Anyone Play the Sopranos game for PS2

[Wadeb_21]

I was just wondering how good this game was. I don't have a PS2 but I do have a 360. If they bring it out for 360 I might pick it up if its any good. Sopranos is one of my favorite shows so I'm kinda interested int this game.

[ICB]

I was just wondering how good this game was. I don't have a PS2 but I do have a 360. If they bring it out for 360 I might pick it up if its any good. Sopranos is one of my favorite shows so I'm kinda interested int this game.

no i havent but it got 4.2 from gamespot.com and here is the review of it



Road to Respect shoehorns the Sopranos license into a clumsy, poorly designed action game that isn't the least bit enjoyable to play.
The Good: Many familiar characters voiced by the real actors.
The Bad: Boring, repetitive, and poorly designed combat; ugly graphics; linear missions that aren't at all interesting to play; several bugs, collision detection problems, and other technical shortcomings.

The Sopranos television series is in its twilight and is long past its peak of popularity, but that hasn't stopped THQ and 7 Studios from producing a game based on the show. The Sopranos: Road to Respect is a straightforward mission-based action game with a strong cast of identifiable characters and a fairly interesting story, but it's also ugly, short, riddled with bugs, and just no fun to play.


You'll see some familiar characters from the show, and boy, do they look ugly.

Road to Respect puts you in the shoes of Joey LaRocca, the son of informant-turned-corpse Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero. With your father out of the picture, you get taken in by Tony Soprano as a lowly thug for hire. It's up to you to do a lot of dirty work for the DiMeo crime family so that you can earn the respect of the bosses and eventually become a made man. You're given missions by Tony, Paulie, A.J., and other members of the family. Some missions have you roughing up thugs who are causing trouble; others have you carrying out orders to assassinate certain people. It's all very simple and linear, and all of the missions play basically the same, to the point that you'll revisit the same locations to beat up the same generic thugs multiple times throughout the game.

The missions are all combat-focused, so you start at one end of a level and move down a corridor or go from room to room beating up enemies two or three at a time. Usually there's a special character that you have to confront--and of course, beat up--at the end of each mission. The combat controls are extremely clunky and unresponsive, which makes the fighting frustrating and tedious. You have a quick attack, a strong attack, and a grapple. Most of the time a fight comes down to mashing the quick-attack button to punch a guy in the face about 50 times until he falls over dead. If you weaken an enemy enough you can grapple him and pull off special finishing moves. You can choke guys, break their arms and legs, or just slam them into walls and kick them in the head. These moves are fun to watch the first time you see them, but they quickly get old because you'll see the same few animations over and over again. There are also context-sensitive attacks where you use objects in the environment to finish off your enemies. You can slam a guy's head in a refrigerator door, introduce his face to a table saw, or shove his head in a toilet. Again, these are satisfying the first couple of times you see them, but there isn't enough variety to make them interesting or worthwhile in the long run.

Aside from being boring and repetitive, the combat is also poorly executed. The controls are unresponsive, so even when you're mashing on an attack button you sometimes won't be able to get an attack off. There are also collision detection issues that cause you to get hit by enemies who are standing several feet away, while you whiff while trying to hit an enemy who is right in front of you. The enemy artificial intelligence ranges from broken to cheap. Sometimes you'll be fighting three enemies at a time and they'll just punch you over and over until you're dead, because there's no way for you to move or attack between blows. Luckily that doesn't happen often, because the enemies usually have a hard time moving around even in an open environment. If there's a table or other obstruction in the room, you can bet that an enemy will get stuck on it and just stand there twitching until you put him out of his misery.

The melee combat makes up the bulk of the gameplay in Road to Respect, but you can also use weapons. There are items such as crowbars, baseball bats, and bottles that you can pick up and swing at your enemies. These items are usually worth using because they will cut down on the number of hits required to put down an enemy, but they still suffer from the same collision detection issues as the standard melee combat. You do get a gun in the game, but you rarely get a chance to use it. If you fire a gun in a public area you'll lose respect, and if your respect gets too low you'll get whacked. That's the only effect the whole respect meter has on the game, though, which makes it feel like a half-baked game mechanic that you'll probably forget about completely. When you do get to shoot your gun, you'll find it completely useless and unsatisfying. You can lock on to enemies by holding the L1 button and fire with the R1 button. There's only one gun in the game, though, and it's not very accurate. It usually takes half a dozen shots to finish off an enemy, so it's quicker to just pick up the nearest blunt object and brain him real quick. If you're on the other end of the barrel you won't find the gunplay any more exciting or intense. You can stand there as an enemy unloads on you from point-blank range and you'll barely even notice it. Stranger yet, the enemies won't fire until you're right up next to them, and even then they take several seconds to fire between shots, despite using semiautomatic pistols.

Other than constantly fighting, there is very little to do in this game. You can collect loot such as cell phones, drugs, and wallets, but there's no reason to do so because the money in the game is pointless. There are only a few things to spend money on, such as lap dances and offerings to the bosses, and none of those things have any impact on the game. There is a clunky and cumbersome game of Texas Hold 'Em included here, but the interface is so terrible that you'll have a hard time playing for more than a few hands.


You can play some Texas Hold 'Em with Tony Soprano, but you really, really shouldn't.

The presentation in Road to Respect is sloppy. The character models are blocky and ugly, and the animation is horribly stiff and awkward. There are also severe clipping problems, so you'll constantly see characters pass completely through solid objects. There are only about half a dozen stages in the game, and none of them look very good. There's the small, empty Bada Bing! strip club that inexplicably has you waiting as the game loads when you move from one tiny area to another. There's a gym, a warehouse, a hospital, and a few other generic locations that are basically just one long hallway for you to run from one end of to the other. The sound is actually fairly well done. All of the cast members from the television show provide the voices of their respective characters in the game, and most of them sound good. The generic characters sound terrible, though, and the dialogue is full of awful lines that are mostly poorly hacked-together strings of various forms of the F-word. Other than the familiar theme song that plays over the title screen, the music is forgettable--you'll hear the same handful of songs repeated in different stages throughout the game.

It will take you less than eight hours to play through The Sopranos: Road to Respect, and in that time you might die once or twice. The game is very linear, repetitive, and easy, which means it isn't at all fun to play. To make matters worse, the game is ugly, clunky, and full of bugs and glitches. Even if you're a devout fan of the show, there's absolutely no reason to play this game


http://uk.gamespot.com/ps2/action/th...os/review.html

[Wadeb_21]

I was just wondering how good this game was. I don't have a PS2 but I do have a 360. If they bring it out for 360 I might pick it up if its any good. Sopranos is one of my favorite shows so I'm kinda interested int this game.

no i havent but it got 4.2 from gamespot.com and here is the review of it



Road to Respect shoehorns the Sopranos license into a clumsy, poorly designed action game that isn't the least bit enjoyable to play.
The Good: Many familiar characters voiced by the real actors.
The Bad: Boring, repetitive, and poorly designed combat; ugly graphics; linear missions that aren't at all interesting to play; several bugs, collision detection problems, and other technical shortcomings.

The Sopranos television series is in its twilight and is long past its peak of popularity, but that hasn't stopped THQ and 7 Studios from producing a game based on the show. The Sopranos: Road to Respect is a straightforward mission-based action game with a strong cast of identifiable characters and a fairly interesting story, but it's also ugly, short, riddled with bugs, and just no fun to play.


You'll see some familiar characters from the show, and boy, do they look ugly.

Road to Respect puts you in the shoes of Joey LaRocca, the son of informant-turned-corpse Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero. With your father out of the picture, you get taken in by Tony Soprano as a lowly thug for hire. It's up to you to do a lot of dirty work for the DiMeo crime family so that you can earn the respect of the bosses and eventually become a made man. You're given missions by Tony, Paulie, A.J., and other members of the family. Some missions have you roughing up thugs who are causing trouble; others have you carrying out orders to assassinate certain people. It's all very simple and linear, and all of the missions play basically the same, to the point that you'll revisit the same locations to beat up the same generic thugs multiple times throughout the game.

The missions are all combat-focused, so you start at one end of a level and move down a corridor or go from room to room beating up enemies two or three at a time. Usually there's a special character that you have to confront--and of course, beat up--at the end of each mission. The combat controls are extremely clunky and unresponsive, which makes the fighting frustrating and tedious. You have a quick attack, a strong attack, and a grapple. Most of the time a fight comes down to mashing the quick-attack button to punch a guy in the face about 50 times until he falls over dead. If you weaken an enemy enough you can grapple him and pull off special finishing moves. You can choke guys, break their arms and legs, or just slam them into walls and kick them in the head. These moves are fun to watch the first time you see them, but they quickly get old because you'll see the same few animations over and over again. There are also context-sensitive attacks where you use objects in the environment to finish off your enemies. You can slam a guy's head in a refrigerator door, introduce his face to a table saw, or shove his head in a toilet. Again, these are satisfying the first couple of times you see them, but there isn't enough variety to make them interesting or worthwhile in the long run.

Aside from being boring and repetitive, the combat is also poorly executed. The controls are unresponsive, so even when you're mashing on an attack button you sometimes won't be able to get an attack off. There are also collision detection issues that cause you to get hit by enemies who are standing several feet away, while you whiff while trying to hit an enemy who is right in front of you. The enemy artificial intelligence ranges from broken to cheap. Sometimes you'll be fighting three enemies at a time and they'll just punch you over and over until you're dead, because there's no way for you to move or attack between blows. Luckily that doesn't happen often, because the enemies usually have a hard time moving around even in an open environment. If there's a table or other obstruction in the room, you can bet that an enemy will get stuck on it and just stand there twitching until you put him out of his misery.

The melee combat makes up the bulk of the gameplay in Road to Respect, but you can also use weapons. There are items such as crowbars, baseball bats, and bottles that you can pick up and swing at your enemies. These items are usually worth using because they will cut down on the number of hits required to put down an enemy, but they still suffer from the same collision detection issues as the standard melee combat. You do get a gun in the game, but you rarely get a chance to use it. If you fire a gun in a public area you'll lose respect, and if your respect gets too low you'll get whacked. That's the only effect the whole respect meter has on the game, though, which makes it feel like a half-baked game mechanic that you'll probably forget about completely. When you do get to shoot your gun, you'll find it completely useless and unsatisfying. You can lock on to enemies by holding the L1 button and fire with the R1 button. There's only one gun in the game, though, and it's not very accurate. It usually takes half a dozen shots to finish off an enemy, so it's quicker to just pick up the nearest blunt object and brain him real quick. If you're on the other end of the barrel you won't find the gunplay any more exciting or intense. You can stand there as an enemy unloads on you from point-blank range and you'll barely even notice it. Stranger yet, the enemies won't fire until you're right up next to them, and even then they take several seconds to fire between shots, despite using semiautomatic pistols.

Other than constantly fighting, there is very little to do in this game. You can collect loot such as cell phones, drugs, and wallets, but there's no reason to do so because the money in the game is pointless. There are only a few things to spend money on, such as lap dances and offerings to the bosses, and none of those things have any impact on the game. There is a clunky and cumbersome game of Texas Hold 'Em included here, but the interface is so terrible that you'll have a hard time playing for more than a few hands.


You can play some Texas Hold 'Em with Tony Soprano, but you really, really shouldn't.

The presentation in Road to Respect is sloppy. The character models are blocky and ugly, and the animation is horribly stiff and awkward. There are also severe clipping problems, so you'll constantly see characters pass completely through solid objects. There are only about half a dozen stages in the game, and none of them look very good. There's the small, empty Bada Bing! strip club that inexplicably has you waiting as the game loads when you move from one tiny area to another. There's a gym, a warehouse, a hospital, and a few other generic locations that are basically just one long hallway for you to run from one end of to the other. The sound is actually fairly well done. All of the cast members from the television show provide the voices of their respective characters in the game, and most of them sound good. The generic characters sound terrible, though, and the dialogue is full of awful lines that are mostly poorly hacked-together strings of various forms of the F-word. Other than the familiar theme song that plays over the title screen, the music is forgettable--you'll hear the same handful of songs repeated in different stages throughout the game.

It will take you less than eight hours to play through The Sopranos: Road to Respect, and in that time you might die once or twice. The game is very linear, repetitive, and easy, which means it isn't at all fun to play. To make matters worse, the game is ugly, clunky, and full of bugs and glitches. Even if you're a devout fan of the show, there's absolutely no reason to play this game


http://uk.gamespot.com/ps2/action/th...os/review.html

Thanks Ice Cold. Man that review pretty much says the game sucks. I was hoping it was going to be good. Thanks again man have a cc on me.

[ICB]

no problem mate anytime cc back

[frozensolid_702]

anyone got the review for the new "scarface" game?









im curious

[Wadeb_21]

anyone got the review for the new "scarface" game?









im curious

I don't have the review but I have actually heard good things about that. I have heard that GTA Vice City is better but the Scarface game is pretty good I think I"m going to pick it up for Xbox 360 don't know yet though.

[ICB]

anyone got the review for the new "scarface" game?









im curious

its bit mixed mate on gamespot it got 6.4 on ign it got like 8.7 i have played it its good game 90 percent of people like it if you like gta game you should like scarface

[ICB]

US, October 6, 2006 - Games based on licensed properties, especially films, have had a long and bad rap, though for a while it was for good reason. Not too many years ago it was extremely rare that'd you find a licensed game that even bordered on being decent, though over the past few years we've seen a surprising number of great and even excellent movie-based games. With Scarface: The World is Yours, Sierra and Radical Entertainment have not only furthered the "new" expectation of licensed titles but have created one of the best so far.

Much of Scarface is based on what we've seen in Grand Theft Auto. In fact, it's fairly obvious that Radical used said series as the blueprint and then went back and re-evaluated its shortcomings. The result is that we have a game that fixes many of GTA's problematic elements, like the targeting system or having to drive out of the way to stock up on weapons, while also retaining many of its standardized and fun aspects. The developer has also introduced a number of unique features, most of which work out quite well. The result is an experience that fans of the genre will feel right at home with while offering enough original ideas to keep it feeling fresh.

While Scarface is indeed a GTA-esque game in every respect, it does have a slight bit of a different feel than said series, and in large part that winds up being a good thing. Instead of working through a seemingly random storyline with characters that come out of nowhere, Scarface does a fantastic job of putting you into the shoes of Tony Montana and letting you have your way with the city of Miami. Almost everything you do seems connected with overtaking the city, resulting in what feels like a much more "cohesive" experience than you'll find in other open world games. There's certainly a story here, but it's based around revenge and taking back what belongs to you, so it feels a tad more like a setting rather than an always-progressing narrative. Instead of helping a random mob boss simply because the story says so, everything you do is for your benefit and obviously so. Again, it's more basic than many other games we've seen in the genre, but it works very well, makes more sense and seems much more natural.

While being based around Tony's need for revenge and power certainly helps tie the gameplay to the license, there's a lot more to the game than this that helps it really feel like a Scarface title. Instead of retelling the story of the movie, Scarface picks up at the very end during the shootout in Tony's mansion. But rather than being shot in the back, Tony escapes alive but with nothing left to his name. This sets up the mood and setting for the game in a way that simply rehashing the events of the movie never could have. One major benefit here is that the game is able to quickly jump into the world without having to do a whole lot of somewhat needless exposition, though there's enough that so long as you know the basics of the movie then you'll be able to follow along without any problems.

The absolute best thing that ties the game to the movie however is how well the character of Tony Montana is represented. Though Al Pacino wasn't able to provide the extremely large amount of spoken dialog (although he did help choose the actor), the voice work for Tony Montana is absolutely superb. From his accent to inflections to the slight but noticeable way he accentuates curse words with ease mid-sentence, his voice work is dead-on. Tony's animations are basically perfect as well, capturing his wild shoulder jerks, free use of hand gestures and constant look of discomfort. The rest of the game's cast is also very good, featuring a list of celebrity talent that is way too long to even begin to list, but Tony is clearly the highlight here. Absolutely fantastic work on this front.


While Scarface does a fantastic job of bringing the world of the movie to gamers, it wouldn't be a great experience if the actual gameplay didn't match up. Luckily, Radical has delivered on most every aspect of this.

One of the wholly original elements of gameplay ties directly into the character of Tony Montana. One of the aspects of Tony's character that Sierra and Radical wanted to allow gamers to take advantage of is his seeming invulnerability during raging shootouts, and the Balls meter is the result. By performing a number of "ballsy" moves, like driving on the wrong side of the road or threatening a passerby, you'll fill the Balls meter. The quickest and most common way to do this is in battle. By targeting certain body parts (kidney, head, arms, groin, etc.) you'll earns Balls, and taunting someone after you kill them will earn you more. This latter element means that the game has a certain rhythm to combat where you'll kill someone, tap the taunt button and then move on to the next guy.

When you've filled the Balls meter, you're able to enter Rage mode whereupon you'll fight in a first-person perspective for a short while with unlimited ammo and invulnerability. Though you're playing in first-person, the game uses a loose lock-on system where you'll target anyone close to the center of the screen, helping non-FPS fans to take maximum advantage of this.

The catch to this mode and the part that has both a good and bad side is that you'll refill a bit of health for every person you kill while on a rampage. This means that you don't need to be reliant on finding health packs and it keeps combat flowing along at a quick pace. You're also rewarded for being the right bastard that Tony inherently is, which is great.

The downside is that missions are either much easier or much more difficult depending on how many Balls you have at the start. For example, one mission has you get dropped off at an ambush with no weapons. You need to kill a couple guys with machetes and then take out a slew of armed soldiers. The first time we tried this we had a full Balls meter and were easily able to recover from our unarmed beating at the beginning. Due to a mistake on our part at the end, we needed to retry the mission. Unfortunately, the game reset the Balls meter to nil and made the mission much more difficult than before. While picking up health packs isn't as natural to the gameplay as this, at least the designer would be able to perfectly plan a mission's layout. With the Balls meter, it's impossible for them to tell how full it'll be when you enter, which can be the difference between either walking through everyone or dying in seconds.

One of the ways that Radical has drastically improved upon most open world games is in terms of the aiming system. The controls work in a freelook manner, much like Max Payne or other third-person shooters, allowing you to freely aim and take out enemies. You'll actually earn more Balls for doing things this way, so you're rewarded for skill. If you want to use the lock-on system however, which most folks probably will, you simply need to aim near an enemy and press the appropriate button. This means that you don't need to tap the lock button and then hope it finds someone relevant. If you want to shoot at a specific soldier, simply aim in his general direction and then hit the button - it's simple and works very well. Once you've targeted an enemy, the aim controls then move your reticule inside the lock-on area, allowing you to target specific body parts for more Balls or a headshot or what have you. It's a great system that works almost flawlessly.


Where Scarface rises above most of its competition is in its elements beyond the core action. You're able to buy properties and turn them into fronts for selling drugs, take over warehouses and then go on dispersion missions to collect your loot, hire goons to protect your fronts and more. All of this is manageable via a nicely set up phone menu (which is far more advanced than what we remember from the '80s).

This whole system gives weight to buying properties. Rather than simply owning them to act as safe houses or to increase your ownership of the land (which they also do), you're directly rewarded for the areas that you take over. Each front also has drug demand and price stats for the area, so you'll want to make sure you drop off your stash at these areas first. If they're overrun with drugs however, you won't get as much. It's a pretty cool system that works great with the setting.

Another element that works somewhat well is the Heat system. You have separate Heat levels for both gangs and the police, and the "hotter" you are, the more likely you are to be found and/or shot at. You can pay them down instantly via your phone, but this takes away from your bottom line.

One issue that we have that relates to this is the police and how they're set up to chase you. When the police are on your tail, you have two meters to watch out for. One is their area of influence of such, which shows how far they're able to track you. When you attempt to escape from them, you need to leave this radius, both for the area and each cop chasing you, in order to actually escape. This works perfectly fine and makes sense.

The other meter is a white line that surrounds the map that shows how hot the cops are on your tail. When the white meter surrounds the map, it'll start filling up with a red bar. You need to escape the police before this fills up or you'll automatically be screwed. That is, the game is essentially over, but you're still allowed to run just for the fun of it. The problem with this is that it can happen mid-mission and commonly happens when you're taking out gangs on the street, especially if you're not careful to keep your cop Heat down. In other words, you can successfully fight off both a gang and the police and be perfectly in one piece, but if you take too long, you automatically fail. This is a rather annoying concept that we wish wasn't present.

The last, and sadly a little disappointing, thing that we'll talk about is that game's world, or specifically its layout. While there are a number of cool places to visit taken directly from the movie, along with a number of other original locales to drive and fight around, the actual roadways aren't laid out very well. Being that this is an open world game, you might expect to just be able to go "that way towards the target" and eventually get there, but that often isn't the case, at least when you don't use a boat. Many streets and city sections are connected only via one road, meaning that you have to take a specific turn to move to the next area. This means that until you've memorized exactly how things go, you'll constantly have to refer to the map to see which street you need to take. This certainly doesn't kill the game's overall experience, but it's not as "freeing" as we'd hoped.

Closing Comments
There are a whole lot of little things about Scarface: The World is Yours that make it fun, but it’s the sum of its parts that make it the overall great game that it is. It does a whole lot to fix many of the problems with other games in the genre, and it does an absolutely fantastic job of bring the world of Scarface to gamers. While it isn't quite perfect, we won't hesitate for a second to recommend it to action fans everywhere.
IGN Ratings for Scarface: The World is Yours (PS2)
Rating Description See Our Glorious Home Theater Setup!
out of 10 click here for ratings guideGet Ratings Information
8.5 Presentation
Great story/setting, nice phone system that lets you manage your empire and lots of little touches here and there that add to the experience.
8.0 Graphics
Not amazing, but extremely competent. Tony himself looks fantastic and everything runs quite well, but nothing will blow you away.
9.0 Sound
Absolutely fantastic voice acting for Tony. Weapon and other sound effects are very solid if not great. Soundtrack is really damn good, as well.
8.5 Gameplay
Nice shooting mechanic, the Balls meter is fresh (if not perfect), and there's a LOT of stuff to do. It's the deepest open world game we've seen yet.
8.0 Lasting Appeal
Lengthy single-player storyline and the open world means you can $#&@ around for a long, long time.
8.7
Great OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average) See All Award Recipients



http://uk.ps2.ign.com/articles/737/737776p3.html

[Greig]

Yeah, I like Scarface on PS2 but it aint a patch on GTA San Andreas or even Vice City IMO...


Still worth checking out.


Anybody know if Superman Returns is out on PS2?

[ICB]

Yeah, I like Scarface on PS2 but it aint a patch on GTA San Andreas or even Vice City IMO...


Still worth checking out.


Anybody know if Superman Returns is out on PS2?

yes its out and its got bad reviews everywhere dont get it mate here is the review



4.4
poor
Gameplay
5
Graphics
5
Sound
6
Value
4
Tilt
3
Difficulty: Medium
Learning Curve: About a half hour
Tech Info
After the thrill of flying around Metropolis wears off, Superman Returns is nothing more than a below-average, repetitive movie tie-in that doesn't even do the movie tie-in part well.
The Good: Large city to explore; nice soundtrack.
The Bad: There's not much to do in the large city; no variety to mission objectives; story is a confusing mess; boss battles can be insanely frustrating; unless you're a few miles above the city, it looks pretty rough.

Superman's great at saving the world, but he sure hasn't had much success when it comes to video games. The disastrous Superman 64 was no doubt the low point in the Man of Steel's video game history, but even his highs haven't been all that high. Superman Returns: The Videogame was originally slated to release alongside the movie in June (which had its own tumultuous production saga), but it wasn't ready in time and the release date was pushed back to coincide with the DVD of the movie going on sale. Despite the delay, the game still doesn't seem to be ready, but that hasn't stopped it from being released. It's certainly not as bad as Superman 64, but it's still plenty bad. Superman Returns does do a few things well, and it does manage to be entertaining for the first hour or so, but it's all downhill from there.


Poor Superman--nobody understands him.

For a game that's supposed to be a movie tie-in, Superman Returns sure doesn't have a whole lot in common with the film. After fighting off a rogue meteor shower and learning how to use his super abilities, Superman zooms off to outer space to find that his home planet has indeed been destroyed. On the way home he runs across Mongrul, does a bit of fighting, and then it's back to Earth. Here he'll battle Metallo, Bizarro, and, eventually, someone who was actually in the film, Lex Luthor. People who saw the movie and those who didn't will be equally frustrated with the storytelling. If you saw the movie, you'll be puzzled as to what the heck any of this has to do with the film, and if you didn't see Superman Returns, there's little chance that any of the short cutscenes will explain exactly what the heck Lex is doing with the crystals, much less why Mister Mxyzptlk wants Superman to race around the city.

Superman Returns takes place in Superman's adopted home city, Metropolis. The city consists of several large islands that lie in the middle of a lake surrounded by mountains. The city is largest on the Xbox 360, as the PlayStation 2 and Xbox are missing one of the smaller islands. You're free to go almost anywhere, from street level to thousands of feet above even the tallest building. The view from high up in the sky is breathtaking at first, and it's fun to zoom down through the clouds and wind through city streets and in between the skyscrapers at breakneck speeds. However, the fun quickly wears off when you realize that short of endlessly touring the city, there's little else to do. You can fly around and rescue kittens that are hidden around Metropolis, and that's about it. You can't fly underwater, and you can't walk in buildings.

So, other than rescuing kittens, what is there to do? Not a whole heck of a lot. The game is divided into chapters comprised of a series of objectives that only appear by flying around aimlessly until you get close enough to one to trigger it. As is evident by the way the game drags on and on, there are certainly plenty of objectives--there's just not much variety to them. Early in the game most of your time will be spent fighting robots--robots that walk, robots that roll around, and robots that fly. Later you'll be fighting evil monsters and even dragons. (If you're wondering why on Earth there are dragons in the game, you're not alone.) This monotony is occasionally broken up when you are charged with putting out building fires. And if you play long enough, you'll get to fight bad guys and put out fires. The segments where you race Mister Mxyzptlk or play as Bizarro help break up the monotony a tiny bit, but they don't count as progress toward completing the game, so there's little point in wasting time on them.

Being that Superman is mostly invincible, he doesn't have a health bar; however, the city of Metropolis does. The bad guys will torch trees, throw cars, and pummel civilians. Any damage to the city diminishes the health bar, and when it's empty, it's game over. This is a novel approach to indirectly making Superman vulnerable, but it also restricts the game's "sandbox" feel. Anytime you decide to smash something or set a car ablaze, you're just hurting yourself. Imagine a first-person shooter where you could shoot yourself in the head or a racing game where you could pour sugar in your own gas tank--that's kind of what it's like here. It sure might sound like fun to take the giant globe off of the Daily Planet and toss it into a group of cars, but the pesky thought of "What would Superman do?" and the negative effect your action will have on the city is always in the back of your mind. You can play as Bizarro and wreak some havoc, but causing trouble's just not that much fun when you're being forced to do it.

The combo-based fighting system lets you string together a fairly impressive number of moves, and after you complete a series of objectives, you'll earn new combos. Unfortunately, you don't really need many of these new moves, and you'll quickly find yourself either using the same combos over and over or just resorting to mashing buttons and hoping for the best. Superman also has his trusty heat vision, super breath, and of course his freeze breath, all of which can be powered up by finishing objectives. Some enemies are weak against a particular power, though a few are impervious to them, and there's even a creature that grows stronger should you try to use one of your powers on it. Freezing and burning enemies is actually pretty fun, but unless you like blowing enemies a half mile away and then chasing them down to pummel them, Superman's super breath is almost totally worthless--you only need use it a couple of times.


Awesome! You beat the objective! Now do the same thing another 50 times!

The combat sounds entertaining, and at first it is, but a number of problems quickly render it frustrating and uninteresting. Because you're fighting the same handful of enemies hundreds of times, the real challenge comes not from the enemies themselves, but from trying to stay interested in what's going on. The controls aren't overly complex, but it's still tough to get them to respond. Using the D pad to toggle between powers on the fly is frustrating, and it's tough to aim your attacks, too. You can lock on to enemies, but short of removing the target lock adjusting your position and hoping to lock on to another enemy, there's no way to change your focus during a battle. This is particularly problematic when you're in the air and getting attacked by a dragon that's just offscreen, or when you're fighting in a crowd, trying to punch a robot but wailing on an innocent civilian instead. Collision detection is dreadful, so sometimes you'll be hitting a bad guy (or getting hit by one) even though no punches are actually landing. For some unknown reason Superman can't jump. It's a pain to land, and Superman's inability to jump makes it tough to easily get to any enemy that's on top of a car or standing on the other side of a bush. When Superman can't get around a bit of shrubbery, you know things aren't going too well. An awful camera doesn't help matters much, either.

Despite the game's declaration that the camera is smart (it says so in the game options), it does a terrible job of following the action. You're frequently obscured by enemies, cars, and buildings. If you can see yourself, then chances are pretty good that you won't be able to find whatever you're fighting. Enemy icons will appear on one side of a building when the actual enemy is on the other side, and sometimes the camera gets so low to the ground that you can't see your target through all the traffic and pedestrians on the screen. A handy radar system helps alleviate this problem somewhat, but it's still a problem. Racing against Mister Mxyzptlk wasn't all that fun to start with, but it's also hindered by the camera, which works just fine for cruising the skies looking for trouble, but is considerably less friendly when moving at high speeds.



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And then there are the boss battles, which are so bad they deserve special mention. If you were excited by the game's trailer, in which Superman took on a giant version of Metallo, you're in for a disappointment. Sure, you still get to fight him, but it's considerably less interesting than in the trailer. But that's not the real problem. The lengthy fight ends with Superman having to divert a missile--but the game never tells you how. After chasing it and getting close, you can shoot your heat vision at it, but that doesn't work, so it explodes, and then you get to do the entire fight again. Let's say on the next attempt you try to fly past the missile and hope that it locks on. Nope, you're dead. Try again. It turns out that all you have to do is get right next to it, which triggers a cutscene. Who knew that all you had to do to stop a missile was trigger a cutscene? Another boss fight sees you trying to save three blimps, that apparently are filled with hydrogen and highly explosive, from a group of flying dragons. After trying and failing to save each blimp, it turns out that you just need to save one, and the sequence suddenly ends for no discernable reason. Last but not least, you get to take on tornados. Yes, you'll be fighting tornados. You've got to blow them out over the water, freeze them, and put out fires caused by lighting. That's not so bad, but the game also implores you to save three injured citizens during all this madness. After wasting your time rescuing the injured, your reward is...nothing. You'll find that you can skip that part entirely. If you're not insane yet, the next sequence should do it for you. You're suddenly inside the tornado and you've got to "stabilize the atmosphere" by alternately shooting your heat and freeze breath while being sure to dodge all the garbage flying around inside. Once again, if you fail you have to do the entire tornado sequence over again. Only something like this could have you longing for the realistic scenarios from the movie Twister.


Meteors, giant robots, killer tornados, and...dragons? It's all here.

There's little reason to see the game through to its conclusion, much less ever play it again if you manage to finish it once. At least you can get some points out of the whole dreadful experience if you're playing the 360 version. Points are awarded for beating noteworthy bosses, and you can earn a couple of hundred points during the normal course of play. A few achievements, such as flying 10,000 miles or playing for 12 hours, will only be earned by those with a high tolerance for pain. To add insult to injury, the game tells you that you're 25 percent complete in less than an hour, but it ends up going on for a solid 10 mind-numbing hours.

Superman Returns isn't a particularly good-looking game, especially on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Sure, it's impressive to see such a large city on the older systems, but so much detail had to be sacrificed to make it happen that you've got to wonder if it was worth it. The city's slightly smaller, there's very little variety to the buildings, and each structure looks hideous up close. The Xbox 360 version looks quite a bit nicer, but along with the larger city and the more varied and detailed buildings come technical problems. Everything looks cool from high above the city, but as you zoom downward the texture pop-in and the drawn-in are very noticeable and distracting. The frame rate also regularly stutters and stammers. Even the FMV cutscenes are choppy.

All versions of the game have plain, ugly citizens, boring-looking cars, and a lack of destructible objects. You can randomly break up the bricks and glass on a few buildings (with damage effects that look too similar), and you can smash up cars and grab light poles, but not much else. The fire effects look pretty good, but when things like cars explode, you'll actually see them disappear for a second while the damaged model loads. One thing that won't disappear, at least some of the time, is the onscreen text that shows you what you're supposed to be doing. You'll be racing against the clock, and the whole time, "GO!" is emblazoned across the screen.


Uh-oh, it looks like your nemesis got ahold of an ugly stick and beat the game senseless.

The best thing the game has going for it is the excellent orchestrated soundtrack that plays in the background. It doesn't sound like the movie's score, but it's still quite good, and given the quality of the rest of the game's audio, it should have been more prominently featured. Kevin Spacey, Brandon Routh, and Kate Bosworth all reprise their roles from the film, but their participation in the game is so minimal that you hardly even notice. Routh's performance is hampered by a horrendous script that has him admonishing his enemies with cheesy one-liners as he fights them--his dialogue during the Bizarro encounters is downright embarrassing. The rest of the sound effects sound OK, but they're repeated ad nauseam.

It's hard to shake the feeling that EA viewed the movie's DVD release as the last chance to capitalize on the movie license and was going to ship this game finished or unfinished, good or bad. It looks as though they finally settled on unfinished and bad. Superman Returns doesn't have much to do with the movie of the same name; the plot is a bunch of nonsense; and the game just doesn't capture the essence of what has made Superman such an enduring icon. If you're an Xbox 360 owner who has played the Superman Returns demo, you've already played the best part of this game. It's fun to fly above the city and then zoom down at the speed of sound to zigzag among the buildings, and it's even fun to pound on robots for a short time. But the fun quickly ends courtesy of the bland graphics, lousy controls, boring combat, and repetitive objectives.
By Aaron Thomas, GameSpot


http://uk.gamespot.com/ps2/action/su...ew.html?page=2

[Greig]

Thanks for that mate - I'll steer clear.

[ICB]

Thanks for that mate - I'll steer clear.

no problem mate just dont want you wasting your money on shit game you wont like