The NES game's a real piece of garbage though.
Though you are right, most of the games are just mediocre rather than outright bad.
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Why are Superman games so god damn bad
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
The NES game's a real piece of garbage though.
Though you are right, most of the games are just mediocre rather than outright bad.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
I AM A MAN!
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Moon_frogger
Member
No, because superman doesn't rage all over the place destroying everything in his path uncontrably. If he did there would soon be nothing left. Furthermore it doesn't fit his character at all.
True, but most licensed NES games were too.
I think an inFamous styled game with Superman building up his powers could be fun. Maybe go with the new Grant Morrison version.
Year 1 New 52 Supes/ Man of Steel Supes did this. It's not a stretch but it's not ideal.
Delta Assault
Member
*insert Zack Snyder joke here*
There are some good ideas in this thread for good Superman games - especially ones involving Clark. To avoid rehashing, I'd just like to throw out something different - instead of big bads,why not make a game where Superman is forced to fight his buddies? Lex Luthor tasks Superman to collect an ancient artifact, for example, that has been broken into different pieces held by various members of the League for safekeeping. Superman battles Flash, GL, Batman, Captain Marvel, etc., while figuring out Luthor's plan and how to turn the tables etc.
Lots of ways to make a good game - hope we get one some day.
Lots of ways to make a good game - hope we get one some day.
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The gun
The belt buckle
This pic is so 90s I'm now suddenly wearing a Chumbawamba t-shirt.
Delta Assault
Member
I'm not sure it's such a concern these days. With Batman v Superman and the JLA movie coming down the road, they'll probably be content with getting some sort of Ultimate Alliance-style JLA game made. Completely sidesteps the issue of making a competent Superman game.
More Likely an Injustice 2 announcement.
The Arkham games were such a hit partially due to their unreliance on movie tie-ins... I'd hope they'd consider at least one more character from DC.
You're probably right, though.
Crimson_Gold
Member
Because circuitry is made of copper, not steel.
Seriously, it is because designers struggle with his power and developing a premise for a good game for him. He'd be great in an open world game. Just have him on apocalypse the whole time. There are plenty of strong enemies for him to fight and his strength won't seem as an obstacle to the design
Seriously, it is because designers struggle with his power and developing a premise for a good game for him. He'd be great in an open world game. Just have him on apocalypse the whole time. There are plenty of strong enemies for him to fight and his strength won't seem as an obstacle to the design
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I am a man!
I laughed.
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
Just play the Superman Skyrim MOD while you wait. There a few of them, some are cool.
Google Superman Skyrim for some vids
Google Superman Skyrim for some vids
Poodlestrike
Banned
A Superman Boss Rush game could make for a fun downloadable title. Just a succession of greatest hits. Supes vs. Darkseid, Supes vs. Brainiac, Supes vs. Luthor, etc.
Delta Assault
Member
Just play the Superman Skyrim MOD while you wait. There a few of them, some are cool.
Google Superman Skyrim for some vids
Superman... in Skyrim?
Reminds me of that comic where Supes and Wonder Woman fought in Valhalla for like, 50,000 years.
50,000 years and he never cheated on Lois.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
They just need to task a good developer with it and let them have some creative freedom, don't tie it to a movie or something. There are a few directions you can go with it, Superman can be the god on Earth doing heroics and the fail states come from not completing your objectives, or you can pit him up against a powerful rogue's gallary. Other Kryptonians, the New Gods, various powerful aliens, Braniac, etc.
A decent Superman game would have to have a reliance on an environment that can be manipulated.
Objective: Stop Superboy Prime from reaching Earth until Supergirl and Powergirl arrive.
Mechanics: Damage SBP's armour to make the fight easier. Grab him and drag him away from Earth. Hit him with Asteroids and shit. Force him to crash into celestial objects like moons and planets.
Objective: Contain Doomsday
Mechanics: Beat the piss out of him. Use every ability at your disposal. Repeated abilities become less effective the more they are used, making a use of environmental attacks favourable....eg: Lure Doomsday next to a fuel tanker, and then blast it with heat vision. Drop an aircraft carrier on him. Grab him, fly into orbit and then drive him into the surface of Antarctica at mach 10.
Other potential gameplay mechanics could be a Clark Kent side story where you're performing investigative journalism in order to secure a conviction for Lex Luthor.
SOMEBODY HIRE ME!
Objective: Stop Superboy Prime from reaching Earth until Supergirl and Powergirl arrive.
Mechanics: Damage SBP's armour to make the fight easier. Grab him and drag him away from Earth. Hit him with Asteroids and shit. Force him to crash into celestial objects like moons and planets.
Objective: Contain Doomsday
Mechanics: Beat the piss out of him. Use every ability at your disposal. Repeated abilities become less effective the more they are used, making a use of environmental attacks favourable....eg: Lure Doomsday next to a fuel tanker, and then blast it with heat vision. Drop an aircraft carrier on him. Grab him, fly into orbit and then drive him into the surface of Antarctica at mach 10.
Other potential gameplay mechanics could be a Clark Kent side story where you're performing investigative journalism in order to secure a conviction for Lex Luthor.
SOMEBODY HIRE ME!
wondermega
Member
A Superman game could be very well done. It would especially work if you took some heavy liberties with the character, although it would certainly piss off the fanbase but it would sure make it interesting.
The game starts on Krypton and you're Jor-El or something. You need to get baby Kal to the ship before the planet explodes and there is a war raging all around you. Don't tell me the beginning of MoS didn't look like some crazy videogame already...
Finish the mission, baby goes off into space, huge cinematic explosion. Next scene starts, you're preteen Clark, your powers are kind of developing (doesn't arrive on Earth as a super-powered baby, but rather his powers come to him through adolescence, in stages). Maybe as a kid he can punch pretty good and jump kinda high, but he can still get knocked out/bleed/etc.Hell, maybe he's like Kick-Ass with a slight advantage other than not feeling pain. Most missions are at night since he's sneaking around (against canon, but maybe his parents don't know, etc)
As he gets older into the Superboy years, getting more powerful - still more sneaking around and trying to stay out of the public eye. Maybe he is being chased by the cops/military/Alien Control Squad or something and they have the means to subdue him. He gets caught and has to escape some huge underground compound filled with all kinds of other captured "freaks" (aliens? mutants?) some of whom are rampaging and trying to destroy him/everything else.
Having the game progress from being able to survive dropping a couple of stories, to leaping across a rooftop, then bounding big distances, then ulimately being able to fly into outerspace at superspeed - punching huge holes in things - all of this stuff would be amazing. It would have to be a pretty major undertaking to design and art. In the end it would probably be pretty far off from what people commonly think of as Superman, but it would really be a serious reboot for the modern day that people would be able to digest and would also make for a very satisfying gameplay experience.
DC is probably not too keen on such things however. "Why bother?"
The game starts on Krypton and you're Jor-El or something. You need to get baby Kal to the ship before the planet explodes and there is a war raging all around you. Don't tell me the beginning of MoS didn't look like some crazy videogame already...
Finish the mission, baby goes off into space, huge cinematic explosion. Next scene starts, you're preteen Clark, your powers are kind of developing (doesn't arrive on Earth as a super-powered baby, but rather his powers come to him through adolescence, in stages). Maybe as a kid he can punch pretty good and jump kinda high, but he can still get knocked out/bleed/etc.Hell, maybe he's like Kick-Ass with a slight advantage other than not feeling pain. Most missions are at night since he's sneaking around (against canon, but maybe his parents don't know, etc)
As he gets older into the Superboy years, getting more powerful - still more sneaking around and trying to stay out of the public eye. Maybe he is being chased by the cops/military/Alien Control Squad or something and they have the means to subdue him. He gets caught and has to escape some huge underground compound filled with all kinds of other captured "freaks" (aliens? mutants?) some of whom are rampaging and trying to destroy him/everything else.
Having the game progress from being able to survive dropping a couple of stories, to leaping across a rooftop, then bounding big distances, then ulimately being able to fly into outerspace at superspeed - punching huge holes in things - all of this stuff would be amazing. It would have to be a pretty major undertaking to design and art. In the end it would probably be pretty far off from what people commonly think of as Superman, but it would really be a serious reboot for the modern day that people would be able to digest and would also make for a very satisfying gameplay experience.
DC is probably not too keen on such things however. "Why bother?"
Delta Assault
Member
That sounds complicated though. Instead of that, why not just give Superman a kryptonian battlerifle with red dot sight, and have him fight enemies who pop up out of cover and shoot at him with kryptonite guns, and ummmm... oh yeah, he needs to follow Supergirl. And there'll be a big "FOLLOW" over Supergirl so you can follow her to the next scripted objective.
VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
I don't know what you are talking about OP.
Honestly though, maybe if they made a game where he actually dies after having a son or daughter and you play them acquiring their powers while trying to figure out their lives and responsibilities having never known their father but clearly seeing the impact that he had on the world. Make it like prototype with a justice league style.
Or you could go really big and make a game in the style of No Mans Sky, where superman just wakes up on a planet in a distant galaxy with no memory or powers and you have to explore and re-gain powers to find your way home while taking part in an epic outer space opera on the way there. At the same tome also regaining your memories. However, they are not just memories of some extremely powerful enemy taking you to where you wake up, but memories of heart wrenching loss and failure so much so that it effects your character both visually and Gameplay wise.
The most important part of making a successful and interesting superman game is making him vulnerable to the point where death or failing is a real concern of the story itself not just the Gameplay. Heck, make a game that begins where he has already failed or lost a battle in an epicly devastating way and then tell a story of rebirth and rebuilding. Show us a broken man on the brink and let us build him up to the potential that we know he has from scratch.
Honestly though, maybe if they made a game where he actually dies after having a son or daughter and you play them acquiring their powers while trying to figure out their lives and responsibilities having never known their father but clearly seeing the impact that he had on the world. Make it like prototype with a justice league style.
Or you could go really big and make a game in the style of No Mans Sky, where superman just wakes up on a planet in a distant galaxy with no memory or powers and you have to explore and re-gain powers to find your way home while taking part in an epic outer space opera on the way there. At the same tome also regaining your memories. However, they are not just memories of some extremely powerful enemy taking you to where you wake up, but memories of heart wrenching loss and failure so much so that it effects your character both visually and Gameplay wise.
The most important part of making a successful and interesting superman game is making him vulnerable to the point where death or failing is a real concern of the story itself not just the Gameplay. Heck, make a game that begins where he has already failed or lost a battle in an epicly devastating way and then tell a story of rebirth and rebuilding. Show us a broken man on the brink and let us build him up to the potential that we know he has from scratch.
jaundicejuice
Member
I think the Infamous and Prototype games provide a decent working framework. A Superman game would definitely have to be an openworld game, it could span the beginning of his career, be t-shirt and jeans Supes who can do the basics (faster than a speeding bullet, leap over tall buildings) and then have him gradually learn and expand his ability set over the course of a game. You could start off the game, jumping through Clark's childhood where he discovers his heritage and has to begin dealing with his powers. How his parents want him to hide who and what he is. But the real game would start when he first comes to Metropolis and starts trying to be a super hero. There's such a rich history to pull from, so many story arcs, so many villains. It could start off with Lex Luthor and end with an epic showdown with Darkseid.
It would be kind of neat if they had an Infamous styled karma system where you could choose to make the Superman everyone knows from the films and cartoons or a Justice Lord-styled Superman.
It would be kind of neat if they had an Infamous styled karma system where you could choose to make the Superman everyone knows from the films and cartoons or a Justice Lord-styled Superman.
Whenever you read reviews of Superman games, the criticisms are completely unrelated to Superman's powers. Nobody says, "This game sucks because I can't fly anywhere I want to and move at light speed and destroy tanks with eye beams!" The complaints are always "These mechanics suck....the controls suck.....this game is buggy.....these objectives are stupid."
Superman is incredibly overpowered, but that has nothing to do with why Superman games suck. Make a good Superman game and nobody will care if you put limitations on his power.
Superman is incredibly overpowered, but that has nothing to do with why Superman games suck. Make a good Superman game and nobody will care if you put limitations on his power.
Constructive post, bro.
Go home and cry to Lara Van Momma.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
Two Jewish boys from Cleveland, one of whom was Canadian. Nice post though, really added to the topic.
Then why do you think theres never been a good Superman game? Theres nothing salvagable about the character. Look at the cartoons, the movies, the backdrop of the character. Compare that to Batman. The same company has handled one franchise so much better than the other and thats because the one character is that much better.
If there would ever be a chance to possibly have a good game, it would be Rocksteady somehow changing the formula to something that would suit the character.
Not sure if this has been said yet, but why not a Superman game where you start as a young Clark Kent discovering his powers and upgrading them, eventually getting the big shot powers like laser vision, supersonic flight, etc. That way you wouldn't be invincible the entire time and there could be challenge on top of sticking to the canon.
The first main Batman series/movies was campy as all hell. That's not a good handling of the character. Batman has had 4 movies that people really liked out of 8, that's not a great handling of the franchise. Batman has had just as many bad or mediocre games before the Arkham games as Superman, that's not good handling. Batman has had roughly 3 times the cartoons of Superman in the past few decades, how many are regarded as great besides BTAS and Beyond? That's not a great handling.
Batman has had more chances in mainstream media than just about any hero in the past couple decades but there's only a few highlights in those 25~ years. Sorry, he hasn't been handled that much better than Superman until very recently.
Not really. Until the 89 Superman had much better adaptations than Batman and his stories were generally just as good. Its only been a bad two decades for Superman, in gaming.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
You guys sure seem to know your stuff. Now only if you could answer the OP. Whats the reason for the bad Superman games?
and we lead back to the character being boring and lame.
There's a problem in that there are just so few good Superhero games period, not just Supes. Even so many people have submitted some good ideas in this thread or tweaks to older games to improve them. People are answering.
Bad developers and publishers had the license. Batman has had like four or five genuinely good games and three are from Rocksteady.
Sibersk Esto
Banned
Superheros are characters that work best in the realm of unchecked imagination. Most superhero games are mediocre to bad, a quarter of them are God of War clones because that's easier. Sometimes, imagination and budget are at odds with each other.
Only two are made by Rocksteady. The third is made by Warner Bros and has glitches and shitty multiplayer
Art Vandilay
Member
Superman can see through walls and pretty much fly through anything except for Kryptonite. I doubt any developer could make this happen, or could at least make this work to a level where the masses would appreciate it.
Theognosis
Member
This cracked me up LOL!
It would be interesting to see Superman in the cover of NHL 2015.
Spring-Loaded
Member
to answer the thread though, I think video games tend to only nail more obvious, physical aspects of certain concepts (if they nail anything).
Take the Batman: Arkham games for example. They do a great job at providing the player with actions that would be answers to "If you could be Batman, what would you want to do?" Players can grapnel around, glide, hang upside down, hang criminals upside down, drive the Batmobile, Etc. the game has so barely scratched the surface of anything beyond traversal, fighting and stealth/predator gameplay though. The best "detective work" in the series has been in Arkham Origins, and those segments are really basic. You never have to actually piece anything together, though the crime-scene recreation looks cool. Saving people is pretty basic too, usually a side activity with no unique gameplay/gameplay mechanics associated with it you never have to dive off a roof and catch someone who's falling for example. Batman's games can just be "fight/take out these dudes" and still manage to be compelling.
Superman can't have as straight-forward and approach and be as good. You can't fall back on game conventions as much as with Batman, like skill trees, or more intricately designed locations, puzzles, basic enemy fodder that can still be a risk to the player, and so forth. Since that less straightforward stuff would seem underwhelming or inappropriate in a Superman game, that's probably why no one has been able to do it big. All the more conventional Superman game developers probably found that task too daunting and since licensed games have long been generally poor and meant more as cash grabs, no one has gone for it.
I remember seeing decent review scores for it. I'm sure it wasn't the end-all-be-all Superman game, but still.
Take the Batman: Arkham games for example. They do a great job at providing the player with actions that would be answers to "If you could be Batman, what would you want to do?" Players can grapnel around, glide, hang upside down, hang criminals upside down, drive the Batmobile, Etc. the game has so barely scratched the surface of anything beyond traversal, fighting and stealth/predator gameplay though. The best "detective work" in the series has been in Arkham Origins, and those segments are really basic. You never have to actually piece anything together, though the crime-scene recreation looks cool. Saving people is pretty basic too, usually a side activity with no unique gameplay/gameplay mechanics associated with it you never have to dive off a roof and catch someone who's falling for example. Batman's games can just be "fight/take out these dudes" and still manage to be compelling.
Superman can't have as straight-forward and approach and be as good. You can't fall back on game conventions as much as with Batman, like skill trees, or more intricately designed locations, puzzles, basic enemy fodder that can still be a risk to the player, and so forth. Since that less straightforward stuff would seem underwhelming or inappropriate in a Superman game, that's probably why no one has been able to do it big. All the more conventional Superman game developers probably found that task too daunting and since licensed games have long been generally poor and meant more as cash grabs, no one has gone for it.
I remember seeing decent review scores for it. I'm sure it wasn't the end-all-be-all Superman game, but still.
Theognosis
Member
I would put that x-ray vision to GOOD use in an open world game. Not for kids, I tell ya!
He's only that tough in certain incarnations, though. Keep that in mind.
Spring Loaded: I actually think skill trees would work well in a Superman game.
He does need a decent game.