History VideoGame / Superman64

* MoralDissonance: Due to [[ObviousBeta a programming bug]], you can fly away from at least one mission involving saving people, and you'll ''win''.

* SuperTitle64Advance:
** Despite the game being simply called ''Superman'' (or ''The New Superman Aventures'' [sic]), it quickly became known as ''Superman 64'' to distinguish it from other Superman games.

* TyopOnTheCover: ''The New Superman Aventures'' ([[RunningGag sic]])

* ZeroEffortBoss: The final boss of the game, Brainiac, has no AI. He will fire a beam at you if you attack him with heat vision, but otherwise he just stands still and allows you to kill him.
** As previously mentioned, you can beat the boss fight by simply walking past him.

** Most characters are much weaker than usual in this game, but ''[[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]]'' gets the most humiliating downgrade of them all. Normally, Darkseid is one of the most powerful villains in the DC multiverse, a PhysicalGod, GalacticConqueror, and HeroKiller who is more than a match for the entire Justice League combined. Here? He's working for (not "with", ''for'') Lex Luthor, gets beaten by Superman with astonishing ease, and ends up being locked in a prison meant for ordinary humans.

* {{Irony}}: The final boss of the game, Brainiac, in the comics a [[AIIsACrapshoot brilliant evil AI]]...has no AI programmed in.

%%* TheSmurfettePrinciple

* ZeroEffortBoss: The final boss of the game, Brainiac, has no AI. He will fire a beam at you if you attack him with heat vision, but otherwise he stands still and allows you to kill him.

[[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] creates a virtual version of Metropolis and then succeeds in [[DamselInDistress trapping]] ComicBook/LoisLane, ComicBook/JimmyOlsen, and Professor [[DistressedDude Emil Hamilton]] within it. Superman is forced to enter Luthor's virtual world and '''[[MemeticMutation SOLVE HIS MAZE]]'''. Other villains in the game include Parasite and [[Characters/SupermanBrainiac Brainiac]].

* YouMakeMeSic:
** "Can't you spell Lex Luthor?" Okay, now you're just trolling us, game.
** The title itself. ''Aventures'' is French for Adventures. Titus Software is based in France.

* TyopOnTheCover: ''The New Superman Aventures'' ([RunningGag sic])

** Think the ring stages are bad now? Wait until you get to the ''ten minute'' long one. The '''most of the ten minutes are necessary''' long one.

** The game is riddled with bugs, but the final level contains a puzzle that is so badly glitched you'll frequently just drop dead for no reason.

** The final level has a time-machine puzzle where Superman must travel through portals to adjust a number to the value 2000. This puzzle is heavily glitched and the player ''will'' drop dead at complete random. This glitch does not render completion impossible, but it does ''severely complicate'' completing the level.
** Flying around Mala too much in her boss fight will either result in her falling through the floor or, possibly, the game ''despawning her'', leaving the second level impossible to complete.

* HarmlessFreezing: Happens to Jimmy, though with the... minimalistic graphics it's a little hard to tell it's ice, until Jimmy mentions being cold.
* InsistentTerminology: The game calls all of the ring stages "mazes", even though none of them have any branches, and all you have to do is fly through them in a fixed order.
* {{Irony}}:
** Many levels have you flying Superman through loops, very similar to the CultClassic game ''VideoGame/NightsIntoDreams''. What's the ironic part? ''[=NiGHTS=]'' is considered a great game, while ''64'' is considered one of the worst.
** As mentioned below, the final boss of the game, Brainiac, in the comics a [[AIIsACrapshoot brilliant evil AI]]...has no AI programmed in.

** You can also die ''in the cutscenes''. If you're in a room with Kryptonite, your health will keep draining until Lex wins.
* KryptoniteIsEverywhere: The game has "Kryptonite fog" in every level, diminishing Superman's powers. Of course, it's just an in-game explanation for the severe distance fog that was supposed to mask the Nintendo 64's poor draw distance.

* MisbegottenMultiplayerMode: Yes, the game has one, which many never knew because the option doesn't appear unless you have more than one controller connected. It consists of two modes: a battle mode and a race mode. Of those two, the race mode is the far worse of the two, where players have to, yet again, PassThroughTheRings that are left by one of the players. Too bad it's more efficient to just shoot each other down rather than actually race one another.

* NintendoHard: Not much of a surprise given how sloppy the game is...

* PassThroughTheRings: The "Ride Stage" odd number levels of the game. Believe it or not, these are the tolerable parts of the game.

* SecondaryAdaptation: A 1999 video game based on ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', which itself is based on the Creator/DCComics character, [[Characters/SupermanTheCharacter Superman]].

* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:You defeated Lex in the virtual world... but the real Lex is still out there]].

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: LetsPlay/ProtonJon suggests this is why Mala is included as a boss.

* TyopOnTheCover: ''[[RuleOfThree The New Superman Aventures]]'' ([[[RunningGag sic]]])
* UselessItem: In stage 6 it is possible to find an X-Ray vision power-up (the game only allows you to use Superman's powers after finding power-ups); as far as players can tell, using X-Ray vision does ''absolutely nothing''.

''Superman'' (or ''The New Superman [[TyopOnTheCover Aventures]]'' [sic][[note]]although, the word is correct... in French[[/note]]), [[FanNickname unofficially referred to as]] ''[[FanNickname Superman 64]]'', is a video game based on ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' and released by Creator/TitusSoftware on May 31, 1999 on the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64. It is notorious for the negative reception it received from critics and is considered one of the worst games of all time.

** Braniac isn't as terrifyingly powerful as Darkseid in regular DC media, but he's still super-genius android fully capable of destroying planets on his own and a major threat to the Justice League, and his treatment in this game is even more humiliating than Darkseid- Darkseid at least actually ''fights'' Superman, while Braniac just stands there.

* SecondaryAdaptation: A 1999 video game based on ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', which itself is based on the ''UsefulNotes/DCComicsSeries'' character, [[Characters/SupermanTheCharacter Superman]].

* SecondaryAdaptation: A 1999 video game based on ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', which itself is based on the ''ComicBook/DCComicsSeries'' character, [[Characters/SupermanTheCharacter Superman]].

ComicBook/LexLuthor creates a virtual version of Metropolis and then succeeds in [[DamselInDistress trapping]] ComicBook/LoisLane, ComicBook/JimmyOlsen, and Professor [[DistressedDude Emil Hamilton]] within it. Superman is forced to enter Luthor's virtual world and [[AC:[[MemeticMutation SOLVE HIS MAZE]].]] Other villains in the game include Parasite and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}.

** Most characters are much weaker than usual in this game, but ''ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'' gets the most humiliating downgrade of them all. Normally, Darkseid is one of the most powerful villains in the DC multiverse, a PhysicalGod, GalacticConqueror, and HeroKiller who is more than a match for the entire Justice League combined. Here? He's working for (not "with", ''for'') ComicBook/LexLuthor, gets beaten by Superman with astonishing ease, and ends up being locked in a prison meant for ordinary humans.

* BigBad: Lex Luthor, who somehow manages to make ''{{ComicBook/Darkseid}}'' a subordinate.

** ''Reprogrammation'' happens to be the French word for ''Reprogram''. Given that the scenario, the fact that Titus is a French company and the fact that this game is essentially an ObviousBeta due to ExecutiveMeddling mentioned below, it's possible that they overlooked it.

* EasyModeMockery: The game cuts off several levels early on the Easy and Medium difficulties. Brainiac's Starship level is only available if you beat the game on the hardest difficulty. Using a GoodBadBug involving the "Last Game" menu option, however, it is possible to switch to a harder difficulty and continue from where you left off. %%invoked
* EvilerThanThou: The tie-in comic has ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} defeating and subjugating Darkseid, then [[VoodooShark not really giving a reason]] for why he doesn't dispose of Luthor with the same ease instead of working with him.

* AdaptationalWimp: Most characters are much weaker than usual in this game, but ''ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'' gets the most humiliating downgrade of them all. Normally, Darkseid is one of the most powerful villains in the DC multiverse, a PhysicalGod, GalacticConqueror, and HeroKiller who is more than a match for the entire Justice League combined. Here? He's working for (not "with", ''for'') ComicBook/LexLuthor, gets beaten by Superman with astonishing ease, and ends up being locked in a prison meant for ordinary humans.

* AdaptationalWimp: Most characters are much weaker than usual in this game, but ''ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'' gets the most humiliating downgrade. Normally, Darkseid is one of the most powerful villains in the DC multiverse, a PhysicalGod, GalacticConqueror, and HeroKiller who is more than a match for the entire Justice League combined. Here? He's working for (not "with", ''for'') ComicBook/LexLuthor, gets beaten by Superman with astonishing ease, and ends up being locked in a prison meant for ordinary humans.

** Sadly, there's footage on Website/YouTube of an actual beta of the game. And it's arguably ''[[EpicFail better than the release product]]''. The producer of ''Superman 64'' primarily blamed it on the [[ExecutiveMeddling licensers digging their hands messily in the development of the game,]] and that apparently a massive amount of the code and assets had to be redone mere months, if not weeks, before release. With the ROM of the beta now available, the general consensus is that while the controls are only slightly better, the lack of rings and reduced occurrence of flight stopping glitches make the beta ''far'' more playable than the final product.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: LetsPlay/ProtonJon suggests this is why Mala is included.

* TyopOnTheCover: ''[[RuleOfThree The New Superman Aventures]]'' [[[RunningGag sic]]]

* AdaptationalWimp:
** ''ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'', of all characters, is given this treatment. He's working for (not "with", ''for'') ComicBook/LexLuthor, gets beaten by Superman with astonishing ease, and ends up being locked in a prison meant for ordinary humans.
** All of the villains and Superman himself are incredibly weak compared to their comic counterparts, Darkseid is simply the biggest offender.

* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The game's full title is ''Superman: The New Superman Aventures'' [sic].

* BlindIdiotTranslation: Some of the text seems to suffer from this, creating obtuse-sounding lines like "It was cold but thank you, Superman!" and [[spoiler:"In the real world, Lex is still there."]]

[[SelfDemonstratingArticle Then there's no time to waste!]] [[DescribeTopicHere Describe this atrocity of a game here.]]

* NumberOfTheBeast: The total number of rings in Ride Stage 2 is 616. But this is likely a coincidence.

* AdaptationalWimp: ''ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}'', of all characters, is given this treatment. He's working for (not "with", ''for'') ComicBook/LexLuthor, gets beaten by Superman with astonishing ease, and ends up being locked in a prison meant for ordinary humans.

* LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition: There was a "Collector's Edition" of the game that came with a tie-in comic.

* AWinnerIsYou: After hours of ring stages and other nonsense, you're treated to a shot of Clark Kent and his friends standing outside the portal (in a manner suspiciously similar to the intro scene) and the text says [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iA3YPGnNHo "Well done, you managed to get your friends out of this nightmare..."]] [[spoiler:Then the camera pans over to Lex Luthor laughing as the game adds, "But in the real world, Lex is still there."]]