I’m so mad - I looked forward to this game for soooooo long.  I swear, even when I was a kid I imagined a 3-d, free roaming Superman game.  It was a dream of mine and I always used to say “some day, some day you’ll get it.”

When Spider-man 2 came out a few years ago, that game was damn near perfect in my opinion.  Freely roaming around all of Manhattan, a perfect tie-in to the movie which added a lot of story elements from Spider-man’s long comic history. 

All I thought they had to do was make a game were you take Spider-man 2, replace him with Superman and whallah!  The perfect Superman game.  But that’s not what they did.

First of all, Metropolis is huge, and it’s really cool to fly around, but it’s almost too big.  I mean, what’s the point if all of the missions pop up on random parts of the map and only stay within a confined area?  Every building looks the exact same with the exception of the Daily Planet building.  I’d rather see a smaller city with more detail.

Then, every mission is the same.  Seriously, all you do is fly around the enemies, use your heat vision or cold breath, punch, repeat.

I’m so mad I payed full price for this thing.  I figured after all of the free roaming games out there that have been great, it would be pretty hard to screw one up about Superman, right?

Wrong.  This game blows.

Remember Superman 64? :x

Seriously, major bummer that Superman Returns was a letdown.  The screenshots looked so promising, but I guess the gameplay definitely wasn’t.

Rent game 1st…..or wait for reviews…

Although I will say I ahve had the same thing happend to me. With Turok 2 being such a great game when Turok came out for PS2 I pre-ordered it. The game sucked…

Remember Superman 64?

superman 64 ahahahhahahaaaaa. to bad about return of SM

Superman 64 was actually the first kick in the ass for me as a Superman fan. 

This makes me wonder - why is it in the videogame publications you’ll always hear about a “hands on preview” before the review, and they’ll never have anything bad to say?  Then BAM! the day the game comes out they give it the worst possible reviews.

Is there a contractual agreement with these publications and the gaming companies?  Like they’ll give the publication an advance copy of the game, tell them they can do a “preview” beforehand without giving an opinion, and allow them to publish their review the day it comes out?

I ask because this seems to happen all the frickin time.  It’s like when reading these previews for Superman Returns, if they all knew it sucked, why didn’t they tell us then?  That SAME thing I remember clearly happening with Superman 64 (which thank god I never bought).  None of the “hands on” previews said exactly how much it sucked until the day it came out.

Ugh!!!

Interestlingly enough, when Brandon Routh does the voiceover, he sounds almost exactly like Tim Daly from the animated series.

This makes me wonder - why is it in the videogame publications you’ll always hear about a “hands on preview” before the review, and they’ll never have anything bad to say? Then BAM! the day the game comes out they give it the worst possible reviews.

Is there a contractual agreement with these publications and the gaming companies? Like they’ll give the publication an advance copy of the game, tell them they can do a “preview” beforehand without giving an opinion, and allow them to publish their review the day it comes out?

100 percent double plus yes on NDA and review of articles. And magazines play their tune because otherwise good bye any chance of future inside looks…

Oh sure there is a degree of “well, it’s an earlier version, I’m sure all the niggling little bugs will be fixed by then/there will be more missions to do/it’s only low rez development textures” but more so gag orders.

Case in point is the PC version of Spider-man 2, Activision didn’t tell anybody that it was not a port of the console game but a crappy kiddie game UNTIL the official demo came out because they knew if they came clean they could kiss pre-orders good bye instead of just the rest of the PC owners.

Cyc (who is damn bitter about that even now)

Ill Do a “JOR - ELs FIST” on you!!!  Lol thats oneof the 360 games combos.  If only you could turn Coal to diamonds.  What sucks about it is you cant destroy the buildings.  I flew into one full tilt, Bam!! All I did was leave a mark on it.  Crap!!! Superman can do more to buildings than leave a dent TEXTURE!!!! This is BS!!! I want to destroy metropolis!!!!!.  Smash tanks !!! TAke down Helicopters!!! “Play the hulk game” you say?  Ok I have that too.  But I wanted to corrupt the man of steel , damnit. 

      At least you can beat up civilians. The funny thing is you beat them up, then the game tells you to take them to an ambulance.  Then the civies tahnk you when you do, after you just beat their arse.  You can beat up their cars till they smoke and are about to explode, then stop the explosion with your freeze breath.  Thats cool.  What thsi game needs to liven itup is an Xbox live mode where you can pick any villan or supes and battle it out in Metropolis or Warworld,  and destroy the place in the process.  Maybe some nice player will make up a hack that can do just that…..

You can beat up their cars till they smoke and are about to explode, then stop the explosion with your freeze breath.

Another dumb thing about this game.  The car’s on fire, you use your super-breath to put it out, and you end up blowing civilians across the street.  And if you use too much freeze-breath then the car turns to ice and explodes.

Such a dumb game.

But dont Lie.  Cars dont explode from freeze breath.  They stay frozen for a few seconds, then thaw out.

But yeah the game could have been better especially after being delayed 5 months or more.  When a games delayed, its usually because its so bad, the developers have to go back to the drawing board to fix it, so this is no surprise.  Just like Rainbow Six : Lockdown,  delayed=going to suck.

All though with the confidence the makers had about it as they talked with the press, you would’ve thought it’ve at least have been ok.

I have to dupe my younger brother into buying it so I can copy it to my XB hard drive.

AI mean Spider man 2 sucked too, (choppy animation, not enough to do) but I still played it to the end.  People have been rendered simple minded now and they just drool in front of first person shooters.  Superman Returns has dozens of combos to learn, learn them and master the game.

  I mean people like my brother said Enter the Matrix sucked but they were completely ignorant of the play mechanics (like Focus enhances speed and jumps) and couldnt pull off ANY of the numerous combos in the game.

  I like to play games as the game designers intended , IE learn the coombos and play mechanics, and power ups.  You do better for your score and you really get the most out of games Like Ninja Gaiden, Robotech Battle Cry,  Spiderman 2, Enter The Matrix, Path of Neo,  and now Superman 2. 
Its like the American gaming public has grown Lazy and all they want to do is point and shoot in games.  I mean I like FPS too but damnit give me something else for a change.

I don’t know which version of Superman Returns you’ve played, but pleny of cars have exploded after I used my freeze breath on them. 

And I don’t remmber Spider-Man 2 being all that choppy with the frame rate.  And because I think it was NYC, it just felt so much more real that Metropolis did. It was also scaled down somewhat, so they were able to add a lot more detail to the city.

The NYC in Ultimate Spider-man was just awesome, but for some reason just not as fun as Spider-man 2

Well I wasn’t planning on trying it out. Didn’t like the film either.

Best Superman game was the one on the atari

poor Supes is cursed when it comes to video games.

...Justice League Heroes was actually decent.  Too bad it was really short, unfortunately (not to mention that you could only switch heroes in certain stages).