While not exactly a great game, the bar is so low for Superman video games that it doesn’t take much to leap over it with a single bound.
Superman Returns (2006 – PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360)īased on the so-so cinematic Superman reboot starring Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel, this game approached Superman’s invulnerability in a clever way – instead of Supes himself having a health meter, it’s the city of Metropolis that takes damage if Superman fails to stop fires, meteors and rampaging villains quickly and effectively. Awesome visuals, slick combat and a real devotion to the source material made Arkham City not just the best Batman game of all time, but possibly the best superhero game.
Here’s a small sampling of the best and worst games starring comicdom’s most famous heroes.īatman: Arkham City (2011 – PS3, Xbox 360, PC)Īlthough last year’s Batman: Arkham Knight on current-generation consoles and PCs was a better-looking game and featured a driveable Batmobile (for better or for worse), this series reached its pinnacle with the previous instalment. Some of them do justice to the costumed crimefighters they’re based on (such as 2004’s Spider-Man 2 or 2013’s Deadpool), and some are pretty damn bad ( Catwoman, for example, which is nearly as awful as the 2004 film it’s based on – or the inexplicable Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis.)īut as unbalanced as their cinematic slapfight may seem, pitting Batman and Superman video games against one another is an even more one-sided affair, and perhaps not in the way you’d expect. Superhero games have always been a mixed bag. And although they turn out to be sort of evenly matched – thanks in part to Superman’s reluctance to squash Batman like a bug, and Batman having some very useful tricks up his armoured sleeve – the same can’t be said for their video-game counterparts.
Yet these two titans clash in this week’s long-awaited Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, director Zack Snyder’s second movie in the relatively new DC cinematic universe. So, a guy with throwing stars and a grappling hook going up against a guy who can flatten a tanker trunk with his pinky and is essentially invulnerable? Yeah, that sounds fair. In the other corner you’ve got Superman, an alien demigod who can fly, deflect bullets, lift hundreds of tonnes and incinerate metal with his heat vision. In one corner you’ve got Batman, an ordinary dude who happens to be in pretty good shape and has a lot of money to spend on gadgets.
On paper, it sounds like a lopsided fight.