Product Description

Based on the Superman Returns movie, the game for Xbox 360 lets you be Superman. Your goal: master your powers to save Metropolis. Play both film-inspired missions as well as original content created exclusively for the videogame.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4734 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 14633151602
• Released on: 2006-11-20
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .75" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .24 pounds

Features

• Go anywhere in Metropolis right away, exploring the first open-world game that extends from the street all the way into the atmosphere
• Non-linear gameplay and innovative flight, rescue, and combat mechanics let you create your own experience
• Play through missions inspired by over 6 decades of Superman stories, plus film-inspired events with voiceovers by Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey
• Master and Upgrade Superman's unique powers - Flight, X-Ray Vision, Heat Vision, Super Hearing, Super Strength, Super Speed, Super Breath, and Freeze Breath are all available to you, so get creative
• Superman's success depends on Metropolis' health - Will you stop pursuing a super villain to prevent a tornado from wreaking havoc? Make critical decisions to save the city, but choose wisely or its citizens could pay the ultimate price

Customer Reviews

Wondering if I bought the Bizaro version
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

decent simulator.
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.

The more I played it, the less I liked it ....
Where to begin? Let me start by saying that ever since we were treated to ET on Atari, with rare exception, movie-based games have generally been pretty awful. The reason for that is simple, a developer knows that a product's name will entitle it to a certain number of sales just because of the name. There's no "extra-incentive" for you to inflate the budget of a product if you don't expect to recoup that dollar amount in sales. 'Superman Returns', I really thought, wasn't going to fall into that developer trend.

My expectations were raised, oddly enough, when the game was delayed and the demo was released. 'Superman' was originally supposed to come out in May of '06 to coincide with the release of the feature film. When it was delayed, I mistakenly thought that was the staff at EA saying to itself, "OK, there's more interest here then we thought, lets sink a little more time and effort into this one." The game was subsequently pushed to November to match up with the film's DVD release. Then the demo for the game hit xBox live and I was legitimately impressed. Metropolis was huge, the environment was interactive, the flight mechanics were solid; it reminded me of 'Ultimate Spider-Man', just with Superman. The graphics and the combat system were a little below-average, but I wrote that off as a problem they're working on. It was just a demo after all, I expected it to be a little rough around the edges.

While nothing that I enjoyed about the game was changed, I'm disappointed to say that none of these issues I had were fixed for the game's final release either. Not to mention, there's very little to the game outside of the demo I played. Instead of using the extra time EA took to get 'Superman' released to add content, EA seemed to just seem to multiply what was there already. Just for example, there isn't enough diversity in the enemies Superman will confront. You fight Metallo and his minions fairly early in the game. You'll be fighting those same annoying robots the whole game. There are only about five or six actual boss fights in the game, none of whom I found particularly difficult. One of which is the same character twice! I'd have loved to have seen more of Supe's rogues gallery.

There aren't many side missions you have to distract yourself with either. It would have been awesome to involve more of Superman's supporting cast to pass along side objectives. As I said before, there's not more diversity, it's as if they just doubled what was already there.

As far as the previous 'Superman' games go, this is definitely king of the hill. Some of those games were flat-out awful, this is at least playable. It's just that I wish they took the nugget of a good thing they had going and fleshed it out a lot more. For now, it's nothing more then a "... could of been." Rent it if you want to check it out.