Superman Shadow of the Apokolips for the Playstation 2 review




Superman is one of the most well known super heroes of all time. Not only is he famous amongst the comic book universe, he is almost as famous for his appearance in video games. I think everyone mostly knows he hasn’t had one good game ever since he has come into the world of games. A good example is Superman 64 for the Nintendo 64. It has been considered to be the worst game of all time. I have to agree he doesn’t have a good game. He has what the community calls, the “Superman Curse”. It means that each game that Superman has been in was bad, though I did see a small glimmer of hope in one of his 3D games, Superman Shadow of Apokolips. However, now that I have played it. I think that small light just died out.

The plot revolves around Darkseid’s plan to take over the earth with the help of Lex Luthor. They make a small side plan to make Superman believe that the Intergang is back, and side track him from their true plan. It is up to Superman to stop what is happening and save the day.

The game play is of a strategy/action/adventure game where you control Superman and go through different areas to stop the Intergang and then later the super villains that escaped from prison. Your basic form of attack is a super punch. You can also pick up objects, and throw them or carry them, depending on what the mission is. Of course, a Superman game wouldn’t be complete without his ability to fly. He can also blow a wind to take out fires and blow enemies back. Superman can also spin around at high speeds, and cause a massive shockwave when he lands. For some reason, super speed is not included, but you can move pretty fast while flying, so I guess they didn’t need it over at Infogamers, the company that made this game.

The graphics are pretty good. They look like they are ripped right out of the cartoon series that was around during the 90’s. They also got most the voice actors from the show to do the voices in the game. I think it was a smart move to get the original voice actors, since the guy behind Superman’s voice, Tim Daly, does such a good job. Lex Luthor’s voice actor, Clancy Brown also does a good job since he is also the voices of Baron Praxis from Jak 2, Captain Black from the Jackie Chan animated series, Gorrath in Megas XLR, and Long Feng in Avatar the Last Airbender.

Let’s bring out the weakness in this Superman game. The levels seem super repetitive. It felt like I was doing the same thing in every level. It just got boring and stupid. They decided to keep all the major villains from the show until later in the game. I don’t like that. When I want to fight a boss in the game, I want to fight one at least every level, but for some reason they don’t pop up until near the end of the game. That’s horrible pacing. The camera also felt a little clunky and hard to control. There were a lot of defects and bugs that I found in this game that wasn’t even funny. I got stuck in a lot of doorways and buildings due to poor collision testing. It also seems like that hit detection is on-and-off, since I am doing damage, but it doesn’t show. Oh, and here is the best part. Superman gets tossed around like a ragdoll! It seems like anything that hits him sends him flying backwards. That includes the first boss fight. I couldn’t get even close to Livewire, because I got sent flying backwards. I mean, I can understand that he does get sent flying back in the cartoon series when he is hit hard, but it seems a little too easy for him to be sent packing. I don’t feel like Superman after that. I felt more like someone’s punching bag. God, the music is awful. It was mostly like stock music throughout the whole game. What about the theme song from John Williams?!

Overall, I was very disappointed with this game. I thought it would be good, but I was wrong, and I feel like an idiot wasting my weekend playing this game. If you don’t get what I’m saying, I am saying, don’t buy this game. It has the Superman Curse reeking all over it. Why can’t he have a good game, for once? Then again, Superman thinks he is the perfect Superhero, and I think he is a little bit full of himself. At least, we have Batman Arkham Asylum and The Darkness.

This game gets a lousy 3 out of 10

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