Superman has been with us for nearly 70 years, starting off in Action Comics and then flying onto all other available entertainment formats. However the track record for old Supes on the computer game format has been ropey at best. With the release of Superman Returns on DVD, EA have taken on the challenge of making Superman great again on the Xbox 360.
I will start by saying that this is “Superman Returns: The Video Game” in name alone. The real backbone of the game has nothing to do with the movie, only cut scenes and character voices have been used from the movie. You can take this in two ways, bad as people will be purchasing this as a film tie-in, but good in the way that this game is in no way restricted to the plot of the film and that it can bring on other parts of Superman past.
The game itself is set on a huge free roaming interpretation of Superman’s adopted city Metropolis. Right from the off you are able to travel to any part at your desire. You are able to fly as high as the clouds or run across the city streets at super speed. The city itself looks amazing, skyscrapers have amazing original architecture and cars and people walking around them, really showing what the Xbox 360 can do. You are able to fly seamlessly in-between the towering building with no slowdown. As you fly around the city you will see the graphics updating themselves to show better detail, but this is just nitpicking really, and does not deter from the overall fun of flying. I have only experienced this sort of open freedom in the old Spiderman 2 from the last generation of consoles, Superman Returns makes you want to just fly about at you hearts content, not really bothering about the main story.
Unfortunately, this is where the game goes a bit wrong, the story, whilst there are cut scenes from the movie dotted around the game, most of the time there is no real story involved, aliens attack, mutants escape and attack, robots attack, that’s about it. The only reason for these small skirmishes with unknown baddies is to boost up your stats, every time you fill you stats bar, you are given a new power upgrade, most of the time this is just a more powerful version of the move you already have, e.g. heat vision. Unfortunately, this is the main body of the game and does get repetitive very quickly. Whilst most of the baddies are non descript, there are a few that are impressive, the flying mutants give you a real run for your money, but once you work out their weaknesses they are no real bother at all. Now of course, this would not be a good game without some super villains, and EA have scoured Supes back history and pulled out some greats like, Parasite, Metallo, Bizarro and Mr Mxyzptlk. At certain points of the game these baddies turn up to wreak havoc on the streets of Metropolis, all you have to do is fly to their location, work out their weakness and defeat them, and then you start the process all over again. Some of the baddies are awesome when Metallo grows to the size of a skyscraper; his every move damages the floor beneath him, leaving you to throw vehicles at him until he perishes. Others like Mr Mxyzptlk have mini games dotted around the city for you to complete. These are split into races against Mr Mxyzptlk, turning into Bizarro and destroying as much as possible in the allotted time, and also collecting 100 lost kittens??
As you can imagine, being invulnerable will get quite boring after a while, to counter this, rather than giving Superman a health bar, they have given it to the city, allow the baddies too long to rampage in the streets and the city is defeated, then its game over for you. To charge up the cities health you are able to save citizens and fly them to the emergency services.
The super powers available to you are usable throughout the game, you are able to change from super breath, freeze breath and heat vision with a click of the d-pad. Flying is also very easy and majestic, with your cape flapping in the wind. It’s when you are earth bound that the problems start. The camera has a tendency to lose itself and get stuck behind walls, and the hand-to-hand combat is not very smooth, allowing for confusion as to what moves you are trying to pull off.
If this game did not have an age rating I would of given it a higher rating as this title would be most suitable for children of around 10, the repetitive game play and ability to fly wherever you like will appeal to this age group. But for some reason this game is rated a 12, and through it is nice to see a game aimed at a younger audience, I cant see many children over the age of 12 getting much enjoyment out of this unless you are a hardcore superman fan.
With 70 years of the Man of Steels history and over 80 square miles of city available, this game feels a bit empty, I feel this game could have been a lot better, but for what its worth, this is the best Superman game to date, even if it is a bit too easy.
