Superman has had more than his share of dodgy moments over the years. From the backlash over his apparent death, to the awful 2006 film Superman Returns, even his latest outing in Dawn of Justice was poorly received by audiences.
However, none of this compares to the Man of Steel's beleaguered video game appearances. Where Supes' on-screen career has been hit and miss, his console life has been a disaster from start to finish.
It seems that, when it comes to games, Superman is cursed. No matter what people try it almost always ends badly. From titles based on the original comic books, to the animated series and the many movies nothing seems to escape the hex hanging over him.
So join me as I follow the stench being emitted from the son of Krypton's biggest digital stinkers.
13. Superman – Arcade
We'll start with Taito’s 1988 coin-op because it is, without doubt, the best game to feature Smallville’s most famous son. The problem is that that's not exactly saying a lot.
In this game you fly around fighting bad guys and shooting them with your eyes until you finally reach Emperor Zaas for the final battle. There is little variation in the gameplay and while it’s extremely fun at first it does become tedious pretty quickly.
The most interesting feature of this game is that it has a two-player co-operative mode. The second player assumes the role of a red Superman. Comic book buffs will know that such a character did actually appear in one lone issue (Vol. 1 no. 162) as part of an imaginary scenario. It was recently discovered that the second player was originally supposed to be Supergirl, as all the sprite images were left in the ROM.
12. Superman – Atari 2600
Designed by John Dunn and released by Atari in 1978, this was not just the very first Superman video game, it was also the very first console game to be based on an officially licensed product.
Interestingly the game uses an engine taken from an early version of Warren Robinett’s hugely successful Adventure, but is more of an arcade style game than a RPG. Like Adventure though it was hugely complex for its time featuring an incredible amount of different elements such as needing to change back to Clark Kent, find then romance Lois Lane as well as battle Lex Luthor.
Unfortunately the complex (for the time) gameplay left a lot of people feeling a bit confused and just saw them flying around aimlessly not really knowing what to do. There is a good game in Superman for the Atari 2600 but you will have to carefully read the instruction manual to find it.
11. Superman: Man Of Steel – Sega Master System/Game Gear
Virgin Games’ Man Of Steel for the Master System and Game Gear gets off to a great start, the graphics are superb for an 8-bit machine and remain very faithful to the comic books. It also utilises all of Superman’s many special powers in useful ways.
The plot is also well thought out and involves several villains including Metallo, Braniac and The Prankster. Basically they have all taken things that they shouldn’t of (including Lois Lane) and you need to get them back. The actual game itself takes the form a single player side scroller with platform, adventure and fighting elements.
The big problem is that you only get one life, this makes the game challenging to the extreme and it’s almost impossible to complete it without using cheats.
10. Superman: Shadow Of Apokolips – Sony PlayStation 2
In 2002, Atari, then under the Infogrames umbrella, had another stab at making a Superman game with the strangely named Shadow of Apokolips, a title based on the animated series. It was also ported to the Nintendo Game Cube a year later.
The cell shaded visuals certainly lend really well to the game, doing a great job of replicating the cartoon. The mission structure and open world nature of the game is also well-implemented and lends itself well to a Superman game. It’s also great to see voiceovers from the original actors too, adding even more authenticity.
What lets Shadow of Apokolips down is that the terrible controls and awful collision detection, damaging what could have been an excellent game for the son of Krypton.
9. The Death And Return Of Superman – Sega Mega Drive/Super Nintendo
Published by Sunsoft for the two best selling 16-bit consoles, The Death and Return of Superman of Superman is based on the comic books of the same name that introduced us to a new range of different Supermen.
In essence this is a pretty bog standard scrolling beat ‘em up where you take up the role of a different pre-determined character for each level. The pretty standard melee style levels are broken up with flying stages to add some variation and the usual boss battles.
While there isn’t anything inherently bad about this game, there just isn’t anything to write home about either. The paint-by-numbers style of gameplay will keep you entertained for a bit, but will quickly become boring and leave you wanting more. It also suffers from the lack of a simultaneous two-player option, something that was pretty standard for beat ‘em ups of this time.
8. Superman – Sony PlayStation
Another Superman game that sadly never made it out the door was this exclusive game for the original Sony PlayStation that was based on the animated series.
Originally the PS1 version of Superman was going to be a port of the Nintendo 64 version (more on that later). But when the game received poor reviews the French publishers Titus decided to turn to the highly regarded Blue Sky Software for an alternative game. Blue Sky came up with a fairly open world 3D affair that combined all the best elements of the cartoon and they looked to be onto a winner as the game received very favourable previews from the press.
Incredibly though Titus had allowed their Superman license to run out before the game was finished. This ended up costing the company millions of dollars as they had to refund the huge number of pre-orders for game and still pay the developers.
7. Superman: The Man Of Steel – Sega Mega Drive
Released by Sunsoft in 1992 and re-published by Virgin Games in Europe the year after, this version of Superman gets off to a great start as you see Clark Kent enter a phone box and then come flying out of the screen towards you.
It continues to impress visually too as the game goes on with its vibrant colours and super animation, you definitely can’t accuse this game of not looking the part. It also keeps things pretty close to the subject matter at hand in terms of the plot and gameplay too with Superman trying to defeat the evil Braniac and his legion of evil minions.
Like so many other games on this list though, STMOS ruins the good stuff with a few fatal flaws. The most notable of these is a game breaking bug that forces to hit reset when the wrong icon is collected.
6. Superman – Nintendo Entertainment System
Kemco’s entry into this archive is interesting in that it’s based directly on the first two Superman movies, combining parts from each film to create a pretty standard scrolling platformer.
Another interesting feature of this game is that you continually change between both Clark Kent and Superman, depending on how much energy you have. Clark can only do very basic things such as run and jump while Superman can activate a range of special power-ups when you collect the right items.
While not totally horrible NES Superman falls down in key areas - firstly it doesn’t look like Superman, this could honestly be any old generic NES platform game. Secondly the whole energy bar element is terribly implemented and causes much frustration, far from Superman’s finest hour.
5. Superman Returns – Sony PlayStation 2
Originally released for the PS2 with versions for the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS following in succession, Superman Returns was a collaboration between Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Interactive and based on the film of the same name.
Well I say based, despite claiming to be a game of the film in all promotional material and using voices of the real actors, Superman Returns bares very little resemblance to the movie at all. It has a completely different story, with enemies that didn’t even appear in the movie, and doesn’t remain visually accurate either.
An open world affair with some interesting elements, Superman Returns also loses points for not having a proper ending and was panned by the majority of the gaming press. It’s a shame because Superman Returns does have the basis of a good game in there somewhere.
4. Superman 3 – Atari 8-bit
As many will know the parent company of Atari during the early 80s was Warner Bros., so it comes as no surprise to learn that they would commission a game based on one of their hottest movies, the third Superman film that co-starred the legendary Richard Prior.
A game was quickly produced that saw Superman trying to protect the cities of America from an attack by the super computer. Rather than make anything original they chose to base the game heavily on an existing title, the hugely successful Missile Command. While Superman 3 does feature a much larger scrolling play area and a few minor extras, the basic gameplay is exactly the same.
When it came to testing the game Atari felt it was so bad they couldn’t release it, worried about having another E.T. on their hands the game was shelved and forgotten about until recent years when the prototype was found and then released on cartridge for collectors to enjoy (or not) by myatari.com.
3. Superman: The Man Of Steel – The Computer Game
Also known as Superman: The Game, this title was first released in 1985 for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit home computers by First Star Software. After this things get quite messy as I will endeavour to explain.
An English company called TyneSoft had already licensed several First Star games for release in Europe such as Boulderdash and Spy vs. Spy so it was only natural that they would pick up Superman. However they also negotiated an agreement that would allow them to port the game to other computers, but as a new game named The Man of Steel. Pretty much every one of these versions would end up being different from one another and were basically just a series of mini-games very loosely tied together.
As bad as the original First Star game was, the TyneSoft iterations were even worse and the mess of completely different games only made things worse with nobody quite knowing what game they were getting.
2. Superman – Nintendo Game Boy
Easily one of the most obscure titles on this list, Titus’ Game Boy outing for the Man of Steel is also easily one of the worst.
In this horrendous travesty you play as our lycra clad hero on a mission to retrieve some keys, yep you read that right KEYS. I mean why on earth would Superman be collecting keys? Has he not got better things to do, like I don’t know, save a child from a burning building or something?
Basically this game smacks of a lazy license, it looks very much like Titus already some kind of generic arcade style adventure game in the works when they secured the rights from DC and thought “hey, that will do, let’s just slap the Superman name on that.”
There is absolutely no excuse for a game like this and Titus should be ashamed. Quite shockingly this was not the worst game they put out with this name as we will go on to find out.
1. Superman: The New Adventures
There could only be one title at the top of this list, the game that truly embodies the curse of Superman more than any other – Titus’ terrible Superman: The New Adventures.
More commonly known as Superman 64, the game, like many others here, is based on the animated series. It features 3D shaded graphics to replicate the look of the cartoon and voice samples from most of the original cast. But this is pretty much where the good stuff ends.
What we have here is an ugly, unresponsive, borderline unplayable mess. Outside of some tedious side missions an awful lot of the game seems just involve flying through seemingly endless rings. That might sound pretty easy, but when it controls as well as a dead horse, it just makes things worse.
It’s pretty much impossible to find anything good to say about this game, I suppose the box art is quite nice, but that’s about it. Famously, the co-owner of Titus and producer of the game Eric Caen claimed that he was not at fault and outside interference from DC Comics and Warner Bros. resulted in the game being so utterly terrible. But that doesn’t excuse how broken the game is and, let’s just face it, Titus have plenty of previous when it comes to bad games.
However, none of this compares to the Man of Steel's beleaguered video game appearances. Where Supes' on-screen career has been hit and miss, his console life has been a disaster from start to finish.
It seems that, when it comes to games, Superman is cursed. No matter what people try it almost always ends badly. From titles based on the original comic books, to the animated series and the many movies nothing seems to escape the hex hanging over him.
So join me as I follow the stench being emitted from the son of Krypton's biggest digital stinkers.
13. Superman – Arcade
We'll start with Taito’s 1988 coin-op because it is, without doubt, the best game to feature Smallville’s most famous son. The problem is that that's not exactly saying a lot.
In this game you fly around fighting bad guys and shooting them with your eyes until you finally reach Emperor Zaas for the final battle. There is little variation in the gameplay and while it’s extremely fun at first it does become tedious pretty quickly.
The most interesting feature of this game is that it has a two-player co-operative mode. The second player assumes the role of a red Superman. Comic book buffs will know that such a character did actually appear in one lone issue (Vol. 1 no. 162) as part of an imaginary scenario. It was recently discovered that the second player was originally supposed to be Supergirl, as all the sprite images were left in the ROM.
12. Superman – Atari 2600
Designed by John Dunn and released by Atari in 1978, this was not just the very first Superman video game, it was also the very first console game to be based on an officially licensed product.
Interestingly the game uses an engine taken from an early version of Warren Robinett’s hugely successful Adventure, but is more of an arcade style game than a RPG. Like Adventure though it was hugely complex for its time featuring an incredible amount of different elements such as needing to change back to Clark Kent, find then romance Lois Lane as well as battle Lex Luthor.
Unfortunately the complex (for the time) gameplay left a lot of people feeling a bit confused and just saw them flying around aimlessly not really knowing what to do. There is a good game in Superman for the Atari 2600 but you will have to carefully read the instruction manual to find it.
11. Superman: Man Of Steel – Sega Master System/Game Gear
Virgin Games’ Man Of Steel for the Master System and Game Gear gets off to a great start, the graphics are superb for an 8-bit machine and remain very faithful to the comic books. It also utilises all of Superman’s many special powers in useful ways.
The plot is also well thought out and involves several villains including Metallo, Braniac and The Prankster. Basically they have all taken things that they shouldn’t of (including Lois Lane) and you need to get them back. The actual game itself takes the form a single player side scroller with platform, adventure and fighting elements.
The big problem is that you only get one life, this makes the game challenging to the extreme and it’s almost impossible to complete it without using cheats.
10. Superman: Shadow Of Apokolips – Sony PlayStation 2
In 2002, Atari, then under the Infogrames umbrella, had another stab at making a Superman game with the strangely named Shadow of Apokolips, a title based on the animated series. It was also ported to the Nintendo Game Cube a year later.
The cell shaded visuals certainly lend really well to the game, doing a great job of replicating the cartoon. The mission structure and open world nature of the game is also well-implemented and lends itself well to a Superman game. It’s also great to see voiceovers from the original actors too, adding even more authenticity.
What lets Shadow of Apokolips down is that the terrible controls and awful collision detection, damaging what could have been an excellent game for the son of Krypton.
9. The Death And Return Of Superman – Sega Mega Drive/Super Nintendo
Published by Sunsoft for the two best selling 16-bit consoles, The Death and Return of Superman of Superman is based on the comic books of the same name that introduced us to a new range of different Supermen.
In essence this is a pretty bog standard scrolling beat ‘em up where you take up the role of a different pre-determined character for each level. The pretty standard melee style levels are broken up with flying stages to add some variation and the usual boss battles.
While there isn’t anything inherently bad about this game, there just isn’t anything to write home about either. The paint-by-numbers style of gameplay will keep you entertained for a bit, but will quickly become boring and leave you wanting more. It also suffers from the lack of a simultaneous two-player option, something that was pretty standard for beat ‘em ups of this time.
8. Superman – Sony PlayStation
Another Superman game that sadly never made it out the door was this exclusive game for the original Sony PlayStation that was based on the animated series.
Originally the PS1 version of Superman was going to be a port of the Nintendo 64 version (more on that later). But when the game received poor reviews the French publishers Titus decided to turn to the highly regarded Blue Sky Software for an alternative game. Blue Sky came up with a fairly open world 3D affair that combined all the best elements of the cartoon and they looked to be onto a winner as the game received very favourable previews from the press.
Incredibly though Titus had allowed their Superman license to run out before the game was finished. This ended up costing the company millions of dollars as they had to refund the huge number of pre-orders for game and still pay the developers.
7. Superman: The Man Of Steel – Sega Mega Drive
Released by Sunsoft in 1992 and re-published by Virgin Games in Europe the year after, this version of Superman gets off to a great start as you see Clark Kent enter a phone box and then come flying out of the screen towards you.
It continues to impress visually too as the game goes on with its vibrant colours and super animation, you definitely can’t accuse this game of not looking the part. It also keeps things pretty close to the subject matter at hand in terms of the plot and gameplay too with Superman trying to defeat the evil Braniac and his legion of evil minions.
Like so many other games on this list though, STMOS ruins the good stuff with a few fatal flaws. The most notable of these is a game breaking bug that forces to hit reset when the wrong icon is collected.
6. Superman – Nintendo Entertainment System
Kemco’s entry into this archive is interesting in that it’s based directly on the first two Superman movies, combining parts from each film to create a pretty standard scrolling platformer.
Another interesting feature of this game is that you continually change between both Clark Kent and Superman, depending on how much energy you have. Clark can only do very basic things such as run and jump while Superman can activate a range of special power-ups when you collect the right items.
While not totally horrible NES Superman falls down in key areas - firstly it doesn’t look like Superman, this could honestly be any old generic NES platform game. Secondly the whole energy bar element is terribly implemented and causes much frustration, far from Superman’s finest hour.
5. Superman Returns – Sony PlayStation 2
Originally released for the PS2 with versions for the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS following in succession, Superman Returns was a collaboration between Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Interactive and based on the film of the same name.
Well I say based, despite claiming to be a game of the film in all promotional material and using voices of the real actors, Superman Returns bares very little resemblance to the movie at all. It has a completely different story, with enemies that didn’t even appear in the movie, and doesn’t remain visually accurate either.
An open world affair with some interesting elements, Superman Returns also loses points for not having a proper ending and was panned by the majority of the gaming press. It’s a shame because Superman Returns does have the basis of a good game in there somewhere.
4. Superman 3 – Atari 8-bit
As many will know the parent company of Atari during the early 80s was Warner Bros., so it comes as no surprise to learn that they would commission a game based on one of their hottest movies, the third Superman film that co-starred the legendary Richard Prior.
A game was quickly produced that saw Superman trying to protect the cities of America from an attack by the super computer. Rather than make anything original they chose to base the game heavily on an existing title, the hugely successful Missile Command. While Superman 3 does feature a much larger scrolling play area and a few minor extras, the basic gameplay is exactly the same.
When it came to testing the game Atari felt it was so bad they couldn’t release it, worried about having another E.T. on their hands the game was shelved and forgotten about until recent years when the prototype was found and then released on cartridge for collectors to enjoy (or not) by myatari.com.
3. Superman: The Man Of Steel – The Computer Game
Also known as Superman: The Game, this title was first released in 1985 for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit home computers by First Star Software. After this things get quite messy as I will endeavour to explain.
An English company called TyneSoft had already licensed several First Star games for release in Europe such as Boulderdash and Spy vs. Spy so it was only natural that they would pick up Superman. However they also negotiated an agreement that would allow them to port the game to other computers, but as a new game named The Man of Steel. Pretty much every one of these versions would end up being different from one another and were basically just a series of mini-games very loosely tied together.
As bad as the original First Star game was, the TyneSoft iterations were even worse and the mess of completely different games only made things worse with nobody quite knowing what game they were getting.
2. Superman – Nintendo Game Boy
Easily one of the most obscure titles on this list, Titus’ Game Boy outing for the Man of Steel is also easily one of the worst.
In this horrendous travesty you play as our lycra clad hero on a mission to retrieve some keys, yep you read that right KEYS. I mean why on earth would Superman be collecting keys? Has he not got better things to do, like I don’t know, save a child from a burning building or something?
Basically this game smacks of a lazy license, it looks very much like Titus already some kind of generic arcade style adventure game in the works when they secured the rights from DC and thought “hey, that will do, let’s just slap the Superman name on that.”
There is absolutely no excuse for a game like this and Titus should be ashamed. Quite shockingly this was not the worst game they put out with this name as we will go on to find out.
1. Superman: The New Adventures
There could only be one title at the top of this list, the game that truly embodies the curse of Superman more than any other – Titus’ terrible Superman: The New Adventures.
More commonly known as Superman 64, the game, like many others here, is based on the animated series. It features 3D shaded graphics to replicate the look of the cartoon and voice samples from most of the original cast. But this is pretty much where the good stuff ends.
What we have here is an ugly, unresponsive, borderline unplayable mess. Outside of some tedious side missions an awful lot of the game seems just involve flying through seemingly endless rings. That might sound pretty easy, but when it controls as well as a dead horse, it just makes things worse.
It’s pretty much impossible to find anything good to say about this game, I suppose the box art is quite nice, but that’s about it. Famously, the co-owner of Titus and producer of the game Eric Caen claimed that he was not at fault and outside interference from DC Comics and Warner Bros. resulted in the game being so utterly terrible. But that doesn’t excuse how broken the game is and, let’s just face it, Titus have plenty of previous when it comes to bad games.
13 Video Games That Prove Superman Is Cursed
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1 comments:
Good article. www.segmation.com/blog
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