8 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Superman For Everyone

Folks will tell you that Superman is a difficult character to build a video game around, thanks mainly to the idea that his powers grant him nigh invulnerable status. Given most action-adventure video games entail some kind of risk for the protagonist - otherwise where would the challenge be? - the general conception is that the Man of Steel just doesn't lend himself well to the medium.

Not that video game studios haven't tried, of course. More-so than Batman, Spider-Man, or any of the other DC and Marvel heroes, Superman has been the subject of some seriously stinky video games. Whereas those aforementioned characters can point towards a select few underwhelming releases, though, Supes' entire gaming library is chockfull of them, with only a few managing to exit the bracket of "bad" or "mediocre", to enter the dizzying heights of, "it's okay, I guess."

By far the most infamous of these terrible Superman games is Superman 64, a title developed in 1999 that was based on the seminal Superman animated series from the 1990s. The entire game just revolves around flying Supes into rings and... nothing else. (Lex Luthor was clearly feeling low on inspiration.)

Subsequent efforts faired only marginally better, with other projects meeting cancellation, but it's still wild that developers haven't been able to crack the character when it comes to video games - probably because publishers have bought into the idea that Superman is simply way too powerful, even though said idea is just plain wrong.