If you've seen the Superman Returns movie, you're probably one of the many people who have an opinion about it. A ton of people panned the movie for being lackluster, while others simply loved the movie. Overall, the feedback from moviegoers and Superman fans has been negative for the most part. Perhaps it was a good move by Electronic Arts to delay the release of the Superman Returns game to later this year when the DVD releases. With so much negative press surrounding the movie, the game may have suffered in sales.

Most games based on movies aren't very good, but thankfully Superman Returns is looking to turn that around. The game isn't entirely based on the movie, but it does contain all of the major plot points. The major cast members voice their respective characters in the game to retain the movie feel, but new story elements and villains from the comic book have also been included. Adding original content to the major plot points from the movie make the Superman Returns game a unique property that should not be judged by the dropping box office numbers of the movie.

The first thing you'll notice about the Superman game is the fact that the entire city of Metropolis has been recreated here. The development team went into the DC archives to compile what could be the most accurate recreation of the city to date. There are over 80 square miles of city to cover, which is divided into multiple areas. Superman will have the freedom to fly around the city and beat down the baddies wherever they appear.

Superman Returns plays somewhat similar to the most recent Spider-Man movie games. There's no set structure for Superman to follow. Instead, players will be able to fly anywhere in the city as evildoers show up every few minutes. After taking down several small time enemies, a boss will appear and a huge battle will commence.

While a vast majority of the game takes place in Metropolis, you'll start off in a training level on War World. Here you'll participate in gladiatorial combat as you learn to use your aerial and ground-based techniques. Once you have completed this level, you'll head back to Metropolis with access to all of your super powers right off the bat. That means you'll be able to use super speed, heat vision, blow breath, freeze breath and super strength as soon as you get into the meat of the game. Every enemy will have a different weakness, so you'll need to find the proper super power to defeat them.

Since you'll be playing primarily as Superman, the development team wanted to keep his super abilities intact. It wouldn't be much of a Superman game if the man of steel could die. Therefore Superman has no health meter. Instead there are two meters in the upper left corner of the screen. One meter represents the city of Metropolis, while the other represents Superman's stamina. As villains destroy the city, the Metropolis meter will drop. If the meter gets too low, it will be game over and you'll have to start from your most recent save point.

Everything Superman does with the exception of super speed will drain his stamina meter. The meter will gradually refill, but the point is to make sure that some limitations are set. If players could use heat vision infinitely, the game wouldn't be very fun after an hour or two. Instead you'll have to manage your super powers well to insure you have enough stamina to complete the task at hand. In addition, if Superman takes any hits from enemies, his stamina will drop.

Fighting against evildoers will not be the only thing Superman does in the game. Your main objective is to protect the city. Superman will be able to interact with almost everything he sees. So if a building is on fire, you may need to grab a water tower nearby and toss it at the building to put out the fire. However, you may need to take out the enemies that started the fire before putting it out, or else another fire will start up. These are the kind of obstacles you'll face as you play through the game.

While Superman is the primary character you'll be playing as, there will be a mini-game that has you playing as Bizzaro. You'll fight Bizzaro as a boss at some point in the game, but when you play as Bizzaro in the mini-game your objective will be to dish out as much destruction as you possibly can. Bizzaro has all of the opposite abilities of Superman, which includes heat breath and suck breath. His stamina meter will also drop if you're not causing destruction, so you'll need to be constantly destroying the city to be successful in this mini-game.

From what we've played of Superman Returns thus far, it seems that everything is shaping up nicely. Just like the Spider-Man movie games, Superman Returns is looking to set a new standard for games based on movies. The title is currently set to release alongside the DVD sometime around the holiday season. We'll keep you posted on the progress of Superman Returns and hope that the game performs better than the movie.