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Re-Reviewed: Superman 64 is famous for all the wrong reasons

By Ian Goodwillie

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - MAY 23: The Superman costume as worn by Christopher Reeve in Superman III is displayed at the Auction House of Bonhams and Goodman on May 23, 2009 in Melbourne, Australia. The Costume will be auctioned tomorrow and is expected to make between AUD$15,000-20,000. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - MAY 23: The Superman costume as worn by Christopher Reeve in Superman III is displayed at the Auction House of Bonhams and Goodman on May 23, 2009 in Melbourne, Australia. The Costume will be auctioned tomorrow and is expected to make between AUD$15,000-20,000. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images) /
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Superman 64 was not one of the Man of Steel’s finest moments. 

Comic books and video games have a long history together, with characters who originated in one world regularly making the transition to the other. This collaboration has produced a variety of incredible video games over the years. Superman 64 certainly wasn’t one of them.

This was easily one of the biggest critical and commercial failures in the history of video games. And it was an outlandish black mark on the record on the Nintendo’s otherwise popular N64 system. The Man of Steel deserved better, a phrase that’s usually reserved for his film appearances.

Superman in video games

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Superman & Lois — “The Eradicator” — Image Number: SML114a_0320r.jpg — Pictured: Tyler Hoechlin as Superman — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW — © 2021 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved /

When it comes to video games, Superman has a long history in the medium. Superman 64 was not his first foray into gaming by far. The earliest game featuring the iconic character was 1979’s Superman which was released for the Atari 2600. It’s known in part for being one of the first games with a pause option built into it.

Since then, Superman has been featured in 17 games starring him in addition to being a playable character in 12 other games. This doesn’t exactly make him the most prolific comic book video game character of all time but those are some solid numbers.

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Frankly, very few of his solo titles are much to write home about. That being said, other games that have featured him like the Injustice franchise or any Lego game he’s been in have been great. The upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League game looks interesting as he and the Justice League are its brainwashed villains. It’s even part of the Arkham Asylum franchise.

Superman joins the N64 world

Developed and published by Titus Interactive, Superman 64 was released in 1999 after approximately two years of development. As anyone who has played that abomination can tell you, it needed at least another three years of development before being released.

Players had to navigate outdoor missions to get Superman to the indoor missions. The problem was that none of them were really even playable. Once Superman was flying, the only way to get him to stop was by crashing into the wall. A lot of the game was spent guiding Superman through rings as he flew through a poorly rendered virtual world.

The game was filled with massive glitches, broken frame rates, terrible AI, and so much more. But because of the association with the popular animated series, it got good press from previews. The reality of the full release was something much different.

Superman 64 drops the ball

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LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 22: Henry Cavill attends the European Premiere of ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ at Odeon Leicester Square on March 22, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images) /

Trying to fully encapsulate the absolute failure of Superman: The New Superman Adventures, aka Superman 64, is nearly impossible. It was based on Superman: The Animated Series and had all of the tools to be an awesome game. Spoiler alert! It wasn’t.

Basically, every single aspect of this game was broken and nothing worked. And it wasn’t just glitchy. It was a straight-up badly designed, unplayable mess that has next to no redeeming value whatsoever. The crazy part is that this is the same console people were playing GoldenEye on during this era of gaming.

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Superman 64 quite justifiably received incredibly bad reviews from critics and seemingly endless loathing from fans. Some critics even stated that the game was so bad that it damaged the reputation of Superman. To be fair, Man of Steel didn’t do him any favors, either.

Were you a fan of Superman 64? Let us know in the comments below! 

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