The Justice League's videogame onslaught is in full force. While the greatest collection of superheroes ever assembled starred in a decent action game on the Xbox and PlayStation 2, the League's handheld adventure for the Nintendo DS is the kind of abomination these heroes are supposed to protect us from. Justice League Heroes is a mindless, insipid and pathetic disaster that almost sets superhero videogames back ten years.

Justice League Heroes is a top-down action title where you get to run around and kick ass as DC Comics' elite. It sounds like a promising premise, but it ends being a total waste of a perfectly good idea. On the plus side, there's one hell of a cast. You get to play as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and The Flash. You can call on Zatanna, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Huntress, Hawkgirl and Aquaman to lend you a hand during battles.

The bad news is that the playable characters are really similar and you never feel like you're doing anything unique with any of them. Sure, they have special attacks, but they're not really distinct. Adding to the disappointing uniformity of these heroes are regular attacks that are the same across the board. When using the game's lock system, the controls are fine, but if you want to bash random objects or run around freely, the game runs into serious problems. You'll marvel as your hero faces left, but when you hit the attack button, your character inexplicably hits right.

Not only are the heroes pretty much the same, but their foes are similar too. Despite the backdrop (and any super villains appearing in the cutscenes) you're pretty much fighting stupid robots for most of the game. There's nothing interesting or threatening about your foes in Justice League Heroes. You've seen more interesting character designs in classic NES games.