In 2013, DC Comics declared the 12^th of June as “Superman Day”, a day for fans of the Man of Steel the world over to celebrate Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, the superpowered virtue of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” who is widely regarded as the first ever costumed superhero. This year, I’m spending every Monday of June celebrating the Man of Steel as I expand Superman Day to “Superman Month“.

This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
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Released: 22 November 2006
Developer: EA Tiburon
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Xbox

The Background:
As I mentioned in my review of the film, Superman Returns (Singer, 2006) was supposed to be a pretty big deal for DC Comics, Warner Bros. and Superman in general. Absent from cinema screens since 1987, Superman had seen a fair amount of representation in videogames in the intervening years and ever since 1979, but the Man of Steel has had a difficult history with pixels and polygons and it’s not as if videogame tie-in to movies have an esteemed reputation. Add to that the fact that Superman Returns didn’t exactly impress critically and the videogame tie-in was off to a troublesome start before it even released. Developed by a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, EA Tiburon (who had developed a handful of sports-based games for the publisher) and incorporating a large open world version of Metropolis that required players to minimise collateral damage, Superman Returns received mostly negative reviews and Superman has continued to struggle with transitioning into a successful videogame adaptation.

The Plot:
Acting as part-prequel- part-midquel, and part-retelling of the events of the film, Superman leaves Earth to investigate the remains of his home planet, Krypton. There, he incurs the wrath of the tyrant Mongul and, upon returning to Earth after five years, finds his arch enemy, Lex Luthor, enacting a diabolical plot for revenge involving Kryptonian technology while also battling some of his most notorious villains.

Gameplay:
Superman Returns is an open-world action game that places players in the cape and tights of the Man of Steel as portrayed by Brandon Routh in the movie of the same name. The main objective of the game is to defend the impressively-realised and expansive city of Metropolis from a variety of threats using Superman’s awesome powers, all of which are available to the player from the moment the game begins. By pressing Y, players can take to the skies and can even rocket away by holding the button down. While it is a bit disorientating once you’re in the air, it doesn’t take long to adjust to it and it can be quite a thrill to blast through the air and between skyscrapers at Superman’s full speed. By holding down the Left Bumper, you can speed through the sky, going faster and faster until everything around you becomes a blur and Superman breaks the sound barrier, however it can be very difficult to make tight turns and avoid flying head-first into buildings when going at full speed. You can land with Y and, when on the ground, sprint at superspeed by holding LB, which is equally unwieldy at times.

You can target Enemies with the Left Trigger and attack enemies with, primarily, X; repeatedly pressing X and adding in presses of Y and A will see Superman pull off more elaborate combos to deal more damage, although there is a significant input delay when trying to perform combos (in a change from most games, it seems that you have to press each button deliberately rather than as quickly as possible). Superman also has the full scope of his superpowers available to use as well; these are assigned to the directional pad and activated with the Right Trigger and allow you to blast at enemies with heat vision, freeze them with Superman’s freeze breath, or put out fires with his superbreath. All of these can also be augment by double-tapping the direction and can even be worked into your combos but be sure to keep an eye on the power meter, which will deplete as your use your superpowers and take some time to refill (though you can speed this up by flying up into the sky to bathe in the sun’s rays).

One of the constant problems with Superman videogames is that, thanks to the prerequisite for character’s to have a health bar, the Man of Steel is often neutered or susceptible to damage and death rather than being the powerful, superhuman hero he is known to be. Superman Returns comes up with a truly inspired solution to this problem; not only are Superman’s powers restricted by a power meter, not only does he come up against powerful alien foes and robots that are able to bash him about like a ragdoll, but he must also ensure that Metropolis doesn’t suffer too much damage from the constant barrage of attacks that befall it. Enemies will attack civilians, set fire to buildings, and the environment is highly destructible, meaning that cars, trees, walls, and other objects and parts of the environment can be used as weapons or destroyed and, if the city is damaged too much, Superman will fail his mission and you’ll have to either restart the chapter or reload your last save.

Replenishing Metropolis’ “health” can be quite a chore; you can pick up injured civilians (one at a time) and carry them to a specific ambulance to restore a bit of the city’s health but the bets way to bump its health back up is to get rid of all the enemies or the threat in play or reload your last save. Unlike the vast majority of videogames, Superman Returns doesn’t appear to autosave after you complete objectives and missions; instead, you can/must manually save from the pause menu, which also lets you view Superman’s combos, statistics, and the experience points (XP) you’ve accumulated. XP is earned by defending Metropolis from incoming comets, burning buildings, and attacks from aliens, robots, and Cadmus’ monstrous creations; when you gain enough XP, Superman will level-up and his superpowers will automatically become more powerful as a result. Superman Returns features a nice little mini map on the bottom left of the screen that shows you where enemies and ambulances are located and Superman will pick up cries of distress and be able to see objective markers thanks to his super-senses. You can also view the entire city map by pressing the ‘Back’ button but this really isn’t all that helpful as no areas, secrets, or places of interest are highlight and the only place you can fast travel to and from is the Fortress of Solitude.

Gameplay gets extremely repetitive very quickly and the game’s pace is all over the place; you cannot progress the story until you’ve defended Metropolis from a certain number of random attacks, which occur either so sporadically that you’re flying around aimless like an idiot or happen so often and have so many enemies that it becomes annoying. You cannot just fly away from these incidents and ignore them, either, as that’ll cause a game over but, even though you’re playing as frickin’ Superman, you often end up getting bashed all over the place by a barrage of attacks and are forced to mash buttons to get Superman’s useless ass back into the fight. A certain amount of strategy is required to take on enemies, who can race away across the city or are vulnerable to certain superpowers, but it all gets very frustrating and mind-numbing very quickly. Incidents where you have to blast meteors from the sky, put out fires, save citizens, or tackle incoming tornados help to break the monotony up a bit but they’re few and far between.

Graphics and Sound:
Similar to the movie it’s based on, Superman Returns makes extremely poor use of John Williams’ iconic Superman theme; in fact, the rousing “DUN-dun-dun-DUN-DUN” doesn’t appear at all in the game and is replaced by a very generic soundalike that really undermines the entire experience. Stars Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey all return to lend their likenesses and voices but, sadly, like many videogame adaptations of movies, the game’s interpretation of the film’s events leaves out many of the characters and sub-plots from the source material and provides only a very basic recap of the film as story-based missions.

Plus, while these actors do lend their likenesses, only Superman appears as an in-game character model. The game’s cutscenes are quite low-quality, very blurry, and extremely limited in their detail and length but, thankfully, Superman himself looks mostly okay. When you leave him standing around, he’ll strike a heroic pose (the camera even automatically changes position for the best possible shot) and NPCs will continuous be in awe of his presence, feats, or begging for his help. Superman looks best, however, when flying at high speeds; his head and neck seem a little disproportionate to his body and, like many Xbox 360 character models, he looks a bit more like a malformed action figure than an actual person with a logical skeletal structure. Superman ragdolls around when attacks and seems quite unwieldy at times as he’s both superfast but also clunky and his attacks are slow and have a limited range; additionally, there are some wonky instances of cape physics as well but, still, it’s probably the best rendition of the character in a solo videogame I’ve seen yet.

Superman’s enemies aren’t exactly much to shout about either; indeed, it seems like the developers put all of their time and effort into creating a vast city for you to fly around in. However, considering how good a job Superman Returns does of recreating Metropolis, it’s quite a dull and uninspiring experience; although cars drive through the streets and non-playable characters (NPCs) wander around the place, the city feels extremely empty and lifeless and there really isn’t that much to do or see beyond iconic buildings like the Daily Planet and areas such as Suicide Slum. Metropolis may be very grey and barren at the best of times but you can damage and interact with a fair amount of it (which is actually to your detriment as it’ll cost the city health) and the environment does change at the start of the game, where you fight Mongul and his warriors on Warworld, and in the final chapters when the city is bathed in an ominous darkness and a tumultuous thunderstorm but you never get to go inside any buildings or freely visit other environments so it all becomes very underwhelming and boring very quickly.

Enemies and Bosses:
There are three types of enemies Superman will have to defend Metropolis against: the alien forces of Mongul, killer robots created and controlled by John Corben/Metallo, and the various monstrous clones created by Cadmus. As you play though the game’s story, you’ll encounter each of these, and their any variants, in successive fashion and, by the end of the game, entire groups of different enemies will attack the city and its inhabitants. For the most part, enemies fall into some recognisable tropes no matter their appearance, being susceptible to heat vision or freeze breath or more vulnerable against objects (such as cars and debris) being thrown at them. Some are smaller and faster, zipping around on the ground or flying through the air and firing Kryptonite lasers, energy blasts, or elemental plumes at you; others are larger, requiring more combos to damage or blocking your attacks; and others will directly attack the environment to distract you with fires and such.

You’ll learn the basics of combat at the start of the game, where Mongul forces you to fight his minions, Phalanx and Overcast, before taking you on himself. This teaches you how to engage with multiple enemies, use the environment to deal damage to gigantic enemies, and the importance of holding B to block or pressing B to quickly dodge behind opponents. Each group of enemies you face from that point on is directly related to the main villain who serves as the recurring and final boss of that particular chapter; thus, when trying to put a stop to Metallo, you’ll first have to stop his robot minions from attacking the city. Complete enough of these missions, and Metallo will spawn into the map and you can fight him; similar to the enemies you battle on Warworld, Metallo attacks by pummelling you, blasting you with a massive Kryptonite laser, shielding himself like a bitch, and spawning in minions to distract you. like Overcast, Metallo eventually grows to enormous proportions and begins trashing the city, forcing you to hurl cars at him. Once you deal enough damage, he’ll try to destroy the city with a missile, necessitating that you chase after it and complete a quick-time event (QTE) to stop it and bring him down once and for all.

Next, a breakout at Cadmus Labs sees a whole slew of vicious, demonic monsters roam rampant around the city, attacking blimps and causing massive damage with their big explosive attacks. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Superman’s flawed doppelgänger, Bizarro, is also running rampant; compared to Brainiac, Bizarro is a much easier fight as it’s much simpler to avoid his lumbering attacks and land some combos on him. To put him down for good, however, you’ll need to chase after him and ram into him to stop him destroying the city with his heat vision and complete another QTE in a test of heat vision, all while desperately trying to fend off swarms of flying monsters who pummel you relentlessly. That’s nothing, however, compared to fighting Frederick von Frankenstein/Riot, who duplicates himself every time you land a melee attack and can only be defeated by blasting him and his doubles with your freeze breath and then your heat vision, which can get very tedious.

In the game’s final chapters, Mongul arrives on Earth looking for revenge, bringing with him an army of Phalanx warriors and Overcast, with all three spawning into the map at inopportune times to cause massive amounts of damage. Battling Overcast’s gigantic form while also juggling an endless swarm of Phalanx warriors and contending with Mongul is a hell of a tall order but, thankfully, you can (and totally should) focus on Mongul alone in order to compete this story mission and can worry about the rest later. The opening of the game teaches you that Mongul is a cheap bastard who likes to constantly block your attacks and that’s true in the endgame as well but he’ll also attack citizens and cars and spawns in more and more minions the more damage you do. Personally, I found it easier to just keep throwing cars at him until he goes down. then, the game concludes with a series of deadly tornados threatening the city; you must blow and freeze them away, put out the fires they cause, and rescue citizens from their path before contending with Superman’s most deadly and iconic foe…a giant tornado! To dispel this swirling mass of destruction, you must blast its core with either your heat vision or freeze breath all while cars and debris relentlessly slam into you but, with enough patience, it’s pretty simple to bring this chore of a game to a close.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There’s nothing. Seriously, you fly all over the city fighting bad guys and righting wrongs and there’s literally nothing. The only way you can replenish health is to rescue citizens, stop whatever the current threat is, or reload your save and the only tangible power-up you get is from levelling-up. unlike most videogames, you can’t freely spend your XP upgrading Superman’s skills individually, though; instead, his powers increase automatically, taking all agency and effort out of your hands entirely.

Additional Features:
Superman Returns has a whopping eighteen Achievements for you to earn; six of these are directly tied to defeating the game’s villains and finishing the story, while there are others for fully powering Superman up, defeating enemies with cars, lifting a certain amount of weight, or playing the game for twelve hours total (as if you’re ever going to bother doing that…). Sadly, despite the size of the city, there aren’t any fun Achievements tie to, say, knocking the globe of the Daily Planet or finding all the Planet Krypton restaurants or event finding much of anything for that matter.

That’s not to say that there isn’t nothing else to do in the game; there are a hundred kittens hidden throughout the city that you can find for an Achievement and, at various points around the map, you’ll encounter Mister Mxyzptlk who’ll challenge you to completing increasingly-challenge races against him. These are quite fun but by far the most entertaining side mission are the instances where you get to play as Bizarro and cause as much damage as possible in a time limit. You can input some cheat codes to make the game easier but you won’t earn any Achievements (except for a 0G one) if you do this. As you play and level-up and explore, you’ll also acquire trophies to view in the Fortress of Solitude and unlock a couple of additional suits for Superman, which is nice, but there’s really not much to entice you back to this game once you’re done trudging through this God-awful borefest.

The Summary:
Superman Returns may very well be the most accurate and impressive Superman game I’ve ever played; being able to fly through and across an impressively-rendered recreation of Metropolis is a real blast and giving the city a life bar instead of Superman was an ingenious solution to the problem of having Superman take damage or be killed when he really shouldn’t be. Sadly, though, these aspects are the only real saving graces of this game, which is clearly a rushed cash-in produced solely to tie-into the movie. The story is basically nonexistent, the combat and gameplay extremely repetitive and boring, and the presentation is wildly inconsistent as, while the city and Superman look pretty good, the cutscenes and music and dreadful. In the end, only die-hard Superman fans will really be able to enjoy this one and, for the rest of us, it’s just a quick game to plough through to increase your Gamer Score that is more monotonous and frustrating than fun and entertaining so I’d say that it’s best avoided.

My Rating:

Terrible

Have you ever read Action Comics #1; if so, what did you think of it and Superman’s debut? Were you surprised at how Have you ever played the videogame adaptation of Superman returns? If so, what did you think to it? Did you enjoy the wide, open world of Metropolis and the feeling of having Superman’s full abilities at your fingertips? Were you also disappointed by how empty the world is and how tedious the gameplay was? Which of the game’s villains was your favourite and why and what did you think to how the game expanded upon the plot of the film? What is your favourite Superman videogame and would you like to see something like this tried again but with a bit more time, effort, and money put into it? How did you celebrate Superman Day this year and what are some of your favourite Superman stories?