You really feel like Superman, but it's repetative
User Rating: 6.5 | Superman Returns XBOX
Now I'm going to start by saying that I am a huge fan of almost any comic book superhero, but I am also pretty good at remaining objective. Superman Returns captures the thrill of being Superman, but not without flaws, and a fair few flaws. In the game, you play, of course, as the superpowered red-and-blue-tight-wearing hero, and you loosely follow the story of the movie by the same name. And by loosely follow, I mean that this game really has little to do with the movie other than Supes' face looks like Brandon Routh's and there are cutscenes here and there following the events of the movie. But I'm not really complaining about that, since it'd be hard to make a game where you save a plane, fly around with Lois, feel sad, and lift a continent. Great movie, but not game-material. So, instead of following the movie, Superman Returns: The Videogame pits you against some villains from the comic books. You will fight Metallo, Bizarro, Mongul, and their many minions. However, the game is quite repetative in that you fight their minions (or other mutant/dragon creatures) over and over and over again. This is done in a way similar to the last couple Spider-man games, where an icon is shown leading you to people in distress, and you must go there and save them from whatever is wrecking havoc. It is fun at first, but after the 20th time fighting Metallo's robots, it's just bleh. Aside from the repetativeness, you really do feel like Superman. The flying was executed extremely well, and the city is huge to fly around in. Superman has at his disposal his strength, speed, heat vision, freeze breath, and superbreath, and these powers are easy to use and rather fun as well. The hand to hand combat, though, is a bit sketchy. The camera sometimes is not where you want it, and makes punching an enemy rather difficult. Now as far as the graphics go, Superman looks fine, and from a distance, so do the buildings and the city as a whole. Just don't get too close to the buildings. I'm not kidding when I say that up close, you see that the textures on the buildings are pixellated, looking straight out of a 16 bit game, reminding me of the old Wolfenstein 3D. Now graphics don't make or break a game to me, but aesthetics are always nice, and graphics do count to almost everybody else. All in all, Superman Returns is a decent game. I had to buy and cuz I'm a superhero fan, and frankly, I had a blast playing it. But, from a gaming standpoint, it's just average. It really lacks a decent story, the camera needs work, the hand to hand combat needs work, the graphical textures need a lot of work, and it's repetative. However, still fun.
