Superman Returns -- The Game

[AndrewTS 0]

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3155445

 

Guess what? It sucks!

 

Superman Returns: The Videogame

The Hope Diamond of licenses claims another victim.

Platform: Xbox 360 Also On: NintendoDS | PSP | GBA | PS2 | Xbox

 

Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Tiburon

 

ESRB Rating: Teen Genre: Action

 

by Scott Sharkey 11/21/2006

 

 

It's not as bad as Superman 64.

 

All right, nothing could be that bad without actually giving us a disease. There are a few nicer things that can be said about Superman Returns: The intro stage is OK. Metropolis is really big and looks pretty from the air; there are some neat enemies that you'll actually use all your different powers to defeat.

 

Of course, once you finish the intro and fly down into that city, you might notice that yeah, it's big, but it's also completely homogenous. The whole thing is made up of the same half-dozen buildings. Worse, while it's kind of pretty when seen from a mile up, when you're down in the concrete and glass canyons, the view ranges from acceptable to absolutely fugly. Some of those textures that look so good from on high are actually fuzzier than an N64 game when you're standing on them. The worst offenders -- dirt and concrete that slides around under your feet like water -- are thankfully confined to parts of the city that aren't very important.

 

But hey, it's a destructible environment, right? Not nearly. You can chuck around cars and lights and hot-dog stands, but other than a handful of props, no, you can't break this town. Hitting a building with something just applies one of two broken-wall decals to the surface. Limited as it is, however, smashing stuff in town is the most enjoyable thing to do in the game. Wouldn't you know that's the one thing you're penalized for doing. The city is effectively Superman's life bar, and trashing it or allowing it to be trashed is a big no-no. It's actually a really good angle around the whole "Superman is indestructible" problem, but half the glee in an open-world game is messing with the environment, and in this case messing with the environment is the one thing you're not supposed to do. If you can find it, there's a side mission where you get to play as Bizarro for a couple minutes, which actually does reward you for heat-visioning everything. We had more fun with that than the rest of the game, and not just because we're bastards.

 

What you're supposed to be doing is protecting the city from its enemies. Those enemies are actually pretty spiffy the first time you meet them. Unfortunately, there are about four kinds, and you'll get sick of them quick. Superman's tasks include beating up robots, beating up faster robots, knocking down gargoyle things, and putting out the occasional building fire. These encounters are mixed and matched a bit, so you'll get robots with gargoyles, or speedy robots and a building fire, with numbers ranging from a handful to an assload. This does not make for variety. This is interrupted by some occasional boss fights, but other than the really big, city-stomping version Metallo and a god-awfully frustrating blimp-defense mission, they're pretty forgettable.

 

And the list of problems goes on. Locking on to a specific enemy is a crapshoot. The character faces are bad enough that we were actually shocked to find that they had the rights to use the actors' likenesses. We could write a book about everything wrong with Superman Returns.

 

For all intents and purposes, you'll have experienced the majority of what Superman has to offer within the first 20 minutes. Which is actually a significant portion of the playtime. Even with all the screwing around smashing cars, picking up their drivers, and dropping them down smokestacks (complete with their "Thank you, Superman! You saved me!"), we finished 50 percent of the game in less than two hours, and wrapped it all up, side stories and all, in no more than six. As far as we're concerned, though, its brevity is probably the game's best quality. Admittedly, that's more of a bonus if someone is paying you to play it than if you shell out 60 bucks yourself.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

IGN also gave it a 5.5

[Wyld Cannon 0]

They should've just stolen the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction engine cuz that game is a HOOT! I still pop it in from time to time, its so damn fun.

[AndrewTS 0]

They should've just stolen the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction engine cuz that game is a HOOT! I still pop it in from time to time, its so damn fun.

 

"SUPERMAN SMASH!" wouldn't make much sense, though.

 

Unless you play as Bizarro.

 

That would be great. Bizarro should get his own game.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

"Even with all the screwing around smashing cars, picking up their drivers, and dropping them down smokestacks (complete with their "Thank you, Superman! You saved me!")..."

 

Hilarious.

 

I'm in no way shocked the game sucks, and I don't think anyone else is either.

[Craig Th 0]

Yeah, I downloaded the demo and it blew.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Yeah, I downloaded the demo and it blew.

 

Seconded. I didn't exactly have high hopes for it, more in the range of "passable". Instead, I got a load of crap with a nice gloss of pretty effects. But then again this IS EA we're talking about. I think that's what they do best.

[Guest Smues]

Ehh, I'm still going to buy it. I've been waiting for this game since summer (releasing the game with the DVd instead of theatrical release is just cruel).

[LivingLegendGaryColeman 0]

Target had the Xbox and PS2 Versions on sale for 24.87 today. I picked up the Xbox version and am disappointed so far. After running around and figuring how to fly, you have to destroy a meteor shower. It takes too long. I tried it for like 4 attempts before I turned it off for now. I guess I can't complain because I got it about half price for now, but we'll see.

[Youth N Asia 0]

A bad movie based video game? Say it isn't so...

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

They should have included Superman 64 as a bonus just to say "hey, at least the game isn't as bad as that"

[2GOLD 0]

They should have included Superman 64 as a bonus just to say "hey, at least the game isn't as bad as that"

 

They should have included a stage where you have to fly through rings followed by a loud laugh and a voice over guy saying, "YEAH! WE GOT YOU AGAIN! I JUST BOUGHT A SOLID GOLD TOILET SEAT WITH YOUR MONEY LOSER!"

 

I messed with the demo today, it made me want to hurt people. I don't understand why it is so difficult to make a good super hero game with Superman.

[Youth N Asia 0]

It's not just superman, Batman games have notoriously sucked in the past. The Dark Knight and Superman should be easy games to make well

[AndrewTS 0]

Batman actually has many good games. Superman has *none*.

[daileyxplanet 0]

The Death and Return of Superman was fun.

[AndrewTS 0]

The Death and Return of Superman was fun.

 

It was a mediocre Final Fight clone. A mediocre *1-player* Final Fight clone.

 

It's not a "good" Superman game if you could have made a better game by sprite-hacking Supes into Mike Haggar's place.

 

Sunsoft Batman NES, Adventures of Batman and Robin SNES, and even Batman Returns SNES creams that game.

[Scroby 0]

Batman actually has many good games. Superman has *none*.

Wait wait wait, the first Superman game for the NES was...ok no it wasn't, it was hard and I couldn't get very far in that game.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Sunsoft Batman was too difficult for my blood, but I remember it fondly. I seem to remember AoB&R for the Genesis being fun.

[MrRant 0]

I downloaded the demo on XBL and while it's relatively nice graphics wise, you don't do shit in the game besides fly around a bit, punch/laser vision/freeze/throw something or blow out fires.

 

Weeee.