"The cart that would forever curse Superman as a video game character"

“Superman” for the Atari 2600 isn't quite a legendary stinker, in fact it was quite innovative for its time since it was a game of quest-solving instead of repetitive action. However, this game is something of a paradox because it's extremely vexing to play, but ridiculously easy in terms of challenge. Either of these flaws would have made the game at least playable had the other not been present, but putting the two together just makes this game totally unappealing.

PRESS FIRE TO START

You start out as Clark Kent and when you walk one screen to the right you'll see some of Lex Luthor's goons blow up a bridge. You must then walk back to the left and change into Superman in a conveniently-located phone booth. You're able to fly or walk around the city looking for five goons and Lex Luthor himself. You grab them and fly them to jail. Of course Luthor has some “Kryptonite satellites” flying around the city which will render Superman powerless until he finds Lois Lane who can restore his power just by touching him (if that isn't sexual innuendo I don't know what is).

Meanwhile, you must also find the pieces of the bridge and put it back together (it will magically re-assemble itself when you drop all the pieces in the original spot). When that is done you must change back into Clark Kent and run to the Daily Planet to file your story.

PLAYER 1 – READY!

Playing a quest game on the Atari 2600 is always anti-climatic, probably because I'm so used to playing later generation games with much bigger payoffs. In the case of “Superman” the quest is fairly easy to accomplish, but the REAL challenge of the game is to play it repeatedly and try to beat your own time.

Accomplishing the mission is fairly easy, although the game does have the option of four different modes of difficulty, but none of them would make this game a true challenge. How could a game that doesn't utilize strategy be truly made easier or more difficult?

That's what's so annoying about “Superman,” there's no logic to the gameplay. Basically all you have to do is fly around randomly from screen-to-screen looking for the bad guys and the pieces of the bridge all the while dodging those annoying satellites and a helicopter than serves no real purpose other than distraction. This is made even worse by the fact that all the screens look essentially the same and it's nearly impossible to tell where you are at any given time and how to get to where you want to go.

JOYSTICKING

Since this is a game that requires constant movement, it's a good thing the controls are quick and quite fluid, but they're far from perfect. Since you have to pick up and fly both the goons and the bridge pieces to the correct screen and then drop them in the right place it would be nice if you had control over these actions. Unfortunately, Superman has a tendency to pick up things you don't want to pick up and drop things you didn't want to drop.

The worst example of this is Lois Lane. All you have to do is touch her when you're hit by Kryptonite to revive your powers, but if you're not careful you'll pick her up and carry her with you. Why is this even an option? It's not like you can put her wherever you want because as soon as you let go she wanders off and never stops moving.

Another annoyance is the flying aspect. If you push up to fly off the ground, you must continue to hold up and left or right to fly in your desired direction. If you let go of the joystick Superman will float back down to the ground for no reason. This makes the whole flying aspect difficult and tedious.

SPRITES & PIXELS

It's the game's plain visuals that actually hinder it on top of the bad play control and simple challenge. Every screen in this game looks essentially the same. Even though you're able to travel off almost every screen in almost every direction, it's very difficult to tell where you are at any given moment. You might find yourself flying constantly in one direction and never really getting anywhere.

“Superman” also has some of the worst screen flicker I've ever seen in an Atari VCS game, and that's really saying something. It's often difficult to tell where characters actually are because they keep disappearing and re-appearing before you can maneuver to engage them.

CHIPPED TUNES

Considering how bad everything else in this game is, would it be surprising if the sound was equally poor?

“Superman” has one of the worst overall sound palettes I've ever heard. This game has annoying tones of low, medium and high pitches. All three are equally annoying and do not sound anything like the actions they're supposed to represent, only white noise like radio static.

INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE

There's only the bare minimum of appeal to “Superman” in that it's fairly easy to complete the quest. The true object is to beat your own time, but because it's such an annoying game to play there's really no motivation for the player to want to do that. Once was good enough for me, thanks.

GAME OVER

The whole point of this game is ridiculous. Wouldn't a game where you play as Superman be a lot more fun if he got to do something only Superman could do? Running around catching crooks is below Superman, and like most of the bad games he's starred in over the years, so is this cart.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/08

Game Release: Superman (US, 1978)