My Perfect Superman Game

Superman is a character I have been crying out for a great video game adaptation of for years and it makes me so sad that developers seem to avoid him as a character. Remember when Rocksteady were rumored to be making a Superman game and then they lost their mind and made an insane looter/shooter instead? The reason developers avoid Superman is because it is hard to make a player feel like they are the Man of Steel! Superman is a character that can move faster than a speeding bullet and is almost invincible, how do you make a game feel challenging when the main character is that overpowered? Well I am going to attempt to pitch my idea here and now. So dream with me for a moment as I tell you my idea for an authentic and challenging Superman video game!

The game opens in a small town. A man in a red plaid shirt, with dark rim glasses and the classic Superman haircut walks out of a green grocers with a box of vegetables. You take control of the man as you walk to your car and overhear conversations around the town. Through environmental clues we piece together that it is in Smallville and they are getting ready for some kind of festival. As you put the veg in the back of your pickup truck you hear a female voice cry out "Jonathan!". The main character turns around and we realise that this is not Clark but in fact Jonathan Kent. He looks up to the sky and takes off his glasses, Superman style, and we see what he is looking at - meteors falling from the sky. We hear an explosion. He starts to run towards the screen and rips open his shirt and then it cuts to him using it to stop the bleeding of someone injured on the floor. We then take control of Jonathan again as he looks for Martha around the chaos of the town, with meteors exploding around him. You help a few people who are trapped under things etc. Then we see Martha, she is helping someone when an explosion happens near her. Jonathan shouts "Martha!" and you have to make your way over to her. You eventually find her unconscious, pick her up, and run with her to your truck. You take control of the truck as you drive avoiding meteors and falling debris. You are driving down a farm road and a big meteor hits near the tuck which flips over. You once again take control of Jonathan as you wake up and drag Martha out of the truck. "Come on Martha, we need to move the truck is going to blow!" Jonathan screams as he picks Martha up and runs into a corn field. The truck explodes behind Jonathan who is stood still holding Martha, in shock, not reacting to the explosion that just happened behind him. The camera pans around and we see what he is looking at, a spaceship. The ship opens revealing a baby. The camera moves down to Martha as she opens her eyes and makes eye contact with the baby, she smiles.

You then see a shot of a high school and the words '15 years later' pops up. You have establishing shots of the school and then it cuts to a teenage Clark with his glasses and plaid shirt walking out of a classroom door with a handful of books (similar to Jonathan and his trusty veg box in the opening). He trips over and drops his books everywhere - he is not as cool as daddy Kent. People walk past and ignore him, he looks up and sees a guy in a Smallville high jacket walking past. Clark shouts "Pete, Pete Ross!" He scoops up his books and runs after him. "Can I get a quote for the newspaper?" He says pulling out a pen and clumsily opening a book. 

"Sure thing Kent" Pete says smiling.

"Ok, thanks, how are feeling about the big game tomorrow? You think we are going to win?"

"Of course we are! We are Smallville High we always win!"

"Are you excited to visit Metropolis?"

"My dad works for Luthor Corp. in the city, I am in Metropolis all the time."

Off screen we hear someone shout "Hey Pete, stop talking to that nerd and lets get to practice"

Pete smiles at Clark and says "Sorry Clark, ignore him, he's been hit and the head too many times and has no brain cells left!"

Clark replies "Thanks Pete, finish the interview later?"

Pete walks away and shouts back "Sure thing Kent"

Clark looks at Pete with admiration as he walks away. Clark says to himself "Ok, this newspaper isn't going to write itself" He puts his books in his bag and you are then able to free roam around the school a little bit interviewing people to flesh out the world. You learn that is is the anniversary of the day the meteors hit and subsequently Clark's birthday.

After a long time of interviewing people you hear screaming and explosions. Everything goes quiet and the world around Clark freezes. He says to himself "What is happening?" You take control of Clark and this is where you first use his super speed ability. However, it similar to bullet time in Red Dead Redemption or the slow-mo in Max Payne. You run through the school as the sound is distorted and everyone is frozen in place or moving extremely slowly to give a cool effect. Eventually, you see a mysterious Kryptonian stood in front of an exploded wall about to kill a teacher. You run towards it, save the teacher and you have your fighting tutorial as you fight the Kryptonian. The school is getting destroyed around you and at this point you are discovering that you have super speed and super strength. Think about the fight at the start of the God of War when you face off against 'The Stranger' as a template for how this fight would look and feel. And guess what? You can die! So eventually you finish the fight and a cut scene happens where the Kryptonian beats the crap out of Clark and then says "I escaped the Phantom Zone and traveled across the Universe to find you, one of the last Kryptonians. You disappoint me Kal El. You are not ready, but when you are...I will be waiting" Then the Kryptonian flies off through the roof of the school and into the sky. Clark is left beaten and confused, he clearly does not know what a Kryptonian is, or who Kal El is.

It then cuts to a scene of Jonathan and Martha pulling up to the school in the pick up truck. There is chaos with emergency services and children/parents everywhere. Clark stumbles out of the rubble that used to be the school and Martha runs up and hugs him. Jonathan takes off his red jacket and puts it over his son's shoulders, as Clark's shirt is practically ripped off. (Red jacket on shoulders - cheeky cape foreshadowing). We walk past General Lane talking to a news anchor about how the military is going to make sure that whoever did this will see justice and perhaps he mentions his daughter Lois. The Kent family goes home and you see that they have 'Happy Birthday' banners around the house and a cake on the table. The family sit around and eat cake and whilst Clark explains what happened. The Kent's get all cagey when Clark starts asking about his powers and Martha says 'We have all had a stressful day, lets go to bed and talk about this tomorrow. Oh, I almost forgot, Happy Birthday Son!". She hands him a gift in red and blue wrapping paper. He opens it and inside is a laptop. With a card that says 'To help make writing those articles a little easier'. They go to bed.

The next day you wake up and are able to explore the farmhouse and grounds. There is a note somewhere from your parents that say something like 'Delivering materials to help rebuild the school, didn't want to wake you. Love mum and dad' Now is where you can have some fun and explore your new speed and strength. Perhaps there are some mini games, such as a thing in the barn where you have to drop something from the hay loft and run down and catch it. Or bench press a tractor. The point is to have some fun and once you have completed the mini games there is a section where you try to fly, like the Kryptonian, off the roof of the house and end up crashing to the ground and through the storm cellar hatch. We see the ship as Jonathan and Martha Kent pull up in their truck. Clark walks out of the storm cellar and looks at his parents. Jonathan Kent looks says "Son, we have a lot to talk about".

Now I have been extremely specific up till here and I am going to start being a big more vague, for two reasons, firstly this article will be INSANELY long if I continue in great detail, and secondly because this would be where the game would open up and you would be able to explore Smallville and discover your powers. Notice how you are not even Superman yet!? No you are Clark and you have limitations. Now this is where I would borrow a bit from the Smallville TV series. The next few hours would follow Clark fighting Kryptonite infected people around the town and in the process of that learning all of his powers. It would centre around him writing articles for the school newspaper and you are introduced to  Lana Lang his love interest, who is helping him write an article, as her parents died in the meteor shower and she wants to learn as much as she can about what happened. Each meteor freak would help Clark discover a new ability and you would eventually have all his powers including: speed, strength, heat vision, super breath and ice breath. Note how you do not fly yet, but that is coming.

This section takes place over the course of a year, with Clark coming into his own as a super-hero and building up the relationship between him and Lana. You also have to do super-hero farm work (which could be a lot of fun) because Jonathan is having heart problems in his old age and we have several scenes with Jonathan giving him fatherly advice on the difference between right and wrong and Clark learns to be a hero. Clark and Lana fall in love and Clark's life is looking pretty sweet. 

It is once again Clark's birthday and the family are eating cake and talking again. You hear from outside a voice shout "Kal-El!" Clark walks, opens the door, and sees the Kryptonian floating in mid-air holding Lana by her neck. Clark shouts to for him to let go of her and there is some dialogue about who Jor-El was and you get a little more exposition on Clark's Kryptonian roots. Clark shouts again "let go of her!" The Kryptonian replies "Kneel before Zod." Clark drops to his knees and Zod says "Your weakness is your love for humans, they are holding you back. Allow me to set you free!" He then uses his heat vision to burn through Lana's head and drops her lifeless body to the ground. Clark screams with rage and the ground around his shakes like a giant earthquake. He explodes into the air, destroying part of the house behind him and knocking his very unwell dad flying backwards, slamming into a wall. Jonathan lays on the floor struggling to breath and clutching his chest as Martha rushes over to him. 

Super-hero fight in the sky baby! Now you enter a battle sequence where you put everything you have learned to the test! Some of this fight is in the air, then on the ground, smashing through the Kent barn and using the environment to fight with. You are throwing tractors and hay bails and giant farm machinery at Zod. Eventually you beat him and he is on the ground outside the Kent house. Jonathan is dying of a heart attack but Clark is too focused on revenge. He has Zod on the ground and is holding his fist in the air. He looks over and see Lana's body, screams and is about to kill Zod when you hear Jonathan in his final breath say "Don't son, you are better. You stand for something more" Jonathan dies. Clark knock Zod unconscious and runs to his father. Clark and Martha cry as a helicopter lands behind them. It is General Lane. He puts Zod in Kryptonite handcuffs and his men take him away. Lane walks over to Martha and Clark and tries to find out what happened, but Clark holds Lana's body and Matha holds Jonathan's in silence. 

There is time jump of a couple of hours, Clark and Martha are sat in the destroyed house. Martha looks at him and says "I almost forgot. Your dad and I made you a gift." She hands him and present in red and blue wrapping paper. He opens it and inside is the Superman costume.

We see a montage of the two funerals, the Kent farm being rebuilt and Clark graduating high school. Clark does a speech at the graduation and finishes it by using the phrase "Truth, Justice and the American Way". We then see him hug Martha and go off to the big city to start a job at the Daily Planet.

You then have a section where you explore the daily planet, you can overhear conversations about Lex Luthor running for Mayor and some of the strange things that have been happening around Metropolis. Perhaps you read a few articles that reference Superman villains and expand the world a little. Eventually you go to Perry White's office and this is where you meet Lois.

Lois asks "Who is the farm boy?"

Perry White "He is Clark Kent, your new intern from Smallville."

Lois "You know I don't need an intern, he will slow me down"

Perry "Does he look slow to you?" Kent are you slow?"

Clark replies in his classic nerdy Clark voice "No sir, I am faster than a speeding...

Lois "Fine! Follow me Smallville, I was just on my way to a crime scene, maybe you could help."

Clark doesn't move.

"Well" Perry White says "get going!"

You then go to a murder scene. Where you have to interview and piece together what happened. through clues and interviews you find out that the character is Metallo, a classic small time superman villain. We learn that Lex Corp has had something to do with creating this dude and this starts you on the path for the rest of the game. You see the game would then open up to being able to explore Metropolis. There would be side missions where you either work as a reporter solving clues, or as Superman solving a small scale crime. It would very much feel like the Spider-Man game where it is open world with the occasional bigger set pieces when facing off against the bigger foes. 

Now is when I will talk a little more about the mechanics of the game in order to get around the big issue with Superman, is he invincible? This is where the game developers need to reinterpret the character a little bit (which is fine, comics do it all the time). Make Superman a little less strong and have Lex create Kryptonite weapons that his goons use. Also I don't know how many of you played the Superman: Returns game that was a tie in with the god awful movie. But there was an interesting mechanic where the city itself had a health bar instead of Superman. When fighting the big bosses I would for sure steal that system. If there is a big alien destroying the city then you have to stop them before they do too much damage! Also Superman has health too so the tension is high with battles.

The main line quest would have sections where you work as a reporter to figure out what is going on and then go after the bad guy as superman. It would be cool if there are phone boxes around the city to switch between reporter missions and Superman missions. It would follow Lex Luthor as he experiments with Kryponite, creating different bad guys taken from the comics. The whole thing would finish with a boss battle with Doomsday that has been created by Lex experimenting on Zod ( a little Batman Vs Superman...I know, but it would be cool and make sense in this context). 

There could be a section where Superman is shot with a Kryptonite bullet and loses his powers and then has to fight like a normal person. You could also have parts of the game where Clark has to use his powers subtly at a crime scene without being seen, perhaps to break into a building or super-speed around some guards. The game would have to focus on relationships. It should be about Clark NOT about Superman. Should there be big sequences where buildings are exploding and you're throwing cars at giant monsters - yes! However should there be cute flirty moments between Clark and Lois as you explore a crime scene - 100%! 

This is how you make a Superman game that people fall in love with...story and character dynamics! It should have dark and light in it and should make you actually feel like Superman. There of course needs to be a Brainiac post-credits scene followed by a tease of Superboy (AKA the Miles Morales of the sequel). 

Anyway this is my pitch for a Superman game that I think would really, really work. But I want to know what you guys think? Would you play this? Do you have other suggestions? What villains would you like to see appear? I think I would want to slide Lobo in there somewhere as well! Add your comments below!

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