Superman Returns is a step in the right direction, but repetition quickly sets in and makes it a huge disappointment.
Being Superman has it's troubles and hardships and even he needs some time away. After a 5 year hiatus away from Metropolis, Superman returns to a city that has all but forgotten him and claims to not need him anymore. That is until Lex Luthor plans to unleash a genocidal plan on a global scale. The game very loosely follows the plot of the movie. It takes a few twists and turns here and there to bring in some enemies from the comics, but when it all comes down to it, the story is just too jumbled to make any kind of impact.
Like I said before, this game greatly succeeds on one thing -- the flying. If you have always wanted to know what it feels like to fly high above the city rushing through the clouds and breaking the sound barrier, then you absolutely have to play this game. There is nothing like floating high above the city and looking down at how small it is and then rushing back to the streets while it becomes increasingly larger and larger. The sense of speed is just excellent and it really makes you feel awesome. Later in the game, the sky becomes dark and it begins to thunder and lightning. The first time you fly through the lightning clouds and you see the lightning shoot down from it is just awe inspiring. There are some shortcomings however. Despite how awesome it is to fly around and be Superman, the game world is just too small. For a different open world game like Grand Theft Auto, this environment would be huge, but for Superman it's nothing. You can fly all the way across the whole game world in a matter of a minute or so before an invisible wall blocks your path. It's the same way when flying towards the sky. In the movie, there was a scene where Superman was sitting just outside of our atmosphere in space and looking down at everything. I would have loved to experience that and I was hugely letdown when I found out that you couldn't.
It's pretty obvious that EA focused mainly on the flying aspect of the game while the rest of it took a back seat. During the course of the game, there will be numerous random events that Superman must do to "progress the story" (read: "make the game longer"). There are only a handful of missions that actually progress the story and a few of these "missions" are nothing more than a cutscene. The random events happen like this: you'll be flying above the city, you'll use Superman's super hearing to find somebody in distress, and you'll fly down to take care of it. Every single one of these random events, and believe me when I say every single one, consist of one of two things -- fighting something or putting out a fire. This is where the game gets way too repetitive for it's own good. For starters, there are just way too many times where you'll be flying down to fight a handful of robots, dragons, or a mixture of both. Second, the combat is completely broken. There are different combos you can use against your foes, but almost all of them are incredibly difficult to pull off. It's not that it's that hard to time them. It's just that the camera has a tendency to not show you or who you're fighting. You'll probably just bash on X the whole time until the enemy is defeated.
There are some powers that Superman can utilize to bring down his enemies. He has his heat vision, blow breath, and freeze breath, but none of them stand out in a significant way. The heat vision and freeze breath are very unsatisfying in the way they are portrayed and the super blow breath is only cool when you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing. Since Superman is invincible unless kryptonite is present, he has no health bar. Instead, the city has a life bar and if it goes all the way down, the city is wrecked and you lose. So the only time the blow breath is cool is when you're down on the street and you take a deep breath and make everything in front of you lift off including cars, people, and other objects. Obviously, doing this hurts the city so unless you're a masochist, you'll miss out on the only time one of his powers other than flying is cool.
The enemies are taken from the whole universe of Superman ranging from Bizarro to Metallo to Mongul. But all of them have a cheap way of being beaten. More than once, all I had to do was blow the enemy in the air and then fly up and ram him, blow him again while he's still in the air, ram him again, rinse and repeat. The most exciting villain in this game that everybody was drooling to fight since the first screenshots of this game is the giant Metallo. Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Superman Returns fails miserably to make any of the enemies, especially Metallo, interesting or fun to fight. You want to know what the basic strategy to beating the giant Metallo is? Throwing cars at him. Not using your powers strategically or flying through him. You throw cars at him. Wow -- how fun. MAJOR SPOILERS Here's the worst part though. The final "boss" in this game is nothing more than a giant tornado. You don't even see Lex Luthor in this game outside of cutscenes. Instead, you use a mixture of your powers to take down a tornado. Extreme awesomeness dude! END SPOILERS
There are some things that you can take part in when you're fed up with the story missions. There are 100 cats scattered throughout the world and if you find them all, you get an achievement. Finding them all is incredibly difficult because the world is just too huge when you're not flying high up in the air. It would have been smart for the developers to let you use Superman's super hearing to find where the cats are and it would have made it infinitely more fun. It seems like common sense and it's surprising that the developers couldn't come up with that. If you really care about achievements, there is an achievement where you fly a certain distance and one where you pick up a certain amount of weight. The game can be beaten in a measly five hours, but if you choose to do these achievements and find all of the cats, it can take well up to 15 hours or so. Why on Earth anybody would want to do that is beyond me, but if you're an achievement junky it's nice that they tried have some options.
The graphics are a mixed bag. Since the city is so huge when you're on the ground, the surrounding environment took a big hit to it's looks and none of the cars or people look convincing. When you're in the air however, seeing the whole game area underneath your feet is pretty astounding. Superman is detailed the most obviously and looks great. When you're flying in the air and you're passing through clouds, it also looks great. But when flying back down to the city, there is a lot of pop up and you can tell that the buildings are streaming their details as you approach them.
Superman Returns is one of those games where the sound is something that you just don't pay too much attention to. Only when something truly sounds amazing and stands will you hear it. For instance, when you're breaking the sound barrier everything will go quiet for a second and then you'll hear a loud bang and it sounds outstanding. Most of the other sounds you won't pay any attention to, but the ones that you do sound unremarkable. This game does bring back most of the actors from the movie to reprise their roles. You would think that the voice acting would be astounding, but you'd be wrong. Brandon Routh did a good job as Superman in the movie, but he did nothing but rush his lines in this game and it sounded way too dry to work. The only person that sounded decent was Kevin Spacey. Even his voice didn't sound amazing, but he's a great actor and even a less than stellar voice performance from him sounded fine.
I'll admit, I'm a huge Superman fan. He was always my favorite growing up simply because flying was just more appealing to me than swinging around on webs or being a rich single guy with a butler and a questionable sidekick. I've always dreamed of being able to fly high above my town and look at everyone below and this game portrays that feeling wonderfully. As much as I love the flying aspect, the rest of the game suffers tremendously. The fighting is completely broken, the camera isn't very player friendly, the voice acting is disappointing, and simple ideas that should have been implemented weren't. Superman has such a wide range of abilities that anything is possible, but there isn't a mission in this game that truly makes you feel super. It's difficult to recommend this game since almost every aspect of it is weak, but as a flight simulator, this game really makes you feel like Superman. If you want to know what that feels like and don't care about a coherent plot, interesting missions, cool bonus features, or combat that actually works, then Superman Returns should be a dream come true.