Super Games about Superheroes

What are you going to do on a slow summer day after you've already seen Superman Returns and you're looking for another way to indulge every little boy's dream of being a superhero? If you're too old to run around in a cape, there are always video games.

Superheroics used to be a sadly underrepresented genre in video gaming. Oh, sure, there were always attempts to cash in on big franchises like Superman and Batman, but they've been consistently mediocre at best. It's pretty sad that the best Superman game is still Superman for the Atari 2600. No joke. Not since 1979 has a game hit so well all the bullet points of being the Man of Steel: secret identity, rescuing Lois Lane, X-ray vision, phone booths, Kryptonite. And despite a constant stream of Batman movies, some very good, there still isn't a decent Batman game out there.

Superman Returns: The Video Game Superman Returns: The Video Game

In fact, for a long time, there seemed to be a curse on superhero games. In the '90s, a string of highly anticipated superhero games were canceled, one after the other. Bullfrog's Indestructibles would have been a Grand Theft Auto clone before there was any such thing. Cancelled! Hero Games' Champions would have been based on their cool open-ended pen-and-paper RPG system. Cancelled! SimTex's Guardians: Agents of Justice would have featured turn-based tactical combat with a strategic metagame -- come on, X-Com with superheroes! Cancelled! The trend was clear: if it was about superheroes, it was doomed to be cancelled.

Irrational's Freedom Force lifted the curse when it not only made it onto the shelves, but was rightly lauded as a great game with an uncanny appreciation for its subject matter. Then came the spectacular cinematic successes of Spider-Man and X-Men, followed by Hollywood's mad rush on superhero franchises. Game publishers followed suit, and now superheroes have been viable video game fodder for a few years. Let's take a look at the best of the lot.