Superman Returns

The 21st century has been the year of the comic book remake. Every comic company with money, from Marvel to DC and even some really strange off-the-wall companies are taking their franchises and making them into live action movies, praying that their efforts will be profitable. And for the most part, they are. The Spiderman franchise continues to flourish, ?Fantastic Four? did insanely well, and ?The Hulk? is still selling DVDs like mad. Even The Punisher got some action.

So it is no surprise that Superman got a remake this year in the feature film ?Superman Returns?. This time, instead of simply starting from square one with the story of Superman, Superman Returns comes back years later in the franchise, much after previous movies, to have Superman re-acquaint himself with his old friends and enemies. Long story short, Superman is back, and it's time for him to save the world.



And, much like the other game franchises, DC decided to pump out a game as well- obviously named ?Superman Returns?. And let's face it, there's not much one can expect from this game. Not only are movie games notoriously bad, but this is Superman- this franchise did so bad on the Nintendo 64 that it resides as one of the worst games of all time. Yes, Superman 64 is still heralded as the biggest flop in Nintendo history, and it somewhat sets the taste for Superman Returns. By that, I mean the second I turned this game on, I already had my trash can beside me.

I don't know exactly how to describe Superman Returns except to say that the game is basically a compilation of a few decent ideas mixed in with absolutely nothing new, all tied together with bland work and a generic plot.

Let me first begin by saying that Superman Returns had a lot going for it in that being Superman can be one hell of a lot of fun. Superman is Superman in Superman Returns- complete with flying mechanics, heat vision, cold vision, mega breath, and basically everything else that makes him the man of steel. If anything, this is just an open door for a video game. One can almost taste the fun of being able to tear up buildings and fly at insane speeds. One can also imagine the fun of x-ray vision, but this game isn't rated AO, so I suppose I'll just have to go to super special websites for that.

And about at that point EA drops the ball. Superman Returns feels like a really bad mash of everything ?Required? all tied in with a bad movie license. Flying is not fun. Heat Vision is not fun. Cold Vision is not fun. Being superman is not fun. Everything feels like it was tacked on by EA in a bland attempt to make some crappy engine into ?Superman the Ultra Cool Video Game?, without anything being truly innovative or fun.

For example, let's take the very first ?mission? in the game- stopping meteorites coming down from the sky. Some meteorites are on fire. Some are on ?ice? (don't ask me). And yes, as Superman, you must blast them out of the air. This basically means that you hit the Y button to fly, guide your haphazard and direction-impaired Superman over to where you THINK a Meteroite may be, and pray to god you can hit it with your vision- because no matter how super Superman is, he still seems to be a little bit target impaired. And, since the game is based on ?belief in Superman? rather than ?Superman's health?, every time a Meteorite slips and kills a few hundred people, you lose health. So yes, all you do is fly around blasting rocks out of the air.



This goes hand in hand with the battle engine, which is about the most boring feature of a game I have ever played since I played the ?Desperate Housewives? game where you cannot have sex with anyone. Apparently, Superman is limited to two key fighting tactics- either grabbing his enemy and slamming him around or punching him in the gut. No kicks, no combinations, nothing but punches and throws. And, if you're lucky, you can pick up an innocent citizen's car and lob it at your enemy.

Obviously, this game has some problems that harken back to it's Nintendo 64 flop days. What is most depressing about this game is how Superman can mess up when he's the Man of Freaking Steel. Superman should not have an issue with believability if he's up in the sky in tight blue tights shooting rocks out of the sky with his eyes. Superman should also not have an issue hitting one of these rocks from 10 feet away with his EYES. And worst of all, a robot thing from some fake planet should not be able to rip Superman apart like a doll just because Superman gets close to him.

The graphics and sounds of Superman Returns also drop the ball. Unless you are playing this game on a shiny new XBOX 360, everything in Superman Returns is going to resemble one big ugly mess of a game, looking like some really bad ripoff of Grand Theft Auto minus the swearing and awesome. For those lucky enough to play this on the 360, you will no doubt enjoy a much more fleshed out Metropolis, but still have to deal with horrible quality models and uninteresting designs. Of course, this is also quite poorly tied in with the sounds, which, when even distinguishable (they are quite quiet), are boring and generally fall under the category of ?boring stock sounds?.

Let me be a little bit more clear for a second and just wrap this up and say that Superman Returns feels incomplete. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but Superman Returns feels a lot more like a demo than a full out game. It may be partially because the game has an odd structure, the way the game is quite ugly/irritating, or just the lack of anything new. But, the long and short of it is simple- Superman Returns is about as deep as any letter written by Lindsay Lohan, and only half as entertaining.

Superman Returns: The Game is much akin to the movie. Part of you wants to hug the developer/producer for not messing it up, but part of you wants to kick them for not making it anything exemplary. Superman Returns: The Game is by no means bad, but the general lack of any substantiated content means that it falls right into the class of ?boring movie based video game?, which yet again digs another grave for the franchise. Ten bucks says that the ?Aquaman? based video game coming out soon is more entertaining. And that's sad, Aquaman just talks to damn fishes.

2 star(s) out of 5

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