Justice Sucks [Xbox]
After playing Roombo: First Blood back when it launched on Switch, I instantly fell in love with that rambunctious little yellow robo-vacuum - so when Samurai Punk’s follow-up ‘Justice Sucks’ was revealed, I was eager to see where the story would go. This time around, Dusty McClean has found itself in the digital world, having been launched into a TV screen by a huge foe after trying to defend his family from the evil FamilyCorp! Now, it’s time for Dusty to exact his revenge and rescue his family, with the help of none other than Sexy McClean.
There are a bunch of different worlds for you to play through, each with different level objectives to complete, ranging from wave-based Invasion levels to Delivery roles for Dusty to get a bunch of packages dropped off at their destination. As you scoot around the worlds, you’ll have to contend with enemies that are wandering around, with some of them stealing valuables, or standing guard over your kidnapped family members - and once you’ve ahem dealt with them, you’ll need to clean up after yourself by vacuuming up all of the blood and meat chunks left lying in your wake. There are Challenges available that can be attained by meeting certain criteria within any of the levels, such as completing a level with an animal equipped, reaching a certain nice combo, or killing an enemy with a cat.
On first playthrough of each world, you’ll need to scope out locations carefully to figure out the best way forward, but as you familiarise yourself with the traps and their effects, as well as the routes that many enemies will take, you can make better choices and utilise any perks or abilities you’ve equipped, such as spilling oil nearby to an explosive trap - leading to a whole bunch of fire to engulf your enemies.
Retaining the same cartoony style from Roombo, but with a massive graphical improvement - environments are well detailed and there’s lots to take advantage of as you work your way through the levels. Levels are designed really well, with the return of the house from the original game, but with a whole bunch of new levels added too. Traps for you to activate are available across each level, allowing you to successfully pull off combos by triggering multiple traps in close proximity to one another. You can ping a trap to gain the attention of nearby enemies - or if you’re feeling particularly frisky, you can honk your horn, before darting away into the shadows. The Turtle Club has a great layout for causing maximum carnage, with plenty of hiding spots and places to bamboozle your foes; and the Airport level is a lot of fun too, especially if you can guide a bunch of enemies in front of the Jet Engine before you activate it!
Sound design is really well utilised, with not only a brilliant selection of music tracks throughout the levels, but great use of musical notes in the menus too - with the familiar tch of various beat sequencer notes as you flick through everything. There are animated segments to introduce new areas, as well as to progress aspects of the story - the introductory cutscene that acts like a TV show opening is fantastic, and the 90s boyband style music that accompanies it has remained firmly stuck in my head since.
Overall, Justice Sucks is a fantastically fun time, and despite the story being a little on the short side, there’s plenty of different Objectives for you to play through, and more of these will be unlocked for each world upon completing the main story. Likewise the Challenges give you more to do, as you’ll find that some of these are easier to pull off in certain levels than others (with some needing particular things that are level-locked, such as using a dog to kill an enemy). Plus, there’s leaderboards for you to climb, so it’s well worth trying out different combos of perks to see which ones will give you a bit more of an edge.
Available for £16.74 on Xbox, Justice Sucks offers a superbly entertaining time, with a wacky story that surprisingly tugs on your heart strings. There’s an absolute butt-load of humour too (watch the trailer below if you want a taste!), from unexpected dancing to level mutations that make enemies super tiny or turn them into big bois. It’s a lot of fun, and definitely a title I’d recommend everyone to check out - even if you haven’t played the first one.
In the end, we decided to give Justice Sucks the Collecting Asylum rating of 9/10.
Are you interested in Justice Sucks? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to tinyBuild for the Justice Sucks Xbox review code!
