It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...Superman...
The plot involves Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor creating a virtual Metropolis where Superman must fly through a maze of rings to save Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White. That's about it. You would think that the game based on the Superman animated series would have some of the writers or something to make a worthwhile story. You give this game too much credit.
Once you start playing Superman is forced to fly through those oversized donuts. You think it would be a breeze to fly around Metropolis, or rather a virtual Metropolis, as Superman, right? No. Just no. He flies around like a tank, imagine Resident Evil, but gut-wrenchingly horrendous. The controls are very, very sensitive, like you'll tap the control stick and Superman flies all over the place. There's no control over it. Not only is it extremely difficult to go through the rings, there's a time limit, and it is not a lenient time constraint. It gives you just barely enough time to get through them all, so if you miss one, just one, hit reset, try again, you messed up. After the rings, there is a segment where you must pick up a two cars and throw them to avoid them hitting into people. Yeah, good luck on this part. After that, more rings. Then, you must pick up a police car and take it to the goal. Then, more rings. I'm sensing a pattern. This is literally the whole game for a while, until you go into inside levels. I've personally never got this far, because you get sent back to the first set of rings every time you mess up. Though I never beat it, I can just assume it never gets better, perhaps it gets worse instead. There is a multiplayer mode where you play as villains, but everyone I asked to play this part with me skipped town afterwards.
Next, the presentation. Okay, this game came out in '99? Then why does it look like a tech demo of a Sega Saturn launch game? Now, I'm not known as being one that criticizes graphics in a game, but this game seriously looks like garbage. Go watch an episode of the Superman animated series on YouTube or DVD or something, blur your eyes, and put your face right in front of the screen. That looks better than this game. The music is cheapest, most generic adventure theme you've ever heard. If they got the licence to the character, namely the show, why couldn't they get the theme? The sound effects are decent though, with a surprisingly clear audio clip of Tim Daly saying "This looks like a job for Superman!" Well, I'm assuming it's Tim Daly. All the grunts, gunshots, and explosions sounds all sound pretty good, so that is the only positive of this game essentially.
In conclusion, this game is up there as one of the worst games of all time. But I have some sentiment for it. I did play it when I was younger, and I enjoyed it. And it is fun to just make fun of this game. So, in a way, it's like watching Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It's bad, it's awful, it hurts to look at it, but you can't deny that it has some charm.
The Good:
- Fun to make fun of
- Surprisingly clear audio
The Bad:
- Generic music
- Repetitive gameplay
- Throwaway multiplayer
- Stupid plot
- Oh, did I mention it's unplayable?