Customer Reviews

Superman: Shadow of Apokolips

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Moreso than any other superhero, Superman has fallen victim to poor game development. The last truly great game he enjoyed was on the Atari 2600. Since that time, he's endured a horrible NES game, a pair of weak 16-bit games and the unbelievably horrid Superman 64 for the Nintendo 64. Let's not even touch the Game Boy incarnation.

Now that Superman has arrived on the next generation systems, is he faring any better? His X-Box game, Superman: The Man of Steel, sadly leaves a lot to be desired. Thankfully, though, his PS2 and GameCube games finally give Superman his best video game to date.

This is little more than a straightforward linear action game, but even if it's not innovative, it's incredibly fun. For the first time, all of Superman's powers are at your disposal. You can use your heatvision, super breath, superspeed and super strength to your advantage, and can do so in a variety of interesting ways, including the tornado spin and the ground pound. The feeling of satisfaction that comes with sending an enemy across the room with a mere puff of your breath is something to behold.

The game is based on the stellar animated series that debuted in the mid-'90s and features all of the voice talent that made that show great. From Tim Daly to Clancy Brown to Malcolm McDowell, fans of the show will find everyone sounding exactly like their animated counterparts, and beautifully rendered "cel-shaded" video sequences highlight the similarity to the show as the game's storyline develops.

This GameCube incarnation of Shadow of Apokolips is actually superior to the PS2 version. With a more populated Metropolis environment, refined graphics and controls, more special "cheat" features and additional hidden goodies to seek out, gamers will be coming back to this one long after the PS2 version would wear out its welcome. GameCube users will also experience the joys of flying around Metropolis in a "free flight" mode not available in the PS2 version. Infogrames has done well to improve on an already solid gaming experience.

It's not a flawless game, however. The controls take a little bit of getting used to, but once you have a handle on them you should be pulling off complicated manuvers with ease. The enemies are repetitive throughout - an endless series of "Interbots" for Superman to exercise his powers on, broken up by the occasional boss. X-ray vision is one power that is sadly poorly implemented in the gameplay. But with all of the other powers at your disposal, why be picky? There's so much more to love here than there is to complain about. The immersion in Superman's animated universe is a delight that extends from the orchestrated music to the colorful visuals.

Superman fans and fans of straightforward, just-plain-fun action games will do well to pick this one up. People who prefer more different and innovative styles of gameplay or don't care for the Man of Steel are advised to look elsewhere.

Official Synopsis:
THIS IS A JOB FOR SUPERMAN!
Horrific waepons from the planet Apokolips have fallen into the hands of super villains. Only Superman has the power to thwart their insidious plot to take over the world.

My Thoughts:
Superman: Shadow of Apokolips is the best incarnation of Superman on a gaming console, or in a game. The horrendous Superman 64 was quite possibly the worst game ever created. But Infogrames and Atari obviously read the reviews for that game, and made a much better one. SOA is a good game but semi-short. I tried to rent this game before I bought it, but I couldn't find it ANYWHERE. I called Blockbuster, Crazy Mike's, and all the Grocery Stores and couldn't find it. I couldn't even find a game store that stocked it! So, I ended up buying it online, and I have no regrets. I reccommend it to super-hero fans, but rent it (if you can find it) before you buy it.

After playing Batman: Vengeance, it was an exhilarating change to have a protagonist who could fall off the side of a building and survive. My first impressions were: freedom!

But freedom comes at a price. Superman: Shadow of Apokolips is the first of its kind to allow you to play Superman with all of his abilities and in a fully rendered three-dimensional environment, but there are clipping errors and strange forced perspectives that ultimately dampen the game's enjoyment.

The plot is a loosely connected series of events involving the extra dimensional arch villain, Apokolips. Through his minion, Canto, he sets up a series of military-style attacks with "Apokoliptian technology" that he provides to Lex Luthor. Lex eventually sets a series of super villains free from Stryker Prison, including Livewire, Parasite, and Metallo. Or just Metallo's head in this case.

Lex is provided with a cadre of Interbots, strange goggle-eyed guys in masks. But don't worry, they're robots, so Superman can punch them without any gore. I was willing to accept the old G.I. Joe chestnut (i.e., "we have powerful guns, but let's run up to the bad guys and smash them in the face with our rifle butts!").

Punching Interbots is decidedly unsatisfying. Killing Interbots can be amusing at first. Setting them on fire with heat vision causes them to run around, arms flailing. They will sometimes run away, screaming in mechanical voices "This unit is compromised" or something like that. And yet, there's no feeling of Superman's awesome strength. When he hits Interbots, I want to see them go through walls, not just bounce around like rag dolls.

And there are so MANY of them. Superman fights Interbots, Interbot tanks, Interbot missle launchers, Interbot troop transports, Interbot gun emplacements, Interbots with jet packs, and Interbot helicopters. I don't ever recall seeing this many Interbots in the Superman cartoon.

Because of the sheer number of opponents, certain tactics are encouraged over others. Superman has a wide variety of abilities, including his x-ray vision, heat vision, super breath, super speed, flight, and super strength. But his best ability is an area attack slam that drops him at high speed onto the ground, knocking back and destroying everything in sight. This ability was more useful than punching Interbots. So suddenly, Superman becomes a living torpedo. Not necessarily a bad thing, but hardly representative of the Superman cartoon.

The game looks exactly like the movie, rendered in cell-shaded animation. All the voices actors are present, including Lori Petty as Livewire and Malcom McDowell as Metallo. But even those villains aren't the type who can go punch for punch with Superman.

Of all of the villains, only Livewire can fly. Superman slowly regenerates his damage and his super abilities. This means that if he is significantly harmed, you can just fly him away to a safe place and heal there. When fighting Metallo, I did this several times, while Metallo patiently waited down on the ground.

But I don't want to put the game down entirely. The game's plot is entertaining and even has a few twists. When the villains do show up, they are fully realized. I had a difficult time beating Livewire so I had plenty of opportunities to hear her wax poetic about electricity. I can't stand Lori Petty (except for her role in Tank Girl), but she really does act her heart out mocking Superman. Metallo does the same thing. There's a lot of entertainment value in just listening to them mock Superman. Superman returns the favor by talking to himself. Over and over and over. It gets annoying.

In terms of gameplay, there are a few high points. Superman must achieve the random feat of strength - plugging a damn, struggling through a wind tunnel. The game represents these challenges by requiring the player to tap a button repeatedly. Sadly, that mechanic isn't used enough.

The parts of the game that were most challenging (and sometimes frustrating) are the timed events. In essence, Superman must run an obstacle course before time runs out. If he fails...the screen goes white.

OH NO, SUPERMAN MUST BE DEAD!

Ahem. Given that Superman is near immortal, it's difficult to comprehend losing the game because, say, he didn't successful stave off a wind tunnel. So what? Superman would probably end up destroying the fan behind him without a scratch on him. Batman's mortality is precisely what raises the stakes - in Superman, it's hard to feel a sense of urgency for a man of steel.

At one point, Lex releases Metallo and encourages him to go after Superman. But Metallo, a cyborg, was originally created by Lex Luthor and ultimately betrayed by him by removing Metallo's head from his body. The first order of business for Metallo is to go after Lex.

The best part of the game is when Metallo shows up at Lex's office.

LEX: "Hello, Metallo. I was expecting to you."
METALLO: "Good, now stand right still while I remove YOUR head from YOUR body."
LEX: "Mercy?"

Lex nods towards Mercy, his female bodyguard who is carrying a large machinegun.

METALLO: "Not even if you beg."
LEX: "No you idiot, I mean her, behind you."
METALLO: "Do you seriously think I'm going to fall for-"

And that's when Mercy cuts loose with her machinegun, inflicting absolutely no damage whatsoever to Metallo. Unfortunately, Superman steps in at that point. It's telling that the best part of the game is a cut scene.

Overall, Superman: Shadow of Apokolips is an excellent realization of everyone's favorite superhero. Unfortunately, the game developers had difficulty providing challenges for the man of steel.

Super Speed, Super Strength, Heat Vision, X-Ray Vision, Super Hearing, Super Breath, and of course the ability to fly - it's all here. There are 3 things that stand out about this game in my mind, 1) Wonderful story telling, 2) Superman's flying - who knew it could be so easy to control?, 3) No repeats. When you lose at certain points of a stage, you don't go back all the way to the begining of the stage but to when you were last sucessful. This is a great game!

Faster than a speeding bullet, More powerful than a locamotive, Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, Blasted from the doomed planet Krypton! His incredible strengh has made him....SUPERMAN! Superman shadow of apokolipsis my favorite game. It has great gameplay and graphics are based of the animated series. Any fan of the cartoon would love to own this game. Superman has the same powers as he is known to have, including flying,laser eyes, x-ray vision, incredible speed and super hearing. His super hearing is actually how he locates all his enemies in the game.

Now this is a game I had high hopes for. It's simple, I love comic book games, next to survival horror they are a favorite of mine. So when Superman Shadow of Apokolips was coming to us all on home console, I was pretty crazed.

Weird he'd say that after leaving such a score you may ponder? Well its simple really, Superman had alot of great things going for it. I enjoyed the cartoon style graphics, I felt the overall appearence of Superman S of A made me feel as if I was Mr. Kent in the thick of things.

But I felt that they neglected some things that could have improved the games overall ability. One thing I will state is that I wished upon a star that they would have made the game multiplayer... now that would have been fun. Thus it didn't happen and we ended up with this game, which I don't mean to sound drab about.

Look it's like this... if you are a Superman fan... rent it first if you like it great you can get it cheap. If your looking for blockbuster comic-to-movie style mayhem look elsewhere. Thats the bottom line, by the way this review is for the PSX2 version of this game. Thats the one I own and played and beat so there Ha Ha. :)

While this Atari title is acceptable, it still has much to be desired. For example, the graphics are terrible. I know that they could have been better. Gameplay is fun, but can get old after a while. The game has many of the villans, including Mettalo, Livewire, and Parasite. For any Superman, fan this game is a must buy.

Basically, I think this game is really boring. Yeah it has good graphics, WOOPIDEEDOO! That still doesn't make up for the flaws. The gameplay is ok, but kind of confusing to learn at first. Once you learn the controls you can beat up goofy looking robots, OH BOY! If you like that, guess what, you get to do it the whole first half of the game! Then, you can fight more goofy-looking robots, because that's pretty much all you do. So if you like beating up lots and lots of robots, then this game is right for you, otherwise, I suggest you get as far away from this game as possible.