The Death and Return of Superman

The Good
This game follows the storyline found in the DC comics of the same name fairly well. You get a chance to play characters you will probably never get a chance to play again (Superboy, Steel, the Cyborg and the Eradicator). From a graphics perspective, the scenery changes notably enough to leave the player wanting to see what happens next. Smooth gameplay and nice tight controls kept me playing this one to the finish.

The Bad
When all is said and done, this is a standard beat-em-up with a handful of different enemy designs. It doesn't make much difference what character you are, and that's some wasted potential.

The Bottom Line
You've seen it all before, but it was one of the better Superman titles.

The Good
Having a couple of different Superman variations to play as is a nice touch, as well as the different moves Superman could do (throwing people off of buildings, smashing them into walls, etc.). There are also a couple of villains that have been taken from the comic books and put into the game.

The Bad
All of the Supermen have almost exactly the same attacks. The landscapes are really uninspired and are repeated through the entire level. Every flying level is verbatim of the last and plays like an incredibly rushed shoot 'em up. The difficulty is ridiculous and you only get to fight 2-3 of the same enemies through the entire level(fighting takes forever and levels are stretched out longer than they should be).

The Bottom Line
I love brawl/beat 'em up type games, but this one is untouchable. The only reasons I could see owning/buying this game is either you're a huge Superman fan or you actually liked Superman 64.

The Good
I honestly really want to like this game. It's got very nice graphics and music. The controls are very nice. It's simple, but decent. You can punch guys, pick up and throw large objects including vehicles, shoot lasers from your eyes, and fly. There really is a lot going for it.

The Bad
This game is very frustrating. To begin with, your heat vision attack is completely useless. It does such small damage that it's totally unusable as a normal attack. It has the added effect of stunning enemies, which could have been a nice effect, but most normal enemies are only stunned for about two seconds or so, and bosses aren't stunned at all. If you could use it to stun bosses, this might actually have been useful. Mostly, however, the real issue is that everything in the game hurts you, knocks you around, and otherwise prevents you from doing what you want to do. This is especially maddening when you're supposed to be Superman, a guy who's nigh invulnerable. It just makes you want to scream every time a boulder, chainsaw, or Molotov cocktail flattens you. Most of these attacks are impossible to avoid because of the somewhat slow movement of a guy who's supposed to be faster than a speeding bullet.

The Bottom Line
All-in-all, it's a somewhat mediocre beat-'em-up. It really does have potential, but the difficulty and slow movement make it irritating to play.