Superman: The Game

Superman: The Game is an action tug-of-war from the mid-eighties; the version here is the Commodore 64 release, distributed in Britain as a budget edition by Prism Leisure. Licensed comic-book games were plentiful back then, but few tried anything beyond rooftop jumping — this one stages a duel between Superman and Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips, with the citizens of Metropolis as the prize.

The game is literally played for souls. The map splits into six sectors, three in the city streets and three underground. Superman tries to rescue the scurrying citizens while Darkseid lures them toward his lair, and both use deflectors to bend the paths the little people run along. Collecting diamonds opens the way to the next sector, and between moves the rivals clash in a combat zone, trading beams — heat vision against omega rays. When the citizens run out, or one side's energy does, whoever gathered more people wins.

The asymmetry is the most interesting part. You can play the villain, and above all you can play against another human — two players at one computer, each with an opposite goal, which was no everyday sight in the mid-eighties. Against the computer, the simplicity hiding under the comic-book coat shows through much sooner.

And here honesty is required: the concept is more interesting than the game. The loop of deflecting citizens and gathering diamonds wears thin quickly, and the press of the day saw it much the same way — praise for the graphics came with the sigh that the game never really gets off the ground. As a two-player curiosity it can still entertain, especially with a dedicated saboteur in the second chair.

You can measure yourself against Darkseid on oldgame.cz, straight in the browser with no installation.