Isn't it enraging that the only good Superman game ever made was never, ever released for home consoles?
Not only that, it's the only Superman game ever made that used the trademark John Williams music from the movies. Just listen to it. There's even a hilariously "action-y" up-tempo version of the dopey love scene music on one stage.
Though it doesn't use any known Superman bad guys, it nonetheless feels like a Superman story: a fiendish green warlord leads a global alien invasion, one that apparently is only interested in attacking America's most scenic locations like the Las Vegas strip and San Francisco's Chinatown.
The aliens include a giant loincloth wearing Harryhausen cyclops,
Jumping bunny women;
This looks like a job…for Superman! And red Superman!
This reminds me of how, when you were a kid, you'd play Superman on the playground and everybody wanted to be Superman. If Superman comics were like our playground games, there would be approximately 500 Supermans flying around out there arguing who hit who.
But it gets more interesting, because have a look:
Unused sprites left in the game show a second playable female character. Possibly Supergirl? There might have been an idea to make Player 2 Supergirl, but palette swaps were easier. And besides, in an era of zero female game characters, some chauvinistic boys might not have liked playing a girl - even Supergirl.
(FYI, or those unaware, it's actually easier to leave in unused or unfinished content in a game rather than eliminate it totally, because if you yank something out it might create problems with programming it's "attached" to. So it's usually easier to just block something out. But those who get their hands on the game code can sift through it line by line like bread crumbs and find all kinds of surprises. There are many interesting examples, like an unused, incomplete level in Sonic 3, or like the fact Legend of Zelda: the Ocarina of Time, a fantasy game, has a futuristic tiny starfighter Arwing from "Starfox" that was added in to test the flight physics.)
In the tradition of the movies, Superman can apparently also either throw his fists (like Voltron?) or his fists can create charged up fireballs in the shape of a fist. Not entirely sure what's going on there.
In general, the game is worth trying if you can find a cabinet, even if it doesn't have any of the Superman enemies, supporting cast, or even Kryptonite, though the last one is annoyingly overused. The fact it is unavailable is a crime, and a sign of how totally possible it is to "lose" video game culture. Like movies in the silent era, they just weren't seen as important enough to preserve or keep in circulation.
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