Superman

"A kryptonite filled adventure...play at your own risk!!!"

''Slower than a CD's loading time...more weak than a piece of dust...able to wreck controllers with one press of a button...IT'S SUPERMAN 64!!!''

I felt like updating all of my reviews, since they basically stink. This game has a reputation of being one of the worst game on the N64, and after playing it once more for old time's sake, I realized the truth. Not only is it a poor use of the Superman license, but it's too short, too easy, and too boring. It's just not enough to do in this game, and I was looking forward to it as well.

However, I'm not really a Superman person. As far as the DC comics universe goes, I'm more of a Batman person.

Story: 3

Okay...let's see. Superman's friends are in a virtual world, and Superman must get them back. Why he's doing this is unclear, and why he can't use the real Metropolis is more moronic. The people who made this game (Titus) doesn't know the Superman universe. Plus, it feels very crooked, and the plot makes no sense.

But that's only the beginning...

Graphics: 3

The graphics in the game are horrible. First off, let's go with the sprite designs. While they give us the image of what the characters from the cartoon look like in 3-D, they suffer from major losses. The clothes look like they were painted on with outlines, and they look like cardboard cut-outs, the way they walk is stupid, and the animation is mainly stiff. Superman looks like his face is ready to melt off after standing the sun too long. Metropolis is huge, and I'll give it credit. While you'll see many key areas like the Daily Bugle and Lexcorp, Metropolis isn't the only thing big out there. Lots of fog plagues the screen everywhere, making it appear that there's no sky. But that's not all...

It also didn't come out very well, due to the lack of effort. It slows down on occasion (Although I'm sure it's slow paced action are appropriate for this to be honest), and it appears to be very glitch-filled. In fact, one glitch has Superman going right through the floor and he can't fly-it's like he's trapped in a room. This glitch can't be fixed unless you reset the cartridge. While they match the cartoon, it's done very poorly.

Sound: 4

The music is decent, but not that good. I liked the warehouse and the StarLabs theme, but they're far from suspenseful. This would be the perfect elevator music, to be fair. Even worse is that you can barely hear it. On the other hand, sound effects and voices are loud. Sound effects are ok and everything, and there's little bits of voice acting, albeit not many of them. Lex luthor just laughs very silently, while Superman says two lines.

''Then there's no time to waste!''
''This looks like a job for Superman.''

Some can take you by surprise and scare you. Jimmy Olsen's and Lois lane's scream scared the crap out of me. Naturally, sound is mediocre at best.

Gameplay: 0

Trust me, if you're unfortunate enough to buy this piece of trash, take it back before you waste about a hour or so playing it, because you will not be happy with the results. Titus obviously doesn't know the Superman universe, and even if they did, it's executed poorly.

First off, if you've selected easy, a compass will tell you where to go. However, this game can only be beaten on the hardest or normal difficulty level, so this feature doesn't work. Instead, you have to get from place to place by flying through rings. How many rings, you say? I'll take a wild guess and say...50 or 70 of them. Now times this by four, then by 7. That's almost 1,000 rings you have to fly through! Oh, as for the math, four is the number of tasks you must do in between each stage, while 7 in the number of stages total in the game. Adding insult to injury, you're timed on it, as well, and you can only miss a certain number before you must do it all over again.

As I said, before each stages, you must do a variety of tasks, four to be precise. After that, you must fly into the Superman logo to see what you have to do. I'm sure there are more than this, but let's go through what you have to do most of the time.

1. Stop car accidents.

See, it's like this, you have to cars from crashing into something, like a mother and child or another car. Here, you must pick up the car and throw it away, so what if it explodes, that's all the more reason they should be driving like that. You'd think they were driving under the influence.

2. Defeat enemies (Usually Dark Shadows).

Too easy, just flying into them takes care of these losers, and they don't fire fast enough. They may go after innocent people, but you'll just fly past them and knock them over senseless. Some interest battles are with robots, but they hardly happen.

3. Stop tornadoes with ice breath.

This is the most nonsensical, especially since they're so small, they don't harm you at all, and they go after innocent people. Plus, unless the tornadoes have warm air currents, ice breath doesn't make tornadoes disappear.

By passing either of these tasks, you'll fly through another dumb set of rings, and do another one, which can be any of the 3 above. If you lose, you must do it all over again from the last task. Argh! You've got to do 4 of these, too, before you enter the stage.

But your worries aren't over, you have an objective to do in each stage, whether it be saving someone or diffusing bombs, and stop the villain in each one that's causing all the problems. Here, you must figure out puzzles and beat up the bad guys. Superman has several superpowers he can use, once he's picked up an icon. They are laser vision, ice breath, and super speed. They don't last long, however. He also can fly, but due to the sloppy controls, it'll take a while to get used to.

Also, for certain puzzles, kryptonite is involved, and as we all know, that weakens his abilities. One such incident is where you must diffuse a bomb inside a room with kryptonite and stop it before it kills you. As for the bosses, many of them are too easy, just punch real fast and you're done.

Saving it to a controller pak is nice, but the adventure is too short. Plus, the multiplayer mode is kind of boring. This game should never have been made, and for good reason.

Replay Value: 0

I don't know if you bought this game, but if you did, I hope you kept the receipt. There's nothing to do after that and it feels rushed (Although I'm it would've taken years for it to do). And the game looked so promising...

Rent or Buy:

Neither, but rent if you want to waste a weekend of your life renting a game just about everyone hates.

Overall: 3

It is definitely a must avoid on the N64. Trust me, the re are better titles out there that can make a weekend worth your while, but obviously, it is not in that area. Stay away before it gives you the same weariness it gives Superman when he's near kryptonite.

You'll thank me, and everyone else.

Ending Quote:

''The French are asking for a war...''
DrDoak2001

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/05/00, Updated 07/01/02