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Superman Returns Rocks!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is Superman Returns: The Videogame, not Superman Returns: the Movie. With that said it's only fair to review this game from a videogame's perspective and not compare it to the movie. Yes, it has some elements from the film, but those elements were obviously too few to make a great game. And so, the developers wisely added additional elements that are derived from Superman lore, to include 70+ years of Superman history!

I liked the fact that even though Superman is invincible, Metropolis is not. The city takes damage as chaos reigns. This feature has to be one of the greatest decisions ever made for a videogame. After all, protecting Metropolis and its citizens from all danger is Superman's prime objective. And why ask why there are dragons in the city? Can you say Mister Mxyzptlk? Anything, and everything thing happens with that guy around.

This game also gives you the ability to save your progress at anytime. So there is no excuse and reason to start over from the very beginning of a chapter.

Overall the final product is astonishing; this is the BEST superman game ever made. Ever wanted to be the man of steel? This is your chance!

Avoid like Kryptonite

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Avoid the Superman Returns game like the plague. I had high hopes after playing the demo on the 360, but well... if you've played the demo you've pretty much played the game. It's pretty much the same thing ad nauseum. IT would have been better if the environment was a little more destructable, especially during the Bizarro missions where one must cause as much mayhem as possible (which means blowing up cars and setting tress on fire with your heat breath). Graphically, the city looks pretty flying above it, some of the buildings look pretty good, but then some of the textures looks like they are from a system 2 generations ago or more... honestly, you've seen better on the PS1... but these are few and far between. My BIGGEST gripe with the game is the targetting, I'm fighting Metallo and I want to target his robots that fly around him first, I target Metallo. I want to chuck a gas tanker at Metallo, I target his robots... needless to say, that gets rather old rather quickly. Some of the big battles, I'm not sure how the mechanics of them work, for example, early in the game there's a gladiator match on Warworld and because Superman can't die in this game you have to win the crowd over, but the odds are against you, as in you get hit and your opponent gets a significant boost, whereas you can pound away on him all day and only get a portion of the same boost, meanwhile, he hits you with his completely undodgable attack. Needless to say, this was a rather frustrating exercise, avoid at all costs.

Another slapdash loser from the folks at EA

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: November 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Repetitive combat in a bland world, based loosely on the same-named movie of not so great acclaim. Makes me want to use terms like Herky-Jerky and Willy-Nilly when referring to the design concepts, despite my not being 80 years old (and really not knowing what those terms mean). Targeting system is the stuff of nightmares, and the camera is often jammed into a corner or up its own cache. All in all, a sloppy and lackluster game with some pointless fluff, which can be just as easily enjoyed from the demo.

decent simulator.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: November 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

There is a a good foundation in this program for a really great game. It is unfortunate that the developers obviously ran out of time to put any of the game elements in. If you were to refer to this as a "Sandbox" game then "Grand theft auto, Saint's row and Bully" would be the playground that, that sand box was in. To give you a rough idea of my game experience with "Superman Returns"; approximatly 2 hrs 27 mins and 16 seconds into the game (according to the game clock) I had 65% of the game complete... and 95 % two hours later... Worth Sixty to you? Only if you go into this expecting a Simulator and not a game. The only gameplay elements i.e. fights and boss battles are more annoying than challenging... Electronic Arts obviously knew thay had a short game here so rather than adding more gameplay they opted to make Superman weak and boss fights tedious to the brink of making you want to throw your controller. I did buy this the day it came out and I will probably keep it if only to get a feel of what it would be like if I really could fly around metropolis. I highly recommend renting this before making a purchase. There is alot of potential with this engine, let's hope that EA/TIBURON makes use of it and expands on this.

Save your cash.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Flying is the ONLY pull of this game. Besides the awesome flight and superspeeding, the rest of the game is a repetitive mash of robots and dragons...save your money, and buy Spider-Man 2 for Xbox...or Gears of War for 360, those deserve your cash.

So long of a wait and so soon only to be dissappointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: November 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I recall that before this game came out there were talks of its development and screenshots popping up like mad on game sites which really stirred up alot excitement and anticipation. The question was out there. Could this finally be THE superman game we've all been waiting for that will do the character justice? I mean afterall wouldn't it make sense to have the ability to do the things superman can do now with the substantially powerful nex generation consoles we have the choice of buying. Seems like it would make sense right? WRONG!

We don't have any epic feeling of Superman in this game the way we should have for a character of his proportions. There is no flying up beyond the atmosphere and looking down on earth like one would expect to see from the really cool scene in the movie. His flying speed is somewhat tame even when he is crusing at the fastest speed you can fly and it almost altogether lacks grace and fluidity. Also Superman is very weak in this game as well and too many times I find myself getting knocked around by a bunch of robots like a 5th grade chess team MVP does by school bullies.

A few things I'll touch on regarding the gameplay and why this game totally fails at what could have been a huge success. The gameplay is severely sloppy and unsatisfying for the most part simply because of the lack of control you have over the camera and aiming ability used for hitting enemies. Also the attack moves employed in the game never really let you think you are trully controlling superman and are almost like giving commands and watching a punch take place after the button was pressed. The graphics while at times are obviously next-gen are more often unfortunately fairly unimpressive. The city looks nice some moments,but it's hard to justify or balance out the fact that superman himself on the game looks very robotic and angular.

Overall I would not buy this game and would only maybe rent it if I were alotted a free rental. EA's developers for this one really left much to be desired and I really can't understand why they fell short on this game on so many different levels with all the processing power of the 360. Tedious and unoriginal mission objectives, absolutely no story progress, boring and redundant level up playtime, and absolutely annoying boss battles make this game a complete nightmare.It's absolutely horrible that EA is only able to give us basically what will be a spiderman 3 game with the looks and gameplay that won't have any edge over the earlier generation console versions.

Against the Odds...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: November 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First off, I'm pretty confident in saying that Superman Returns: The Videogame is the best Superman game to date. Now gamers will quickly tell you that's a big feat in it's own, but that doesn't make it a good game by regular standards. From the get go Superman Returns has two things working against it, the fact that it's a Superman game and the fact that it's a movie tie-in game. Usually either one of those is enough to ruin a game right off the bat.

As a Superman game I would have to say that for the most part this game has succeeded. You do in fact feel like the Man of Steel overall while playing. As most know by now one of the most entertaining aspects of the game is flying, which I believe is done quite well. They seem to have really nailed most of the signature Superman flying poses that mirror what you've seen in the Superman movies. Powers in the game are handled quite well in my opinion also, you can quickly access three of the classic powers and they all have their varying degrees of usefulness. As far as the strength is concerned I think there really is the sense that you are, at least on some level, pretty close to Superman's power. You can pick up anything from cars to tankers or even fishing boats that can be used several ways in combat; anything from simply throwing them at your enemies to batting at them or hurled like a javelin.

As a game however, and an "open ended" game at that, I'd have to say I really wasn't all that impressed with Superman Returns. The missions you'll find yourself in follow a very simple formula. Once in range of a mission you generally have the same objective (save for fire missions, boss fights, or a handful of unique scripted missions) you'll have to dispatch a number of bad guys who are attempting to destroy the city. You'll pretty much have about five or six different types of enemies that you'll fight throughout Superman Returns, ranging from robots to cloned flying dragon esque creatures. The numbers will vary generally depending on your progress through the game, although the highest number you'll fight at any given time is usually around 15, save for your fight with Riot ( a villain that is able to duplicate himself). You'll quickly get tired of missions as they all pretty much start to seem the same, the game will simply mix up the types of enemies you'll fight, i.e. sometimes just robots, sometimes robots and clones, sometimes flying robots and clones, etc. So although the travel may be open ended I feel that by no means are the missions. Aside from a few mini-games (playable Bizzaro, high speed races, and finding 100 kittens) the game is pretty linear and doesn't give you much else to do.

The story of Superman Returns: The Videogame has little to do with the movie. Which from my experience with movie tie-in games they usually turn out to flop for generally the same reasons. The main reason being that it's difficult to make a 6-10hr game where you take control out of a in this case 2hr + movie. More often than not you'll find the tie-in game trying to drag out parts of the movie, that may have not been entertaining in the first place, so to counter this they take liberties with the story to basically fill in the game. So where an actor in a movie may have opened a door, in the game you may have to kill 20 guards, steal a nuclear sub, and hijack a helicopter to open the door...it will definitely fill that level. This isn't always a bad thing if done right, but more often than not it just feels like the whole game is being thinly drawn along to the next cutscene. Superman Returns seems more like a game set in the Superman universe in general, that happens to have a couple of cutscenes from the movie. Which you honestly can't bash them too much for adding in all of this extra content because Superman Returns the movie didn't have that much action. Much like many first movies in a series (X-Men, Lord of the Rings, etc.) it's meant to establish or in this case reestablish the characters.

From a technical stand point I may not be the best to listen to for a review of this angle of the game. I recently purchased a 360 (just for this game, that's how big of a Superman fan I am) so I haven't had much experience with what the system is capable of. Although from the other games I've played what I've seen from the system so far Superman Returns does seem to be graphically sub par. Now I'm no game designer so there may be tie to the amount of what the system has to render at any given time, keep in mind the Metropolis in the game is around 80 square miles and has over 9,000 buildings in it. So although I was pleased over all with the graphics, it doesn't seem to be up to the full or maybe even near full potential of what the 360 is capable of.

The game's audio seems to be pretty solid, nothing really stands out from a standard beat 'em up type game. The flying audio bits are great, the subtly of the cape flapping while flying around and the sound of the wind rushing past and eventually a sonic boom while speeding about are very satisfying. I have mixed feelings on the score however. My biggest issue is that the game doesn't draw from the Superman soundtrack, neither that of the new work done by John Ottoman...or the original work done by John Williams. This was really disappointing, Superman has such a march to it that seems to be ingrained with the character that's it's hard to think of Superman and not hum the Williams fanfare. I guess for non-Superman fans this could be related to playing a Star Wars game and not having the Williams theme included. Now in the defense the original score done for the game isn't bad, although at times it can seem somewhat generic. One of the nice touches that really helps the feel of the game is the change of pace of the music while flying. While flying lower near the streets and weaving through skyscrapers the games plays a pretty peppy fanfare esque tune, as you move higher past the rustle of the city into the skies above the music calms and shifts to a much slower melody.

Now although I'm trying to be objective as possible I can't say that I didn't like the game. I myself am a Superman fan, and a big one at that...there are still pictures from Christmas day of me in my Superman outfit standing proudly. So for me any opportunity to take the wheel of the Man of Steel (excuse the rhyme) is something I enjoy, and so far this is the most entertaining opportunity that gaming has presented. To be honest if all you could do in this game was fly around the city I would have still bought and not felt cheated. Obviously there are many that aren't able to take this much joy from certain aspects of the game so if you're looking for an XBox game that allows free open ended game play, challenging and engaging enemy fights, and a great story...save your money. For fans of Superman who have been waiting for a chance to experience a taste of what it might be like to step into the big red boots, this is for you.

Wondering

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 6
Date: November 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Haven't bought it yet. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if..can you fly around without doing missions?

GREAT HYPE, NO SHOW

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First of all this game was supposed to be released back in June, it's the reason I bought the 360. In this game the only time I felt like superman was when I was flying. They created this large city and you never even use it.All the fights take place in local areas. OH and in the fights yeah you never feel like superman,you get your butt handed to you by some robots immune to your powers or some mutants immune to your powers.How hard is it to understand that superman is the baddest of the good.If you must play this game ,which i understand, either rent it, or buy it at Rhino so you can trade it back for a desent game.Anyone else could take this game and have a blockbuster in 8 months ,its all there.errrrrrrrrr

Wondering if I bought the Bizaro version

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 30 / 32
Date: November 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm still playing the game, I'm only about 3 hours into the thing and somewhere around 80% completed according to the game, and I'm not having fun any more, and this really bothers me. I just shelled out $60 something and I can't say I've ever had a feeling during this that I was doing anything meaningful other than saving a block of Metropolis idiots (they run into you while you're punching your opponents and are sent flying).

I'm trying to do one of the side missions where I fly around and collect things, but Metropolis gets attacked every 10 seconds by a band of flying ice dragons and their companions the fire dragons. Or I'll get wrapped up in a fight with the guy who multiplies over and over again yet only manages to have 3 or 4 lines and they're so freaking corny it hurts.

I really wanted to like this game... honestly, I got sucked in because of the demo being so short... I thought "there has to be more to this game, and it's probably frickin' awesome"... I'm really not finding the frickin' awesome.

There's a large beautiful city here every 3rd building seems to have the same texture, in the distance you can see a giant dam which looks like it would be fun to fly over to, but forget about that. Metropolis is a huge series of islands with an unreachable mainland and no possible way the citizens could reach it. No airports, appears to be a sea-based town only. The mainland, if I am guessing right, has a cliff facing Metropolis that is roughly 25 miles high, which is about the same height as the unreachable dam that you also can't visit.

And there're numerous problematic dichotomies - one example is you are charged with taking care of the city, keeping things from getting damaged, and yet you get achievement points for things such as ripping the globe off of the Daily Planet and throwing it down the streets. Another is you go to take a challenge and turn into Bizaro and have to destroy as much of the city as you can to advance.

And for the Man of Steel, I feel more like I'm playing the man of pretty darn strong rubber. I can lift 60,000 pounds in this game, and throw it, and it bounces off any buildings it hits. I can hit a pedestrian while in a fight and they get right back up but if one of the opponents hits them, they go down instantly. I try and pick up the injured person to take them to the ambulance (where I then drop them 20 feet to their rescue) and will manage to pick up the wandering pedestrian who is walking through a burning car to get in my way.

Metropolis takes a little too much damage and Superman drops to his knees and looks like he's crying. It takes the same amount of damage in two back to back fights and, well, for some reason it's fine.

While playing I also learned that when the game spawns 15 flying enemies in certain areas the game will lock up for a while. Friend of mine was watching and said my XBOX had shut down due to overheating and I pointed out that you could still go the menu and to wait for a bit, and then it did whatever it was doing and started speeding up, and that it was always when there were that many flying enemies. Duplicated the problem a few times.

I don't know what I did exactly, but I blew one of the bosses into orbit for a while, and when he came down he landed in the ocean. He did not move, nor could I swim or fly underwater. I tried using my heat vision to hit him but noticed all I was doing was damaging Metropolis. I was fighting Bizaro at one point and I knocked him into the one highway that exists... could not get to him. Both these incidents I had to reload the last save.

I've gotten to the point where I save every single event due to bugs like these.

I wish I had my money back, or the game I expected

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