Metacritic Games

Superman Returns: The Videogame (Xbox)

True to the fiction in every respect, this is the game based on the Superman universe that fans have been anticipating for decades. From excited citizens to the traffic on the streets, every detail of this vibrant city has a mind of its own. These 80 square miles are brought to life for the first time in a videogame. Go anywhere and do anything in Metropolis as Superman. Non-linear gameplay allows you to explore and play the game exactly how you want to at your own pace. Where and how you fly – to the top of skyscrapers, dodging elevated trains – is completely up to you, since gameplay is designed as a true open world experience. With notorious villains like Metallo and colossal challenges only Superman can overcome, you must navigate the Man of Steel to monitor and protect Metropolis from destruction. Three distinct types of gameplay — Flying, Rescue, and Combat — will keep the action constant and the challenges relentless. Play both film-inspired missions as well as original content created exclusively for the videogame. Graphics, sound, and gameplay have been taken to the next level to create a Metropolis like you've never seen it, with three dimensional sound, a complete orchestra soundtrack, and Oscar-wining sound designer. [Electronic Arts]

Electronic Arts
Third-Person Action, Beat-'Em-Up
Players: 1
T (Teen)
Developer: EA Tiburon
Released November 20, 2006

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

51 / 100

Critic Reviews

70	Cheat Code Central Definitely a renter for casual Superman fans and only those who want to fly around Metropolis at the end of a hard day should consider a purchase.
69	Official Xbox Magazine UK Our x-ray vision can see through this one. Not quite super enough. [Christmas 2006, p.126]
65	Armchair Empire Despite some satisfying leap-tall-buildings-in-a-single-bound moments above the skies of Metropolis and providing the best Superman adventure yet (again, not saying too much, if you examine the history of Superman games) with some moments of solid adventuring before getting too repetitively stale, Superman Returns just isn’t that super.
60	AceGamez As it is, they get enough right to make this a good choice for a new gamer, but for those looking for a challenge I'd look elsewhere.
60	GameSpy An uneven difficulty level, not much variety in quests and battles, clunky and temperamental controls, and the lack of any type of multiplayer will all quickly frustrate you.
60	Worth Playing As a game that manages to encapsulate the feeling of being Superman, Superman Returns does an excellent job.
60	Games Radar The targeting system sucks, often sticking to the enemy you just knocked down (and therefore can't attack until he gets up again) while another is bashing you in the back. The final aggravation is the camera, which constantly gets stuck on things in the environment, so you can't always see your foe.
50	IGN Punching out bad guys becomes about as fun as taking out the garbage, and the "epic" battle between Superman and the forces of evil is as simple and dull as a day of chores.
50	GameZone Superman Returns shares Spider-Man’s flaw of repetitive combat, but it has several mistakes that stand alone: a jerky, unreliable camera; boring mission objectives; and graphics that sit well below the standards of the first Xbox.
48	Game Almighty Note to self: When a good Superman game finally comes out, see if the Captain can do that “around the world to go back in time” thing from Superman II so he can bring me a copy NOW!
44	GameSpot After the thrill of flying around Metropolis wears off, Superman Returns is nothing more than a below-average, repetitive movie tie-in that doesn't even do the movie tie-in part well.
40	DailyGame Think of Superman Returns as an insanely boring exercise in flying from one end of Metropolis to the other -- non-stop and for 10 hours -- while waiting for the next "battle 10 robots" or "battle eight dragons" or "battle six radioactive gargoyles" button-mashing sequence to ensue.
38	eToychest Oddly enough, the music sounds quite good, with orchestrated ditties that are downright inspiring. Too bad the rest of the game inspires nothing but an urge to power off your console.
30	Jolt Online Gaming UK Superman Returns: The Videogame is an embarrassment to video games, not to mention the Superman franchise, and is a new low for the quality of movie tie-ins.
30	Official Xbox Magazine It may flesh out the recent movie, but on Xbox, it feels like a picked-over meal. [Feb. 2007, p.78]
25	The Onion (A.V. Club) A making-of documentary on how such a precious franchise was so flagrantly mishandled would be far more entertaining than anything the game has to offer.