A 2006 action roleplaying game by developed by Snowblind Studios and published by Warner Bros., based on DC Comics' Justice League of America.
When the evil Brainiac assaults the S.T.A.R. Labs, stealing a strange meteorite that landed on Earth recently, the Justice League must stop him as well as any obstacle that he throws their way. The players controls a pair of members from a roster containing Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, The Flash, Green Lantern and Zatanna in a variety of levels fighting countless enemies, with Co-Op available for two players controlling one character separately.
Justice League Heroes was released on PlayStation 2, Xbox, PSP and Nintendo DS.note It also has a Spin-Off, Justice League Heroes: The Flash, for the Game Boy Advance.
Justice League Heroes contains examples of:
- Actually a Doombot: Brainiac makes use of several duplicates to carry out his plans. He is initially fought as one of the earliest bosses in the game until its revealed to be a fake. He’s later shown using another one to break Grodd out of prison.
- Alien Invasion:
- The Key unleashes extra dimensional aliens from their prison on the condition they stop Green Lantern and Flash.
- The White Martians send a full-scale invasion to Earth after being reawakened by Brainiac.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: While the entire League is busy fighting off the White Martian invasion and stopping Grodd's Earthquake Machine, Brainiac uses the opportunity to invade the League Watchtower with a Doomsday clone and turning its defenses against the heroes. Later, Darkseid does it on planet-scale and converts Earth into another Apokolips.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: To Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The key difference is that you only control two heroes at a time rather than four like MUA.
- Artificial Stupidity: One of the missions inside the missile base is breaking down an armored door to save a scientist. You need to bust up the containers around the area to reveal explosive crates that are the most reliable way to bring down the door in time. Not only it is a Timed Mission with lots of enemies to hinder you (there are five dimensional doors around the area, which continuously spawn them until they are destroyed, and among those enemies are mutant frogs whose puke slows you down), your partner also sometimes picks up the crates and chucks them at the enemies or empty space rather than at the door, wasting you precious time.
- Ax-Crazy: Killer Frost has no problem launching two nukes into heavily populated areas and she boasts about being criminally insane.Batman: What could Brainiac have possibly offered you to do something like this?
Killer Frost: I'm a mass murderer! With any luck, I'm about to set a record! - Be Careful What You Wish For: Brainiac sought infinite power, knowledge, and wisdom provided by the strange entity trapped inside the meteorite. He instead unleashed an imprisoned Darkseid who proceeded to tear him apart.
- Big Bad: Brainiac whose assault on S.T.A.R Labs kicks off the plot and he is responsible for many of the obstacles faced by the heroes. In reality, he is just a puppet to Darkseid, who is The Man Behind the Man that manipulated him into being released from his prison.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Braniac provides his cohorts with the technology to brainwash civilians:
- Queen Bee turns several citizens into drones, though its possible to free them by knocking them out.
- Gorilla City's inhabitants are being mind-controlled by Gorilla Grodd's helmet returned by Brainiac.
- Dark Action Girl: Queen Bee and Killer Frost are the only two female supervillains fought in this game.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Brainiac is believed to be the main threat, but he was being manipulated all along by the real Big Bad, Darkseid.
- Exact Words: When the League confront Darkseid on the subject of manipulating Brainiac, he invokes this when he said he'd offered Brainiac unlimited power and knowledge:Batman: You tricked Brainiac into freeing you from your extra-dimensional prison.
Darkseid: I promised him he would unleash power beyond imagining. I fulfilled our bargain. To the letter.
Zatanna: Yeah, and he was also promised great knowledge.
Darkseid: And I delivered. What higher lesson is there than is this: Never trust Darkseid. - Forced Transformation: One of Zatana's spells turns enemies into rabbits. They retain their status as enemies which leads to such scenes as Superman frying said rabbits with heat-vision.
- Godhood Seeker: Brainiac’s goal is to obtain ultimate power and knowledge by unleashing Darkseid from the extra-dimensional prison he was locked in.
- Improvised Weapon: Your character can pick up a variety of items such as pipes to whack your enemies, or if you are strong enough such as Superman or Wonder Woman, you can lift cars or giant robots!
- Doomsday is one tough SOB to defeat due to being extremely tough and being the only boss with regenerating health. You have to turn the Tower's defense systems to damage him.
- Superman becomes one prior to the final boss when he tears through Darkseid's fortress, as the metal is too strong for anybody else but him to break through. The player pretty much follows him as he stomps his way through the ruins.
- In Their Own Image: Upon being freed from his prison, Darkseid uses a Mother Box and a Sensory Matrix Field Generator to turn the Earth into a replica of Apokolips. After defeating him, the Justice League uses this same technology to reverse the process.
- Killer Gorilla: Gorilla Grodd and the inhabitants of Gorilla City after he used his telepathic helmet to brainwash them.
- The Man Behind the Man: Darkseid has been manipulating Brainiac all along.
- Mecha-Mooks: Not only does Brainiac employ loads of these as his minions, but he provides the technology to other villains to have some of their own.
- Mythology Gag: The League is sent by the Mother Box to an alternate dimension inhabited by strange vaguely Lovecraftian creatures that resemble the ones from the episode "The Terror Beyond" in the Justice League cartoon. One of the enemies include the screaming men from that same episode.
- Palette Swap: Kal-L (the Earth-Two Superman) and Jay Garrick appear as unlockable skins for Superman and the Flash, respectively. Also despite being their own separate unlockable characters, Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner play exactly the same as John Stewart.
- Practically Joker: The game's take on the Key.
- Puzzle Boss: Doomsday cannot be fought head on and the only effective way to damage him is using the control panels to activate the tower's defenses against him.
- Railroading: One of the main criticisms of the game is that most levels force you to play with the two characters the story mandates, rather than allowing you to choose your team.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The White Martians are in suspended animation up until a nuke launched by Brainiac awakened them. Also Darkseid, the real Big Bad, is revealed to have been trapped inside the meteorite that Brainiac stole.
- Secret Character: Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Aquaman, Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, and Huntress can all be unlocked in the game, with Supergirl and Black Canary as PSP exclusives.
- Timed Mission:
- When Green Lantern and the Flash are about to reach the Key, he traps several scientists in a poisonous gas chamber and players need to race against time to free them, in the first part by trying to destroy a very thick door blocking their path with explosives and then trying to free the scientists while fighting the Key.
- Killer Frost's boss fight also qualifies since both Wonder Woman and Zatanna need to defeat her under a time limit and disarm a couple of warheads from being launched.
- Two Girls to a Team:
- Zatanna and Wonder Woman are the primary ladies featuring in the League. Though you can unlock more female characters (Hawkgirl, Huntress, and on the PSP, Black Canary and Supergirl) by collecting tokens, they have no impact in the story and go away unmentioned.
- Coincidentally, among Brainiac's allies, only two females are present: Queen Bee and Killer Frost.
- Xanatos Gambit: Brainiac sets up a complex scheme which involves unleashing nukes on populated areas, arming supervillains to cause chaos and releasing aliens in stasis all to distract the League and keep them busy from his plan: to unleash the stone's ultimate power and knowledge.
