Poll: Can there ever be a good Superman game?

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T_ConX

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Mar 8, 2010
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After playing through games like inFamous and Prototype, I do think there is potential for a decent Superman game. How about this:

Open-world style. The game world would consist of Metropolis, plus a lot of country side areas (like the worlds of GTA:SA or Just Cause 2). There would be other areas that the player could fly too, like the Fortress of Solitude (which you would get to by flying to the northern edge of the map) or even SPACE. Quick transport would never be an issue, seeing as how you can just FLY EVERYWHERE.

Most of the game would take place in the city, but the countryside would play host to things like the opening and tutorials, as well as the occasional large scale boss battle. Just imagine a mission where you're trying to slow down Doomsday as he makes his way to Metropolis, then fighting him in the city streets.

The issue of character building is a tough one. The systems seen in inFamous and Prototype, unlocking powers through the story missions, don't work with the Superman mythos. On the other hand, simply giving him a full set of powers at the start would make a for lengthy starting tutorial, and wreck game balance. The best system I could suggest would be something in between. You would have ALL the powers available at the start, BUT they would be weak and unrefined. You would gather XP from story missions and side-tasks, and would spend that on upgrading, say, the range and damage of your Heat Ray.

The story would involve some shit with Lex Luthor. Because why the fuck not? Also, a Luthor-centric story shouldn't stop us from bringing in some other classic villains. WOOHOO Brainiac and General Zod!

On the side, you could also engage in foiling robberies (by just grabbing the robbers getaway car, and dropping it a prison courtyard), saving people from burning buildings, throw down with hoodlums.... You know, Superman-y stuff.

OH, and time trial races where YOU FLY THROUGH RINGS! Gotta have some of those!
 

DanDeFool

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Aug 19, 2009
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Let's see. Considering that you would play as someone with superhuman abilities, who is unbelievably strong, fast, and, most importantly, VIRTUALLY INVULNERABLE, making a game about Superman challenging enough to actually be compelling is a pretty big challenge.

You could always make the game challenging by making the focus of the game protecting all the fleshy mortals standing around gawking at Superman's prowess in fighting the forces of evil (instead of running for the hills like they should), and make beating up bad guys a secondary objective. While this would be an accurate representation of Superman's moral code, the entire game would basically be an escort mission, and escort missions usually suck (almost as bad as sewer levels).

Either that or you have to do something really contrived, like make the game about Superman's battle against a fleet of aliens in kryptonite-powered robot suits, but if you're going to do that then why make a Superman game at all? You might as well make a game titled "Captain Really Strong but Not Invincible Guy vs the Invaders from Planet Xenu" and save some money on licensing fees and royalties. Unless you have to license Xenu from the Church of Scientology and pay royalties to L. Ron Hubbard, but I digress.

Or you make put extremely unforgiving time limits on all your missions, and force the player to fly through ring challenges to get where they're going, and barely give them any instructions about what they're supposed to be doing at any given time. That's... well... pretty challenging. I guess.

(Shudder)

My point is, you can't really make a game like this challenging without losing some fun. Either you make the game challenging by adding a bunch of annoying side-objectives, or by taking away Superman's invulnerability, which is to take away a big part of what we want to experience when we play a game about Superman.

Again, it's a big challenge, and it'd take a smarter man than I to build a Superman game that actually works.
 

jrizzle90

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Aug 31, 2010
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personally I love open world experiences. It really allows you to take on the world as you see fit. who better to do that with than an over-powered superhero? Who the hell wouldn't want to leap tall buildings in a single bound or fly into space. that would be epic.
 

Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
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If BATMAN can get a good game, I don't see why Sups can't get a decent one.
What are you, anti-Semitic?

Personally, I enjoyed 'The Death & Return of Superman' for the SNES.
It was a simple beat-em-up with some damn good graphics.


I do think that a 'truly good' Superman game is kind of hard because of the character.
He's way too overpowered and most games treat him as very one dimensional (fighting wise) never really going into the other mythology where he build freaking PLANETS!


I'd love to see a 'Superman: Origins' game where you start off on Krypton and go through the life of Clark Kent as he's gaining his superpowers and traveling the world trying to discover himself.
It'd make for some decent story telling and give reason as to why 'Superman' really isn't all that 'super' yet.
 

Ampersand

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May 1, 2010
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johnsom said:
SomeBritishDude said:
The mans too damn powerful. Batman's limits give him an edge
I agree a hero with no weakness, well, one that's incredibly rare, Just isn't that interesting. A game has to have more then dumb ai that's just there to be knocked down.
Boring in a comic? definitly. Could be awesome in a game though. This is the reason i loved prototype so much. It's fun to be a god among men sometimes.
Also think of how excelent it would be to tare up a big distructable cityscape while battling doomsday or darkseid or one of supermans other stupidly powerful enemies.

Actually on that thought someone should really make a game out of world war hulk :)
 

migo

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Jun 27, 2010
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The Superman Returns game showed where the potential lies. Having Metropolis as the health bar gives the game an experience that you don't really get anywhere else. All it needs is to be designed as a game up, rather than around a movie. If it starts giving you moral quandries in terms of two simultaneous threats and you have to decide which one to address, and why, it would get pretty cool. Batman AA works well because it was quite linear, Superman could work very well with continually branching missions. If the game is also designed to really simulate superman's feel it would also work well - allowing you to go into superspeed where you're much faster than everything else, but creating situations where you're still really challenged to solve it. Rather than making it just any sort of enemy that any superhero could beat, make the game about challenges that only Superman can solve.
 

Arawn

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Dec 18, 2003
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It's been said, but I'll repeat: Superman is too powerful, and lacks threats. Superman has two real weaknesses; Kryptonite and Magic. Those two aside after alot big beating from any bruiser or intergalactic evil he can go toe to toe without too much fear. Super speed, strength and flight alone make him a force to be reckoned with. So the list of villains to give Supes trouble in a solo game are few. Or perhaps there are many, but the threat level isn't up there. The other superhero games mentioned have power progression. Spider-man learning new techniques while he fights is somewhat believable. Batman's power progression was kinda stupid, why wouldn't he carry all his weapons on him from the beginning? And he learns how to use kung-fu. Didn't he already master it? What it comes down to is reducing the full known abilities of the hero aka 'nerfing'. How exactly can you nerf someone that flies, picks up tanks, shoots lasers from his eyes, and breathes arctic winds? Making him learn new attacks seems silly overall, he punches something it breaks. Empowered (a very funny comic I suggest people read) pokes fun how most super strong heroes don't have to worry about fighting styles; thus are as skilled as a 3rd grader. Imagine if Superman knew kempo, judo, or even capoeria. Instead he'll learn a ground strike some silly machine gun like punch. Make him too weak and people will complain, or it seems too strange. Perhaps they could make a superman prequel like they did with that show Smallville. Then it would make more sense.
 

Xiorell

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Jan 9, 2010
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I voted the "hell no" option but then I was thinking...

I aint played any Superman games so I dunno if they did this, and I aint read ever post on here so don't know if it's been said...

What about making it a bit more of a puzzle game???
As in, Superman DOES have to go kick the shit outta , but in the mean time, said villain had captured a load of innocent squishy civilians and put them in to various death traps which will kill them if superman doesn't rescue them in a certain time limit, but, he has to disable deathtraps in intellegent ways using his powers rather than just "rip door off, let everyone go" else deathtrap self destructs.

Kinda like the traps from the Saw movies, except obviously without the gore and in this case Superman disables the traps with being super 'n all, not the captured people.
 

Numb1lp

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Jan 21, 2009
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I honestly hope so. Oh, and I remember playing Superman as a kid on the 64. Thank God it didn't ruin me for gaming.
 

SomeBritishDude

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Nov 1, 2007
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tanis1lionheart said:
I'd love to see a 'Superman: Origins' game where you start off on Krypton and go through the life of Clark Kent as he's gaining his superpowers and traveling the world trying to discover himself.
It'd make for some decent story telling and give reason as to why 'Superman' really isn't all that 'super' yet.
I think that's the way I'd do it. Start as a 5 year old where your just a very strong child, run around at super speed and jump tall buildings in a single bound as young teen...You could have a whole game revoling around the evolution of a child to a god.
 

Z of the Na'vi

Born with one kidney.
Apr 27, 2009
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There was a good Superman game. For the Gamecube.



I doubt it got a lot of attention, but it was about the closest thing to a true Superman experience I ever played. Flying around an open city, beating up criminals, plugging up exploding dams, the works.

Well, at least I had a lot of fun with it.
 

cpu64

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Feb 5, 2010
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I was working part time at tiburon, testing Superman for the 360. I basically got fired because I tried to tell them the game was going to bomb, that and my supervisor wanted the artist position I was trying to apply for...
(little ghetto skank I hope she chokes on her kingdom hearts toys)
 

titaniumChampion

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Nov 27, 2009
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thenumberthirteen said:
Never say never. Superman Returns: The Game was on the right track with it's open world and freedom to use Superman's powers without a load of bullshit restrictions. The problem was that game looked awful, had no story, and was repetitive as hell. If that game was polished and refined then it could be great.
You speak the truth! I loved Superman Returns, and with a good load of polish this game would be incredible. It would be cool if they explored the other Earth's in the Multiverse. Play one where Superman and Lex team up to rule the world. Another could be the War of the Supermen, and recreate some of the battles like what happened at Coast City between Henshaw and the Eradicator.

Until then, I'll fly around the city looking for cats. -_-;
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

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Jan 11, 2008
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Same problem as above, rendering all Supes' powers is hard and you can't have a challenging game when you're virtually invulnerable. I like the idea of starting out as a less-invincible teen Clark Kent though- I never liked Smallville the show but it must have had some success or it wouldn't have gone on for 8+ Seasons.

Perhaps a Superman game would benefit from having more objective-based gameplay. He's all about saving lives, less aggressive towards potential foes than the Batman but more capable. You're invincible, but everyone else around you isn't, so your life meter actually represents how many innocents can die before you hang up your cape in depression. Even with all those powers, keeping casualties and collateral damage to a minimum during a big slug-fest with some robot or acid-bleeding mutant is not easy. Then occasionally you'd get Kryptonite users or Godly foes such as Darkseid who can actually hurt you.

Speaking of the combat, Justice League got it right most of the time. Have every punch capable of destroying walls or sending weaker foes flying. It could work.
 

Altorin

Jack of No Trades
May 16, 2008
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The Doomsday SNES game wasn't that bad.

But in general, Superman doesn't make a good game for the same reason he doesn't particularly make a good comic book super hero.. he's way too powerful. He has one weakness and it just becomes contrived to see the lengths the writers have to go to to see superman in any real peril.

So what, every enemy has Kryptonite laced bullets? How do you make a video game where superman can lose?
 

Infinatex

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May 19, 2009
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The whole idea of superman in a game is pointless because he is too overpowered. Also his image is too 'good' for current times. They need to roughen him up a bit to work in todays society.

Skullkid4187 said:
No, there is no such thing as a good superhero game....(excluding Spider Man 1)
Arkham Asylum..? That was pretty good. Also Marvel vs Capcom games are beyond awesome!!
 

thethingthatlurks

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Feb 16, 2010
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How about this: you get a Superman model for one of the Jedi Knight games, and turn on Godmode. Flying? Well, you can jump really far, or just turn on noclip. Superstrength? Teh Force! Laz0ar eyes? Force lightning. That weird superbreath thing? Force Push. Super Speed? Yep, force speed. What else could you want?
 

Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
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Altorin said:
The Doomsday SNES game wasn't that bad.

But in general, Superman doesn't make a good game for the same reason he doesn't particularly make a good comic book super hero.. he's way too powerful. He has one weakness and it just becomes contrived to see the lengths the writers have to go to to see superman in any real peril.

So what, every enemy has Kryptonite laced bullets? How do you make a video game where superman can lose?
Um...MAGIC!

Seriously, does everyone forget this?
Superman is weak against MAGIC, and lets not forget 'red radiation/stars'.

Make the game start out where some uber-villain (Lex?) changes the Sun's radiations to red.

Throughout the game you'll do your best with severally weakened powers, however there will be gaps in the 'red net' that allows you go to Super-Superman (think of it as a 'Devil Trigger) or even things like a light/power source that helps to give you back some of your super-dooper powers back.