Superman Returns 360 (demo)

[dvdmike]

Do I have a thing for so bad they are good demo's ?
Im not sure but bits of this are so nearly right, flying thro the city just feels right I just hope the graphics are not representitive of the final game

[prinnysquad]

I played this and my immediate thought was: URGH. The controls are shit and the graphics terrible. However, as I played on I learnt the controls properly and played about a bit, ending the demo feeling quite impressed. It's nothing in particular that I can lay my hands on but there are some very neat touches, and a limited potential for sandbox goodness.

As dvdmike says, the flying is excellent when you get used to the controls, especially the super-speed option, where you seem to break the sound barrier or something. On foot, you can use that super-speed option to run really fast and its a very satisfying feeling sprinting through the rows of cars lining the streets.

Then I discovered that you could blast things with heat rays, ice rays and a wind blast, locking on with the L trigger to good effect. You can heat/freeze smaller objects like people and cars as well as the bad guys.

You can also pick up things, cars, lamposts, etc, to throw; i walked along, picked up a cop car, aimed at 45 degrees, held the trigger, then Superman threw it for hundreds of metres. It bounced off a crane, sending it spinning into cars below, causing general chaos. Satisfying stuff. You can carry cars in flight too.

The missions themselves were very generic, triggered by time and location it seems. They are a bit basic, introducing the player to the various weapons at Superman's disposal. I expect the missions in the game are a lot meatier.

Hmm, the graphics. It doesn't look anywhere near as good as Just Cause, and the vehicles are like something from GTA3 or worse, very box-like. You also can't see much happening below you when you fly at a certain height.

However, at the end of the demo there's a montage of in-game footage from Inner Metropolis itself, and it looks far better. Not stunning, just pleasingly competent. The missions hinted at a reasonable level of variety too. There seems to be an asteriods-style mission where Superman has to blast/punch meteorites from the sky before they fall to the city. There's some arena-based fights and fetch and carry missions. And that big metal thing.

Expecting nothing, I came away rather glad I'd played it.

[angelx]

Its a bit soulless and nowhere near as good as that Hulk or Spiderman 2 game on xbox & ps2 but if cheap i think it could be fun.

[Paulos G]

I blew a giant hamburger into the street. It was worth downloading the demo to do that!

[nick_the_judge]

i liked it but i could see the missions getting very boring, its just fly there kill the bad guy resuce people then repeat. Or at least that's what it looks like from the demo

[MarioMark]

i liked it but i could see the missions getting very boring, its just fly there kill the bad guy resuce people then repeat. Or at least that's what it looks like from the demo
That's the life of superman man my friend :D

[Shozuki]

I actually enjoyed the demo, i'll prolly buy it from P-A

[ezee ryder]

Hmm like prinnysquad didn't expect much going into this demo and came out thinking the game is decent. Graphics are average with a slight sheen but they do the job. Gameplay is pretty much like the Spiderman games (on ps2, gamecube and xbox) which aint a bad thing because they too were decent games. I enjoyed flying around the city, like dvdmike said it feels right. On a side note, liked the cool smashing the ground effect when you press the land button, looked nice!

[D J Kix]

kill the bad guy

:o

[Lebowski]

awful graphics, it looks like a sub standard ps2 game, just plain lazy if you ask me, and i cant believe many on here get on with the controls yeah they work but it didn't so much feel like you were flying more sort of floating.

The Most fun i had was picking people up and sticking them in stupid places or just freezing them or smacking them with cars, but after that five minute distraction its all pretty soulless.

I didnt like the fact that it makes you clean up either and puts loads of silly way points all over your screen if you hurt people which don't disappear until you get them to an ambulance.

[Stroppy]

awful graphics, it looks like a sub standard ps2 game, just plain lazy if you ask me, and i cant believe many on here get on with the controls yeah they work but it didn't so much feel like you were flying more sort of floating.

The Most fun i had was picking people up and sticking them in stupid places or just freezing them or smacking them with cars, but after that five minute distraction its all pretty soulless.

I didnt like the fact that it makes you clean up either and puts loads of silly way points all over your screen if you hurt people which don't disappear until you get them to an ambulance.
That's about the most fun I had as well, although it seemed not to let me drop people from a great height. Hovering at rooftop level and setting fire to cars was fun for a minute as well. It seems GTA has killed off the virtual good Samaritan in me and turned it into a virtual nobend.

You'd think a right hook from the Man of Steel would do more damage than flooring a pedestrian for a minute, only to have him get up and leg it.

I don't think I'll be buying this until it's cheap as chips

[EvilBoris]

I discovered a move called the Fist of Jor-el which strangely causes superman just to keel over and lie on the floor.

I had the most fun in the demo picking up an injured woman and repeatadly flying into a wall at high speed whilst holding her.
The game looked kinda fun , but after playing the demo it appears that the City isn't actually that big. After the dev teams touted is as having an amazing system that really makes you feel like you are flying, I feel somewhat dissapointed.

Also Superman Runs like a Nob at superspeed.

[Daragon]

Gameinformer's review appears to be on the money for once. I agree with it completely, apart from allowing for some reason an infant to write it up, replacing all the grown up adult words with "poopie" and "doo doo head"

Seriously GI, the workplace is unsafe for children.

Edit: Hmm, seems their review has mysteriously vanished - interesting....

[wush]

I have a hard time believing this is a real game. The city looks like it was automatically generated for a late 90s PC title. :D

[Legendary]

Played it for 3 minutes. Hated it, delete it straight away.

[MJ]

It's like The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, which I enjoyed, but worse and with barely HD visuals.

Why have they beefed up Superman too, it looked wrong.

[Ben-K]

Boris, please tell me you didn't make that Fist of Jor-El stuff up. I'm in tears here!

I love how no-one bothers with analogue controls any more. There are two speeds of flying: So fast you keep flying into buildings and so slow the damsel in distress will need dentures by the time you get to rescuing her. Nothing inbetween. Oh, and when you hit superspeed it jerks horribly and all the textures seem to go lo-res. Mind you, that's pretty hard to spot when the building and floor textures are so bland.

The living, breathing City of Metropolis feels like it's been made out of loo roll and sticky backed plastic by Mark Curry and Yvette Fielding and has been populated with extras from Dead Rising. Nothing seems to have any weight to it. I know Supes is supposed to be strong and all that, but still...

Having said all that, if they fix everything that's so very very wrong with it before release it'll be at the very least as good as Spiderman 2.





And I hated Spiderman 2....

[Crisp_Rapper]

i am intrigued by boris' comments and must acquire this demo. it sounds (the) shit.

[EvilBoris]

I worked out how to do Jor el's fist!

RB+X whoop, now you can replicate Supes incredible neurofen acting skills.

"Do you suffer from migraines?"

[MartyG]

Only just d/l this as having read the comments here and listening to the slating it got on the 1up show I was really not expecting much, but with little else appearing on live recently, it got added to the d/l queue.

I was actually quite surprised that it played alright - certainly it's not a Mona Lisa in the graphics department, but it's far from the "redefinition of bad games" 1UpYours claimed it was. I've played far worse games in recent times, ( see my Pirates of the Caribbean review ).

I thought the super powers were quite well executed, the zooming at superspeed was nicely done, and you can be an evil Superman, there's not a need to rescue people at all.

I wouldn't pay full price for the game, but at bargain money I'd take a look. It hasn't redefined my bad game level by any stretch.