Superman: Countdown to Apokolips (GBA)

It's Sooperman versus the minions of Darkseid in Kowntdown tu Apokolips!

It's hard to take a villain seriously when he deliberately misspells names to sound cool. Maybe if he had an album out he could get away with it.

I'll do the sensible thing and start with the tutorial for once. Superman's bouncing on the spot all through this conversation. Sadly the text is unskippable so he's just going to have to put up with it a little longer.

Hey I've found a robber! Hey officer, look it's a robber! He's right here you can come and arrest him!


Oh fine, I'll do it.

You're under arrest.

Who the hell would be stupid enough to try to grab Superman? The guy can bench press a 747. You'd have more luck trying to restrain a bus.

Just to keep things interesting I use my freeze breath on this guy instead.

And then I throw him into his friend.

Nah, it didn't really make it any more interesting. I'll stick with my infinite heat vision.

This is handy though. Flying lets me get around much faster, plus these enemies can't do a thing to hurt me up here.

Not that they should be doing a thing to hurt me anyway. I'm not a Superman expert but I'm pretty sure he's meant to be bulletproof.

Damn, my aim is off by couple of inches to the right. Superman can't move when he's firing lasers from his eyes, so I have to stop, take a step to the left, and try again.

Thanks, it's great that you stopped the game to type that message on screen. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to figure out what invisible wall + row of police cars meant by myself.

I wouldn't complain, except it comes up at every checkpoint and I can't skip it.

Take this, you bastard. That's for interrupting my gameplay for 2 seconds.

Excellent! I have a map. I was just flying around blindly looking for the next group of thieves to arrest, but this will make things much easier.

Just for the hell of it, I decide to punch out the last guy with my fists. It takes more than one punch.

To be fair, I imagine punching people is really hard when you're Superman. Too little force and all you do is bruise them. Too much force and you send their head flying off with enough force to demolish the skyscraper behind them.

I have completed the tutorial! Now I have to sit through Superman's backstory before I can start the game.

Okay he's Superman now, do I get to play yet?

Lois is trying to tell Clark about her theories that a major crime wave is about to hit Metropolis, but he's distracted by the voices in his head.

The police are broadcasting to him over an ultrasonic frequency that only he can hear, and they have a job for Superman. Clark makes a lame excuse about needing to collect his dry cleaning, and darts off.

An excellent observation. She's a smart one.

Dammit, I missed again. Okay, I just need to stop, sidestep to the right a bit...

It'd almost be less effort just to walk up and punch the bastards. Almost.

Oh crap, they've got rocket launchers now! Wait, can rockets even hurt Superman? Either way, this guy is definitely intending me harm, so I'm going to glare at him before he can fire any more of them at me.

Oh come on, the police road block isn't even on screen yet, how was I suppose to know travelling this way would bring up this damn message again? How can such a little thing be so annoying?

Suffer the full fury of my infinite eye beams! Oh, apparently I'm standing a pixel or two too far away and this isn't even touching him.

Okay, time to stop firing and reposition myself again... I'm lucky there's no time limit.

Once I've saved everyone on the map I can move onto the next level.

Oh crap, it's a 3d rendered tank! How the hell am I going to defeat this thing?

Oh. I guess I just follow the on screen instructions then.

Freeze tank, throw tank, repeat.

Oh, of course. I should have guessed this game would have passwords instead of saves.

They try to shame me out of using my heat vision with a low rank and helpful comments, but it's not going to work. Apparently I can unlock an extra level by getting all three shields on each level, which is something I'd like to avoid if possible.


AN UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENE LATER.

Level two is on a train. They're cleverly using proximity mines to slow me down. I guess they didn't get the memo that I can fly. But the explosions are so pretty... I can't help but blow them all up.

Besides, when I do try to fly over them, they explode and hurt me anyway. And if I fly past all the enemies I run into an invisible wall. No entry until I've cleared out this section of train.

Oh that's clever. The boss is throwing land mines out to distract me. Then when I use my heat vision to blow them up, he shoots me, knowing that I can't move. So this is where I quit.


Well it's not the worst Superman game, but then Superman 64 might not even be the worst of them. I didn't like it, I didn't enjoy playing it, and I am done with it. Next game.