Retroulette #2: Superman

This time, the Choose-o-tron spits out a game somebody out there may have actually played. Superman, for the Genesis (or the Mega Drive, if you're wrong).

Upon starting the game, you're given a quick clip of Clark Kent undressing in a phone booth and Superman popping out the other side.

Wait, is that how phone booths work? I don't know how they do things up in Metropolis, but I ain't ever seen no phone booth with doors on every side. I think you broke that phone booth Superman.

You may be thinking to yourself: What's got ol' Supes all hot and bothered this time? I'll let a one Mr. David S. tell you: STRANGE DISAPPEARENCE (sic) OF CHILDREN!

Correct spelling: Not a priority. There's missing kids man!

I wish I understood "squares" because I'd love to know what makes this different from all the every day ho hum child disappearances. Superman clearly understands squares, because after that title and a picture of a generic building he's off!

Strong enough to tear through paper.

And then the adventure begins.  Superman must have identified that building from the newspaper because Round 1 begins on top of buildings. Testing out my arsenal of moves I find I am confined to a punch, and a Super Punch, leaving me with less moves than the average roller skating street youth.

He could, like, spin and stuff.

It's not long before your mighty fists are tested, as such enemies as "Green Guy", "Flying Robot", and "Different Flying Robot" are ready to stop you from finding those strangely missing kids. Well, not really. I found if you ignore the enemies, mostly they just ignore you and go off screen. Green Guy just runs from one side of the screen to the other, only stopping if you get in his way. These don't seem like such bad guys really. If you choose not to engage them, however, your score (that every old game has, for some reason) will suffer. So if you aspire to get to the top of the Superman Genesis leaderboards, it's in your best interest to pick fights with every manner of "enemy".

If you do start punching out this gang of rooftop pedestrians you will quickly realize that they must all be wearing Kryptonite underwear. Superman is a character that has traditionally struggled in the realm of video games. He's got so many powers, and he's so strong there isn't much of anything that can prove a challenge for him, leading some to think he's boring. The developers have tried to combat this with this game by weakening him a little bit, making him more vulnerable. Well, a lot actually. Superman is weak as shit in this game. He's still boring though, so it's definitely still true to the character.

At the end of the rooftop portion of the level, The Man of Steel flies up the side of an impossibly tall skyscraper. The people in the building throw either garbage bags or rocks at you. Either way, not cool, citizens of Metropolis.

Do you guys even want your kids back?

This part is a little more "Superman". You're flying, and you can shoot (a ridiculously weak) laser beam. I wish I could tell you what happens next, but those garbage bags are a doozy.

Presumably a superman villain? I admittedly know very little about Superman. Make mine Marvel.

HOW MUCH DID THE COVER ART LIE?

 

 

Not a lot really. Superman is punching through stuff, and he does that a lot in this game. The character on the box is actually in the game, which is more than you can say for most old game boxes. It is a licensed game though, so it doesn't have as much leeway to place, for example, an old man eating a sandwich on the front.