Reviews

It's been nearly three years since Superman returned to the big screen, but the video game version still lines bargain bins and sale shelves up and down the country. So, does it warrant a place in your collection at a cheap price, or should it be tossed aside like Brandon Routh and the rest of the film's cast?

Returns follows a trend that a number of recent film tie-ins have employed, creating a (very) large open world city for you to travel around in, and fleshing the game out by including characters and sequences that weren't in the film. So, if you were starting to think you'd missed the part in the movie where Superman fought several giant robots that were terrorising the city, don't worry, you didn't, because it wasn't in there. In fact, most of the game is utterly irrelevant to the film, with only the occasional cut-scene recreating moments from this.

Heat vision - Kills bad guys fast, cooks pizzas faster.

Aside from a few exceptions, you'll spend your time flying (or running, if you want, but it seems like a waste of your cape) around the city, looking for enemies causing bother. Swoop in, beat them up, and take any injured civilians to a nearby ambulance to be rehabilitated. Occasionally you'll get to fight a boss character too. Winning a fight earns you experience points, which in turn let Superman level up and unlock new fighting combos, as well as improving his powers.

As you would expect, the Man of Steel can use his heat vision, super breath and freeze breath to assist in battle, when he's not relying on punching combos. Heat vision can burn up your enemies, while the freeze breath will turn them temporarily into blocks of ice for easy pummelling. Meanwhile, your super breath is great for putting out any building fires around the city.

It's a battle of the breaths, as Superman meets the giant dragon

Taking care of the city is especially important, as it's your key to success or failure. You see, provided there's none of that green stuff around (Kryptonite, not broccoli), Superman is basically immortal. Knock him down, and with a bit of button mashing, he'll be up again in seconds. Therefore, the big blue bar on the screen represents the health of Metropolis, which the villains will slowly chip away at while doing their evil deeds. You need to clear them all out before this is reduced to zero, or you'll be forced to restart from the last checkpoint.