screens, incredible HUDs, and stunning character art. The playable characters however, were poor at best. Underwhelming for sure, appearing pixelated, grainy, even with graphic settings on high. This was a stark contrast to the gorgeous HUD that surrounded my pixely friends.

Gameplay had a Mount Everest of a learning curve. Without even as much as a tutorial level, you’re thrust into the main game with four other players relying on you. Fine for people who have played other MOBAs, but not for people who’ve never played before (I had a 0/8/1 and 0/5/0 kill/death/assist ratio). This leads to elitism in the chat room as those who are familiar with the genreget very angry newcomers. Typical. During gameplay there is steady commentary from your character. Some of the quips are amusing or a little odd, and othersare downright depressing. My second character, Zatanna, liked saying “I’ll make you proud this time, Dad!”

A final annoyance was the usual presence of micro transactions. “Oh, you want to play normal Batman? Just give us a little bit of money and…” This is to be expected, however, considering it is a standard with free-to-play games. It’s obvious, in your face, and as always, annoying.

Overall this game is 1.6 gb of mediocre gameplay, with poor graphics when they matter. Think League of Legends but with DC comic book heroes. If you like MOBA’s you’ll probably like this game, at worst its amusing watching Batman kill Wonder Women. If you’ve never played a MOBA before, this is not the game to learn what it is on.

Becky Ansems, NoobFeed