Poll: Can there ever be a good Superman game?

[sketch_zeppelin]

To make a decent superman game you'd have to make the game more about saving people and taking on very unique bosses then about combat. superman is nearly invunerable so naturally the only way your going to get a challenge without gimping him is to make protecting the humans the prority...the problem with that is you have to be damn good at your job or the game will end up sucking. In otherwards it can't be a series of escort missions.

 

[Jimson]

I think the think we need to notice, is that all you really need to do with a super man game, is making him really really amazingly, bad ass, Seriously, No one wants to play as superman if you have restraint, just make it like GTA You fly around, and beat the shit out of bad guys, None of this he needs a weakness, Nah, the greatest thrill of playing as Superman is how much ass you can beat and how fast you can do it, not avoiding kryptonite, flying thru rings, and pretty much being Lex Luthors little *****.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

No, there is no such thing as a good superhero game....(excluding Spider Man 1)

Spiderman 2 was WAY better than Spiderman 1, which was just ok.


I mean seriously, how can the first game beat 2's swinging?

 

[dragonslayer32]

The only thing wrong with the last one is that you had to do missions when they popped up, if you didn't, the city would be destroyed. If the made it more like spiderman 2's gameplay, it would have been an epic game.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

To make a decent superman game you'd have to make the game more about saving people and taking on very unique bosses then about combat. superman is nearly invunerable so naturally the only way your going to get a challenge without gimping him is to make protecting the humans the prority...the problem with that is you have to be damn good at your job or the game will end up sucking. In otherwards it can't be a series of escort missions.

That'd be one way to do it. Assuming everytime Superman punches something it dies it would be best to make a game less about your own safety or even beating the bad guys to a pulp, it's about do it in a way that means as few people as possible get hurt. Each of Supermans powers could be atool to use to get the job done for each situation without putting people in danger. But your right it would be hard to do, if done right it could be excellent.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Possibly. Just look at what Arkham Asylum did for Batman. You just have to find the right sort of style for a comic book game.

 

[McAster]

The Hulk is too damn powerful, how do we make a story about him that's original? Send him to a planet where he's not the most powerful man alive and has to build up. Worked great for Planet Hulk despite the fact Hulk was able to punch the entire Earth and move it with enough anger.

Superman doesn't have to be the most powerful guy around. A simple red sun, away from yellow solar energy for too long (it takes a while for him to absorb enough energy), magic, alternate dimensions, fighting gods in Ragnarök, on a planet full of Kryptonians or others like him, against the Green Lantern Corp, and plenty more tales.
Not long ago they had Superman go to the future where Sol (our sun) had turned Red and he didn't have powers in the comics. Would be easy enough to make this into an open world game where he fights without powers and then slowly builds it back up by the sun turning yellow again. Could be by doing certain missions or a Dead Rising day system for example.

Also they had Superman learn martial arts from Batman during one of his loss of powers story lines. Which he used later to out fight quite a few people equal to his strength or greater.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

I think the best wa to do it would be to give Superman all his powers but apply restrictions to his missions. For example, I was just reading though all star superman again and there's this part where Clark Kent is interviewing Lex Luther in prison. Anyway the Parasite (a creature who absorbs the power of others around him for food, so obviously superman makes him into an obese hungry maggot) it brought though the prison and starts to expand and escape because of Clarks presence. Clark Kent then must save everyone in the prison while keeping his identity a secret, especially from Luther.

Hiding in the tear gas thrown to carry as many out as he can, using that tear gas as an excuse to take off his glasses and quietly activate the sprinklers with his lazer eyes, using asma as an excuse to freeze a bunch of prisoners rioting behind them...I could see a superman game really using the Clark Kent secret identity to it's advantage, giving you situations where you have all the powers of a god, but you must use them carefully to keep yourself concealed. Or missions there are hostages lives at stake. This could then be mixed with missions where you have all your powers at your disposal and can really go no holds bardes against your enemies.

 

[irani_che]

then we would be stuck with either god-awful escort missions with lois lane or a time trials or cooking mama.
in all of which he would use super bullet-time or just carry her away.

 

[gamer_parent]

there are more than enough DC villains that can match supes in raw power. So finding people for him to fight is not really the issue. The central thing to make this is work is that you need to make sure superman is larger than life.

he needs to have a good flight mechanic (and in a pinch, a good "adrenaline flight"). he'll need the ability to actually interact with the objects in game and manipulate them. (i.e. get thrown through a building, picking up the debris to hurl back at the enemy, etc) And the battles need to be almost a little dragon ball-ish in presentation. Superman can't just get gut punched and fall over, he needs to get smacked so hard it flies through a row of cars, and tears through a water main pipeline in the process.

If I had the budget, I would also do staged maps. one map for the city, one map for maybe say, space, one map for the watch tower, one map for atlantis, one map for apokoleps, etc. they don't have to be connected, but each map would have to be it's own city to really support the superman style action. granted, this means the dev costs would skyrocket if we want these done well. This is why I think Bruce Timm DCAU style graphics would work better for this sort of thing.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

the easy answer to Superman being overpowered is to not set the game on earth. Get him away from the yellow sun and his powers dissapate over time. Hell, just let Lex use a machine to block the rays of the sun to weaken the Big Blue Boyscout with the added bonus of starting an ice age on earth that requires Supes to defeat it and Lex before humanity is destroyed. Lex sends wave after wave of villains after him to make him use up his power so Supes has to go to STAR OLabs to get equipment that replicates his powers in some way, just not 100%.

 

[awunde]

ive heard that saying that "he isnt restricted my nothing" crap so many times and its not true he has shown many restrictions in his comics and he has been beaten around a few times as well. people tend to forget he isnt omnipotent he just has a few more powers than the average heroe. not to mention he has loads of weaknesses and plently of enemies who can all go toe to toe with him

 

[LogicNProportion]

Very easily. The problem is the audience. Superman is near-impossible to stop.

The game would be fuck-easy, since you could practically blow through anything you wanted to. That's the main problem with Superman in general. He's very boring as a super-hero.

 

[XJ-0461]

Well, as long as they don't put some stupid restrictions on his powers, like energy meters for flight or crap like that, it'd be possible. Given the powers of Superman, and a massive open world with people to save and bad guys to stop, and you could make an amazing game. And as for his invulnerability, perhaps there could be a meter for the health of others rather than his personal health, so that instead of worrying about if Supes gets shot, you worry about the civillians around him. Such a style might also add to the feel of the game, as it would require players to be very heroic, making them feel more like the character.

The problems would be coming up with a suitablly epic story, and the processing power needed to create a suitably large game world. While I can't think of a solution to the story, I've heard that a lot of potential on the PS3 isn't used, so maybe make it an exclusive? If that doesn't work, they could always wait until the next console generation.

 

[BENZOOKA]

I haven't played any Superman game, but I'm sure one can't be done well in a realistic manner (GTA IV -style), but in a more simplistic way: Of course. There are many small games that are excellent, just apply Superman to a simple game with awesome gameplay and there you go.

 

[joshuaayt]

Aw, come on, Superman Returns was, at least, fun. For a while, anyway, and only after you made it past the inane gladiator part at the beginning. Still, fun.

 

[awunde]

some of these ideas are pure crap. "weaken him" "no powers". i mean what the hell. and ive already said that the lame excuse that hes invincible and the game would be easy and that excuse doesnt work because. A. he has alot of weaknesses in the comics. B. he has come against quite a few challanges in his time and very powerfull bad guys. C. making him defeatable does not make the game pointless, it itsnt the fact that supes cant be deafed that makes him popular its that as long as theres blood in him he wont be, but thats to do with his will power. i will admit that as the days are progersing he is becoming stronger and ill say that everyone who thinks of superman only thinks of the precrisis one. anyway i have an idea for this game.

first ill start with plot. lex luthor is in jail for trying to take over the USA with help from the americas enemies, superman stops him. skip to the future and lex luthor is broken out of jail. he starts up a murder superman squad who are also trying to take over the US as well, luthors men have magicaly endowed metal armour that is invincible and can harm superman they also have alot of k. meanwhile a shady buisnessman by the name of Sean mc'shay is trying to create nuclear fusion and his reactor can also generate tremedos heat and light, but lois and clark suspect he is mixed in with criminal activity, they investigate through the course of the game. meanwhile superman has to fight all of his enemies like parisite, brainiac, bizaro, ultraman ect. supes is a bit puzzled as to why dardseid and brainiac are workling with luthor. after clarks investigation he finds out that mc shay and luthor are the same person and luthor wants to destroy the sun with darkseids omega beams, the omega beams can only destroy an object as big as the sun with a device created by braianiac. with the sun gone not only will superman be easier to kill, but the world will pay him to use his fusion generators to light the planet. in exchange from the power the people of earth will pay and also hail him as ruler. then braiac and darkseid can also rules or study any of the human population without interferiance. when clark exposes luthor, luthor teleports to his base on apokoypse which has been moved just out of earths atmostphere. after a fight against minions, then brainiac. and a long battle against luthor who first fights you in a suit then slowly steals all of your powers and you have to fight him as a human. after you beat him you confront darkseid before he destroys the sun and you beat the crap out of him and destory brainiacs meshine. the end

 

[captaincabbage]

I just couldn't work because Superman is too fucking perfect. Seriously, I hate all his invulnerable, apple-pie eating, super-bullshit. He's so damn wholesome.

For a solid game, you need weaknesses in your characters. Weakness gives you challenges that you can oversome, and oversoming those challenges is more or less the basis of a game. Superman has no weaknesses. He's just like a massive wrecking ball of sunshine and smiles. I'm definitely not argueing that it wouldn't be fun to just be thrown into a giant destructible city that you could blast to bits with laser eyes and stuff as superman and told to "Save" the city by blowing up as much stuff as possible, it'd just get exceedingly tedious sooner or later.


. . . Actually, that game sounds pretty awesome.

 

[captaincabbage]

the easy answer to Superman being overpowered is to not set the game on earth. Get him away from the yellow sun and his powers dissapate over time. Hell, just let Lex use a machine to block the rays of the sun to weaken the Big Blue Boyscout with the added bonus of starting an ice age on earth that requires Supes to defeat it and Lex before humanity is destroyed. Lex sends wave after wave of villains after him to make him use up his power so Supes has to go to STAR OLabs to get equipment that replicates his powers in some way, just not 100%.

the only problem with the other planet idea is that then you wouldn't be playing as 'Superman'. You'd just be playing as 'Man'.
Also, if Lex used some kind of Simpsons-esqe sun-blocker, what's to say that Superman couldn't just punch it, or throw it into space like he does with everything else.