Superman Returns: The Videogame Review
Superman Returns is one of those tragic games that are packed with the potential for greatness but in the end fail to live up to that potential. In Superman Returns you have a game that recreates the entire city of Metropolis and puts you in the role of its most famous citizen. You have the freedom to go anywhere from a walk down one of the streets to a high speed flight through its concrete canyons. The game does an awesome job of conveying the speed and power of Superman. When flying at full speed you’ll see the edges of the screen blur and streaks of red and blue come trailing off of Superman. You’ll hear the sounds of the wind rushing past you and the sonic boom as you break the sound barrier. You can zoom down for a landing and see the pavement crack beneath your feet, and then take off for a high speed run down the traffic filled streets. Clip a building while turning a corner and you’ll see the concrete crack from the force. You can pick up cars and streetlights, and send villains flying from the force of your punches. Awesome. So what went wrong?
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There are plenty of robot battles in your future. |
If you’re going to create a living city environment and making to pretty much devoid of activity, then your story missions had better be pretty darn good. Unfortunately that’s not the case here. The missions primarily consist of numerous fights against minions followed by a showdown with the boss. More imaginative missions such as protecting Metropolis from a storm of meteors or a swarm of tornadoes are very few and far between. The boss fights should be memorable showdowns with Superman’s arch-enemies, but they’re simply repetitive and overly long. You’ll discover this right from the beginning of the game when you find yourself on War World (not sure why, but remember what I told you about the story) in a series of gladiator fights. This involves chasing around an arena looking for your foe, followed by much punching and throwing of objects. Defeat one enemy and another steps up until you face Mongrul himself. Lose at any point during the sequence (and it’s not always clear why the game declares you a loser when it does) and you have to start all over again from the beginning. Painful.