PC | PS5 | Xbox Series
“Imagine if they made Spider-Man 2 a live service game... "
HOW I PLAYED: I played on PC via Epic Game Store. I got this game for free as part of Amazon Prime Day. Played on my Ryzen 7 7800X3D , 32GB RAM, RTX 3080 PC. Was able to pretty consistently hit 144fps at 1440p with max settings and DLSS Quality.
STORY — 11/20
INTRO
I really hate the trend where video games try to be cinematic movies. Suicide Squad: KTJL starts out in a Tarantino style way of story telling by starting near the end then flash backing to the beginning of the story. Rocksteady was also really clumsy with how they introduce the characters and their core mechanics because it essentially happens twice. I think the first introduction would have been fine if it was more action packed and really showcased the potential of your character choice. But going back to the true beginning of your story then basically having to repeat the tutorial for your character was kind of a chore. Not as annoying as spending 1 hour to chop down your dead wife's tree... but still... pretty bad 😉.
CUTSCENES
You can definitely see where most of the 200 million dollars went in this game. There are SO MANY very lengthy cutscenes in this game that required mocap acting, dialogue recording, animating etc etc. This game can't decide if it wants to be a movie or a game. And I felt a LOT of the cutscenes could have been much shorter but were instead dragged on with budget James Gunn humor and gags.
WORLD BUILDING
There is a lot here for the DC fanbase, lot's of well known characters in that universe and you can learn more by doing side missions and some previous Justice League antagonists become allies in this game. But I just felt with the lack of engaging gameplay that this affects the player from wanting to do any of these tedious side missions to learn more about the world.
OVERALL STORY
The overall story was a miss in my opinion. The game spends way too much time emphasizing some areas of the story instead of others that could have been more impactful. It feels like it never got passed the half baked idea of "What if... the Justice League were the bad guys??? Some how?".
GRAPHICS — 15/15
CHARACTER MODELS
The graphical fidelity is definitely where a large portion of the development focus was. The characters in Suicide Squad KTJL look incredible! Some of the artistic choices may be questionable but there is absolutely no denying that these character models look stunning.
ENVIRONMENTS
The environments are basically Metropolis City (DC New York) with a lot of detail and lot of elements and environmental details happening. They look great, but most UE5 titles are capable of creating great realistic environments and settings.
SPECIAL FX
There are a ton of particle effects and explosions and weapon animations. Again UE5 is a very capable game engine and Rocksteady definitely packed this game full of special fx.
AUDIO — 9/15
AMBIENCE
Is mostly drown out with too much talking, there always seems to be some kind of NPC talking which get's fatiguing at times so you can't really just enjoy the ambient sounds of Metropolis.
BOSS MUSIC
The bosses in this game feel like they just have the same reused "boss music". Nothing was super memorable, it felt like formulaic super hero movie tracks. They served their purpose but I could never tell you one track from another.
SOUND DESIGN
The voice acting was well done and you can tell the voice actors gave it their all in this game. It is just a shame their dialogue is just cringe millennial humour (I apologize for my generation!). Other than that it was pretty well balanced, but there is a lot going on at all times so like I mentioned previously it can get fatiguing.
PERFORMANCE — 6/10
FRAME RATE
I was able to get a pretty stable frame rate above 120fps while playing on PC. But looking at how the game performs on consoles (Thanks to Digital Foundries YouTube video) , you can see the game mostly hits a stable 60fps but has some issues with frame timing and can feel jittery. I did experience this in a few places during my playthrough. But overall that is pretty good considering it's a UE5 title and it runs mostly at 60fps on PS5, Xbox Series X and EVEN the kneecapped Xbox Series S.
STABILITY
This is where the game suffered a bit for me. There were some random cosmetic glitches where NPC's do weird behaviours or cutscenes had some weird jank because your character wasn't in the correct place. But I encountered an issue multiple times where I would be on a mission protecting a truck, and at certain checkpoints enemies would spawn and you have to defeat all of them to be able to destroy a tower. What would happen is I would kill all the enemies but one would fall through the geometry or go out of bounds and I could not progress... I had to literally stand there and run the timer out because you could not reach the last enemy. OR I would run into an issue where the enemies wouldn't spawn at all, and the NPC would repeatedly say something like "Get rid of all these enemies so I can _____" but nothing would be there. The biggest insult is you would fail the mission and it would start you all the way at the beginning. ... brutal
GAMEPLAY — 24/40
CONTROLS
I thought the controls seemed fine. I wish some of the special attacks had a little more feedback. There would be specials that require you to hold R2 and you have no indication that anything is charging up or happening.
MECHANICS
Each character has their own special mechanic or gimmick, I thought they were all ok but nothing really stood out to me. I do wish there was a way to dash to make combat faster. I just used Deadshots jetpack to fly around but the flying mechanic was not as smooth as I would have liked. I also found a lot of the rewards in missions were worse than gear I had gotten ages earlier. And I wish there was better sorting options or ways to easily equip your secondary gear to the other NPC's.
PACING
If you removed all of the pointless fetch quests, this game could be completed in under 3 hours. I really think Rocksteady suffered because they probably had to put a lot of effort in the Live Service mechanics rather than the campaign gameplay. Suicide Squad has like 3 mission types: Guard the truck, Destroy the Tower, Find allies and put them in a truck. And you just rinse repeat those 3 throughout the game,
UI/UE
I thought the UI was decent, I am not a big Looter Shooter expert but I felt everything needed was there. The menu system felt a little sloppy. There is a skills section but I couldn't find to see what level I was or what difference levelling made.
BOSS QUALITY
Most of the bosses copy the same mechanic, they all have super speed and you have to use the deflect shot to stun them and then do damage with your regular shots. The best boss by far was Batman but the rest were 100% forgettable.
ENEMY VARIETY
You fight the EXACT same mobs. Over and over, some have super speed or extra armor. But it's literally the same 3 enemy types repeated.
GAMEPLAY VARIETY
Like mentioned previously there is only like 3 mission types and you just do those on loop. You can do little collectable missions like the Riddler stuff, but those were on the same level as collecting backpacks in Spiderman.
REPLAYABILITY
I have no idea how Rocksteady thought that they could make this game compelling enough to want to replay it more than once, let alone be an active Live Service game. Gaming was really set back these last few years by potential "Gold Rush" of Live Service gaming and their income potential. It feels like everyone is racing to the bottom to see how they can fit their mediocre game into a square box that is Live Service, and most of them have fallen flat.
BONUS — 3/4
One thing Rocksteady did decent was add some pretty good accessibility options. Players can fully customize their controls and there are some colour-blind and audio cue options. Kudos Rocksteady!
OVERALL — 67/100
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Imagine if they made Spider-Man 2 a live service game... that's basically what this is. Suicide Squad: KTJL is a very good looking game with AAA visuals, it's too bad modern gaming is corrupted with corporate greed and as a result we get a half baked story with lacklustre gameplay. I would happily take a reduction in visual fidelity and shorter cutscenes for more creative gameplay loops and better story writing. Shame...
TLDR: 67/100 (FAIR) Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a visually stunning game marred by a lackluster story and repetitive gameplay. Despite its high production value and impressive graphics, the game suffers from excessive cutscenes, uninspired mission design, and a poor balance between cinematic elements and gameplay. While the audio and technical performance are decent, the overall experience is hindered by clumsy character introductions, frustrating mission glitches, and uninspired boss fights. This game could have been much more enjoyable with a focus on creative gameplay and better storytelling rather than corporate-driven live service mechanics.
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