With assets recently surfacing from a sadly cancelled Superman game, commenter Uncle Jesse wonders how anyone could make a game that does justice to the Man of Steel. Let's figure it out in today's Speak Up on Kotaku.
How do you even make a Superman game?
The last Superman game I enjoyed was The Death and Return of Superman on the SNES and it was just a side-scrolling beat-em-up. It was pretty much Batman Returns, but, ya know, with Supes. We've already witnessed what they can do with Bats, but what about The Man of Steel? Is there even anything that would work?
Obviously, Superman needs an open world/sandbox to live in, but the problem here is that Superman is good; there is no morality system or playing through it as a 'bad' Superman or something. So you would have a nice sandbox, but you can't even play around in it. You couldn't just go pick up a school bus and chuck it into the sun because Superman doesn't do that. This is where it all gets tricky and I start to question whether or not Superman can even work in the video game world.
How do you give the player total freedom, while simultaneously limiting it?
About Speak Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That's why we have a forum on Kotaku called Speak Up. That's the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Every weekday we'll pull one of the best Speak Up posts we can find and highlight it here.
(Art by Frank Quitely | All-Star Superman)