Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Superman: Shadow of Apokolips

Written by Chris Reiter on October 17, 2002

Full Review: Without the cowlick, Superman would be nothing.

Remember Superman 64? Yes, the one that was titled as one of the worst video games ever created? If you played it, then you surely won't be able to forget it, since you're emotionally traumatized by its cruddy...everything. Luckily, Shadow of Apokolips is loads better than Superman 64 (which we're trying to dismiss from our memory). Though most of us know that mediocrity only can go so far, something Infogrames' recent title suffers deeply from.

You most obviously play as news reporter Clark Kent, otherwise known as Superman. In a nutshell, scientists are trying to commandeer the city. It's up to you to defeat the powerful Inter-Bots that only Superman has the power to overcome. The game does a good job of making you feel like Superman, but at some point or another you might find yourself wondering why the controls are unnecessarily complex. There's a relatively short tutorial that'll show you how to perform all Superman's flying, attacking, and accessory moves, but every once and a while you're going to forget how to execute something when you need it most. Regardless, the control scheme is probably the best part of the entire game, despite its complexity that's mostly that way because there's so much that Superman can perform from different flying techniques to x-ray vision, first-person perspective (the game is played in third), hyper-speed flight, picking up gigantic objects, locking-on targets, and so on. You have a hefty health bar as well as a practically useless radar map in the bottom left corner.

The story might sound interesting, but trust me, it's nothing special. The boss fights can be amusing, but honestly they often become too difficult for their own good. The missions are nothing to cheer about either, generic in the simplest sense. I ran into a large problem with the cameras. For the most part, it rotates too slowly and the need to rotate it back from switching positions comes very frequently. It doesn't readjust much at all on it's own, therefore if you go left or right the camera rarely will follow. You can only imagine how annoying this is with close-combat and narrow areas. Occasionally you might be skimming across a wall and suddenly be caught on an edge, which is instantly trouble since you can't budge away.

Shadow of Apokolips is based off of the Superman cartoon series. Given, the game is cel-shaded which puts a unique spin on things. There's a nice integration between 3D graphics and cel-shaded animation. The cel-shading it vibrant, clean, and well done, but the game overall feels bland, lifeless, and empty with a deficiency of detail. The cut-scenes are decent but not excelling in any terms, and CGs are non-existent in case you were wondering. Still, the visuals are on the same par with the animated series, which is undeniably impressive.

SoA sounds like you might expect--plain. All the voices you hear in the game are the same actors who do the cartoon, making it even better for those who watch the show (not me) and provides top-notch professional voice acting. The music is fully orchestrated and fits in well with the superhero, powerful, honorable type vibes. It also varies with the mood, becoming more predominant when action occurs and very subtle during casual moments. Good stuff.

There's a Special Features mode in Superman, but that's about it with accessory gameplay. You have the ability to go back to any previous level at any time, but I wouldn't think you'd be very motivated to do that. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this highly affects the replay value of Superman, which only consists of earning a Game Over then restarting the mission.