You are Superman, all the powers are yours. Flight, deep vision, super speed, super strength, freezing breath and X-ray vision by early. You receive the DC. Comics collector's edition Superman comic book? Then there's no time to waste. Welcome to the show, everyone. My name is David Petrangelo, and 64 whole bits cannot save me from being great at my own video game. I am awesome. Up, up and get the hell away from this damn game. What the hell am I doing? Oh my God.
More rings. Get Me Out of here. Hello, Jiggy. Look back. How are you? Welcome back to the show. Hello. I'm doing fantastic. OK, now viewers picture me with a button up shirt, right? I'm running down an alleyway to help a screaming lady. I had a bit a big jiggy. He had a giant jiggy. Oh my God, 15. Minutes and it's very uncomfortable. Do you sell merch? Because if you don't sell merch with a jiggy on it, I think you're missing out. Because that's pretty awesome.
I definitely do have merch and I have a store, but I haven't really pushed it yet. I'm still building stuff. Well, now you have another idea. Clearly the Superman logo with the the jiggy on it. Yeah, 'cause there's no licensing problems with that. You can definitely get away with it. Yeah, it's. Not like Nintendo sues these days. They they don't even. Notice it's no, no, no D CS too busy making really bad movies to even notice that either.
So just you're fine, you're good and that lovely other voice that you're that you're hearing is Jake from press speed to cancel. Hello Sir, welcome back to remember 64. It has been a while. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, I guess I was on Wow two years ago or a year and a half. Ago it is about a yeah, about a year and a half ago. Early days for for Blast Corps, yeah. Yeah, before you're doing video. Yeah.
Yeah, we went from a really fantastic, one of my favorite games on the N64 to. What we're talking about today game. On the N64. Awesome. The one that has rivals your all time favorite. Yeah, all bangers all. Bangers. All. The time I mean, they wouldn't call it super if it was bad, right? Of of course not. That's right, of course not. Super game for a Superman. Absolutely, Jake, you are that Superman. Well, thank you. I'll try to be. Try to be We're all going to do our best this time.
We're all going to do our best. If you haven't already picked up on it, yes, we are talking about what is usually known as Superman 64. But the full title, which I didn't really realize I just thought it was just called Superman is Superman Colon, The New Superman Adventures. That's the full title, and that is? 'Cause the old adventures weren't good enough, we have to
make another one, yeah? Have to make another one and, and, and it is tied in that way because it is based on like the the cartoon and comics and stuff that were going on at the time. So they just, they named it the same way I think because it was the way it was licensed through Titus and all that stuff. That seems like they just, that's how they had to do it. What a bunch of other games were just called Superman around that
time or before. This is how they differentiated it because of the animation style and stuff like that. So. Let me just say the cartoon banger. Is it the animated? Series Banger. The Justice League series that connects them both. Banger. Yeah. Well, I will say that the Batman one is one of my favorite animated shows of all time, if not my favorite. It's incredible. He connects with the Superman. It's pretty dope. Yeah, he does. Yeah right, right.
They would cry cause yeah like the the animators and the. Stand and takes Lois away from Superman. It's awesome. Yeah, I'll, I'll say the DC animated has always been a step above, right. I mean, I could, I could live without the DC movies, but the animation stuff is always stellar. I love the animated series. The Superman cartoon's fantastic Justice League, though. Justice League is a choice freaking show for sure. Young Justice, even, is great.
Young Justice was great until the last season, I think, which they like, revived it or whatever, but yeah, it was great. I gotta I gotta look that up. I don't think I've seen Young Justice. Oh, that one. Yeah, yeah, No, I think I may have seen a few episodes here and there, but but that's it. The first season. Especially is amazing. Well, there's Four Seasons, so decent amount. OK, nice. OK, so we have a lot to dig into or very little to dig into. We'll see how this episode goes.
I'm not quite sure as we get started, as we get into it. You know, Jake, we've we talked about when you're on the Blast Corpse episode about your experience with the 64. Do you have experience with this game? Or did I just ask you if you were around and you said, you know what? I feel like punishment. So yes. So, I mean, this is a game that I, I did not play as a kid, but I of course heard the reputation. I have tried it. I mean, a couple of years ago, I gave it a go.
I did not get very far. But when you mentioned that you're going to do an episode on this, I figure, you know, why not let me give another shot. Maybe I've gotten better. Maybe it's not the game that's bad. Maybe it's me that that fails yours. Gave another go this week and I did my homework. I did not get very far, but I did try. A valiant effort. Interesting try, but I I did my homework by watching some YouTube videos of some full playthroughs and it's a it's a game.
Man, you really got to do a whole episode on this one, huh? I know it's almost like should we just like put a bunch of really bad games together, but then then you're just going to be talking about all this whatever. Anyways, I'll. I'll guess with Elmo we learn something. I mean, that was that was a positive experience. You know what me and me and Jiggy came away with? With more positive thoughts on that game, or at least I did than I thought we would with
those Elmo games. Like they're not, they're not meant for us and that's OK. That's great to have options for kids and everything. But like, it wasn't a horrible experience. It was just simple and that's OK. Let me tell you something, if you put a bunch of letters in a crowd or in a group, right in Group setting, they're just all clumped together and you tell me to find a specific letter. Like specifically the letter FI could do it like 3 seconds faster than I used to for sure.
Like a line up like. Power of Elmo, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm telling you. I'm telling you just like it's like F. Like if they're lined up like in a classic, you know when you go to the police station, Yeah, the police line up is like that. Like I found the F Elmo Tommy, that's an F. That's valuable life skills, right? There it is after a week of Superman. I'm telling you right now, if I see a series of hoops, I could probably do half of them. That's.
Right. Nice. So you're gonna sink a bunch of basketball baskets as well, obviously. Like that's the idea. It translates, right? Yeah, it's totally. The same thing. It's. Totally the same thing, guys. Basketball's the same as playing Superman 64. We're just just, we're just letting you know, that's all you have to do. If you're gonna take anything away from this episode, it's that Jiggy, you had some experience with this in the past. What's up with that, man?
Why? I just, so actually my cousins had this game and they had this game and Starfox 64 and I was at their house and I was playing them and I loved both. And so I got both Starfox 64 and Superman for myself because I like them so much. So Superman never really played the I mean, I did play through the levels later, but I spent most of the time in the training.
OK. Like there's a training level where you can go and you can get your ice powers, you can get your heat vision, which why do you have to get little emblems to use those? Video video games, that's why. Video games, yeah. So anyways, there was like one enemy you could fight and then you could pick up a car and I would spend hours just freezing the car, heat visioning the car, flying around with the car, like putting it on buildings,
throwing it off buildings. Like I just found so much enjoyment in that I that's it. OK, OK. Before there's Gary's mod, there was Superman 64, I guess. I mean, I didn't realize that much fun in the sandbox. Yeah, it's. Fun. I mean, we wouldn't have Minecraft if it wasn't for this game, correct? Right. Correct. Is that what you're saying? That's what you're saying, right? Obviously has this legacy right there.
Yeah, here's. The thing those rings, I mean, it's it's a tragedy that they made that like a gameplay mechanic. But the actual flight controls aren't that bad. They're, they're OK. I, I think he, I think he just turns too quickly. Like he just moves a little too fast left and right. Yeah. All you, all you did was all you. This is me playing like, I think for the first time, maybe, maybe second time, all you just run into the car and throw it like, you know, like, and then press a
button. I don't even know what the buttons are. I just mash the buttons to figure out what does what. Is that how you throw cars in this game? I use this so it's A or B. The first stage I did maybe 12 times and then Lex wins, Lex wins, Lex wins, and then I accidentally beat it. I was so stunned that I beat the first stage and you have precious seconds to throw a goddamn car. I couldn't figure out how to land. But the flying I, I'm with you guys is not so bad.
It's not terrible, but the landing is awful. Like, would you want to land and get back up again? If you're over water and you hit the land button, you go to the bottom of the bloody ocean and you want to get back up again. It's a chore, but I mean, if once you're in the sky, it's, it's OK. Yeah, like, I mean, it's not too bad. To pull some advice from my phys Ed teacher in high school, you got you got to fly and ride Superman like you ride a football.
Just gently, just gently, gingerly, just caress the buttons. Don't don't manhandle them. Don't do that. It's it's. True, because if you if you go too fast or although I did watch a couple of like playthroughs of like the later levels and people fly through some of the ones where the rings move and stuff at full speed. And I'm like, wow, you're the Superman playing this. Honestly, you are Superman because I don't understand how anyone could do that.
Again, not really because the controls are terrible, but it's just not conducive to what they're asking you to do. Like it just does not. I, I can't, I can't understand. I don't think it's horrible. This the the rings and everything. Like it's dumb that it's constant, but at least the flying is probably the most manageable part, or at least the most functional part of the game. I don't know. If it was, if it was a bonus level, I think it'd be OK in
hindsight. I mean, if it was an occasional bonus level, it didn't matter if you got all the rings, you just got points or a bonus for for doing it. But it's not though. It's mandatory and you do it basically. I think every second or third stage you have rings to fly through pretty much. And they just keep adding more time to that clock and more rings. The final ring stage, it's just a constant stream you fly through and it's like 10
minutes. So I mean, if it was, if it was optional, it'd be OK. It, it would just be fine. I, I always pull up some information as to the development of games and everything. And so, OK, So what I, what I don't get is, or actually what I have some sympathy for. So that, so this game is made by Titus, Titus Interactive, Titus Interactive. I look through the list of games that I've, that I've covered so far and played so far for the show.
And I was like, oh, I could have sworn that we played more of their games so far, but we haven't, didn't have a ton of N64 games. The one that we did play though was Carmageddon. So already I was like, oh Jesus, here we go. But looking through everything about this game and how it was developed, it actually seems like it wasn't really their fault that this game was as, or at least part of it wasn't quite their fault for how much they kind of got screwed over with it.
So the founder of Titus Kane, Eric Kane or Kern Kane Kane, we were talking before about how the animated series Batman, for example, is such a great show that was on at this time. And this guy was like, you know what, we should gobble up a Superman license and make a game on it. That would be great. You know, not a not a property
that is super hot right now. You know, death of Superman happened a few years ago and all these things like everyone knows who Superman is, but not a hot commodity. Maybe we'll have a chance. Ended up getting the license for it. And they're like, oh shit, this is great, awesome. WB, let us have it, DC, let us have it. And then what happened was the is it the licensing? Yeah, the licensing team at Warner Brothers was fired or let go like a month later after they
got this deal. And I don't know if you guys can even guess what kind of game this Warner Brothers and that licensing team wanted to make instead out of Superman. This is before development even started. This was like very early stages. Obviously. Take a wild guess what kind of game they wanted to make, and then I will tell you that you're wrong and tell you what the correct answer is. Fighting game. OK, Jake Kart. Racer.
Good guesses actually both. Both make sense or could make sense or you could see the reality of it. No, instead the first demand that they had was to make a SIM like game where Superman would be the mayor of Metropolis. They wanted to make a SIM City essentially where he was the mayor. When is he ever the mayor of Metropolis? And why in any way would that have anything to do with Superman or be fun in any capacity? I just that was their idea. That's what they wanted. Weird.
So they basically stonewalled them the whole time, delaying them, not giving them assets. Eventually they did get what they needed to sort of make, you know, the characters and stuff to be able to have their likenesses and everything. But they screwed them over for months and months and months.
The game came out six months late, then later than they wanted it to, partially because they weren't being given what they needed to create it. Maybe it wouldn't have been an amazing game if Carmageddon is an example that's, you know, well, probably not the most fantastic result.
But I mean, I think if you're if you're just being stonewalled at every every turn when you're just trying to make some sort of game with a superhero and want to make it SIM City, like, come on. I don't know, I find that absolutely ridiculous. But maybe it's just me. I can't even wrap my brain around the concept of this being a SIM City clone. It just does not.
It just doesn't work. Even if it was a city builder with Superman is is like the an MPC who flies around or something like Bowser did in the original SIM city on on on snaz. That doesn't make sense. Like how do you take the Man of Steel and you turn that into a city builder? Like it just it just does not fit at all. I don't get it build. The city he goes and picks up the pieces like. He literally. Like Lego blocks the buildings when he bounces off them.
I guess maybe the damage he caused over decades of being a hero he has to rebuild the city. Like maybe he's the. Repairman like is that what it is? It doesn't it doesn't make sense It's so it's so stupid and then you know what it's it's unfortunate because like you know, you have superhero games and you know not all of them hit
especially like early SNES days. A lot of it was like 2D platformer and sometimes it would be a fighting game, or at least eventually these became fighting games and stuff. All that. OK, you know, are they all home runs? No, but at least you could do something with it. At least you can kind of embody a superhero in this. Like we said, maybe the flying. I don't know. Is there any other redeeming qualities to the gameplay here, guys? I don't know. The powers, they're fun.
Are they? Are they fun though? Are you sure? They're there. They exist. I think when you, when you use, when you don't, when you're not forced to use them, they're fun. Like in your, like in your sandbox mode that you spend hours in. Sandbox mode, if you just have heat vision, you're sitting there just like like it's, it's fun. Sorry, what was that sound effect? What is that? What is that college humor skit with bad man? Not Batman, but it's bad man. Oh.
And then he talks about how Superman's really lame with his powers. He's like, is that soup too hot, ma'am? OK. Here you go. Yeah. There is like. I'd use it to cut Bates arm off. There is escort missions in this game, and one of the tactics to get through those without with your sanity is to protect the person you're escorting. You freeze them with your freeze breath into a block of ice. That's kind of fun in a I'm so
pissed off of this game. It's an outlet for me so I can just freeze Jimmy to keep him that day for a minute. That's kind of entertaining. It's very stupid. It makes no sense, Jimmy. I know it makes no sense that freezing the escort. Freezing your escort is how you get through them is a very weird gimmick. Well, yeah, you're not escorting them, you're just. Icing them. I icing them. I don't know. I was like, well, he was like, what's the turb? I don't know.
So so the the rings, the ring stuff is what everybody remembers from these games, right. And what's odd about this that I realized was that one. So I read up a little bit about the game and and wrote some of the notes down and stuff before I started playing. I was like, I just want to see what some of this development situation was here. And that same studio Co founder defended the fact that the rings. I mean this you got to defend your work.
I guess in some ways I don't, you know, I don't necessarily think that's a terrible thing. I I get it. Maybe you don't think it's the greatest game, but maybe you can actually say like, oh, at least we tried our best or whatever in that in I think I think it might have been an IGN interview from like, you know, 25 years ago or something. He defended the fact that the ring things are in it saying, Oh, it is only the tutorial levels and it is not the whole game. But like you guys just said
before, no, it's not. It's every couple of like things you do is that it's absolutely that is untrue 100%. And I I don't understand the need to want to do that over and over and over again. I don't are they really just running out of ideas? Like I just don't. I don't know, man. If. You take them out. Oh. Go ahead. If you take the ring stages out, this game is still fairly long without the ring stages, right? Yeah, there's, there's a decent amount of stages.
I mean, regarding, is that what it is 14? Yeah. And the stages are actually kind of long, right. And the frustrating part, which I think you were alluding to, but before I can't remember what you guys said it. Oh, you have to restart or whatever, right? I thought the restart was oh, I failed the ring thing. OK, restart at that section. No, that it's like the checkpoints or like the entire, let's say 20 minutes, half an hour, whatever it takes you or
whatever, right? That's the problem is that if you fail one out of four things that you have to do or five things you have to use to start all the way back over and it just feels really, really tedious. And I just some of the decisions that they came up with, stuff like that, It just feels extra old school when the game is
already just kind of bullshit. Yeah, and the rings, like you'd think, OK, they're using this to point to where you're going because there's a lot of fog in this game, right? But then they also have the compass down in the bottom right corner that tells you where you need to go. So it's like there's further no proof or no reason to have these rings. So it's just it's time killer is all it is. And also the funny set up with the ring stuff is that apparently it's a maze.
According to Lex's Lex Luthor's instructions. You have to escape my maze or beat my maze. And it's like, this isn't a maze. A maze is where I would. I'm only getting lost because this game controls like Pooh, not because this is an actual maze. No, I said. Where the rings are Lex. Amazed.
At this stupid idea. Misheard me with your superhero Superman. So that that compass actually goes away if you play on the harder difficulty, which you kind of want to do because you want the hard difficulty, because you get the actual, you get the real ending if you play it on the hard difficulty. I didn't know that. What's the real ending? I should look that up. I'm going to look that up. I think, I think you get a single screen. I think is what it is.
It's not. It's nothing mind blowing, but the game ends really if you play on normal, they want you to play on Superman difficulty because really, if you if you master the rings, you truly are Superman. Sure I did, I did notice too. I didn't know this until I read up on it but you whoop that's loud sound in my ear. You if you put on easy, I don't know if you if you switch to easy at all. The ring stages have no rings, it just gives you an end point and you can just fly wherever you want.
Pre fly. OK, OK. Yeah, Which could be preferable? I don't know, maybe that's preferable. But also it's like, what then what's the point, right? Like what's the point? I'll tell you what the point is. The point is, you're Superman. It should be easy. It should be no problem for you. That's. That's a good point though. That's true because Superman is a character. He's hard to do a video game for, or at least a good video game, because he is Superman. He is literally the most
powerful hero in most universes. So what do you do with the character who is invincible? Right? Like I, I think there's only one good Superman game I've ever played and it's the arcade game really. And I. Don't. Think that was legit game did you? Ever play the Man of Steel one that was on like Xbox 360? No. No, I didn't play that.
Yeah, are not Man of Steel. I mean Superman Returns, there is a Man of Steel one, but I mean Superman Returns based off the movie, that one was really interesting. I think it had potential because it was essentially, it was essentially an open world Superman game. You're flying around Metropolis. You could do things like fly up into the sky and then shoot down like a meteor. And you'd have like random, you know, Spider Man 2 style pop up quests where you have to save the citizens.
You have to defeat robots. You have to do like it was, it wasn't perfect, but you could see the potential there. And I think there was a game, I can't think of what it's called. I believe it's free and you can get it on Steam.
It's like an indie game where they took the concept from Superman Returns and refined it and made a pretty fun game out of it. And it's and it's, it's not Superman based or or like it actually has Superman or no. It's not Superman. But it's a. Guy with, like, sunglasses and he's, you know, he is. He's got the same powers, basically. Gotcha. It's right.
It's awesome. Yeah. I got to I I got to say, trying to figure out what to do in these stages as I watch my stupid decisions of for some reason, flying underwater. I I like there's no it's like the side doors open when you pick up like a thing. It's like what side doors where I don't what I've seen one. Door man, I punch it. That's how you use computers, apparently. Yeah, Very obscure game. It it's just yeah, it doesn't make any sense talking about
other versions of the game. Apparently there was a a PlayStation version of this game that the same company was making that never got released. But it was like pretty much done like essentially just completely finished like 90 something percent done. I'm going to switch over so we can look at it. But it is kind of the same game. I don't think it's drastically different or anything like that, but it looks a little bit cleaner in some ways.
A lot of it takes place inside, at least according to the videos that I looked up. You know, some of the some of the textures and stuff are kind of mucky and whatever. That's PlayStation, That's the era, whatever, right? It is what it is. That's yeah, exactly so. But the saturation though the colors pop a lot more on Superman. It's way more colorful. Even though you're underground and everything's brown, everything's still more colorful somehow.
Yeah, I think. Objectively if I looked at both of those side by side I'd be like the PlayStation one looks way cooler. Yes, it does and he and he looks better too like oh, add go away, add I don't need small I'm not a small business owner. I don't have money to have a small business go away. OK, back to the game. Where's another stage and stuff? There's there's a couple stages here that it like this is another sort of like underground bunker type of stage thing. It's just still looks more
interesting graphics. This looks good. Yeah. Like the textures here look a lot better. When I think PlayStation One, I keep thinking of Final Fantasy 7's lack of textures on things, on everything. Or think of something like siphon, siphon filter where it's just kind of grainy. But this, these look pretty clean. I'm. I'm kind of surprised they
didn't release this actually. I know, I think it was what I read up on it was that it was like a it was like a Warner Brothers thing that Superman 64 actually made money like because people bought it because it's Superman and it's, you know, the time that whatever it's sold decently well or well enough. But I think it was like just disappointment and reception and all those types of they got. There's no set reason that I found at least. But the fact that it just wasn't
released kind of sucks. It sucks because people work on this stuff too. And everything that I saw every time I saw this game mentioned was that it was like a minimum of 80 or 90% finished. So like this is a very finished product and that's just unfortunate. So I don't know. Yeah, you can play this today
for the for. I mean, I'm not gonna advertise where, but you can do this regulation and I think you just have to use some level skip codes to get through certain blockers, but I think you can play through most of it. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it looks like it's worthwhile if you if you get a chance to sort of give it a shot so. He literally changed his costume when he went underwater like he was. He turned into Aquaman essentially as scuba. Why does he need?
That why does he need a scuba tank? Yeah, he could go into space. It's Scuba Steve. Movie online, yeah. Scuba Steve. Well, that just triggered a memory. Yeah, man, I love that movie. That's classic. Yeah. So Superman 64 is a mess. Like, let's be honest, it is a very, very messy game. I don't know, aside from like the ring stages, I don't really
know like what what improves it? I don't know, like there's there's so little to sort of say like, oh, if this hat like sometimes there's games where it's like, oh, if they just sort of checked a couple of extra boxes or made a small change with this or that, then it's like, great, you got this, like you, you've made a more polished version of this game or whatever. I just think there's just so much in this that is not great that it would be really hard for
that to happen, I think. I think you give it a Dynasty Warriors treatment. Let's just have tons of enemies running at you at the same time. Oh. Shit, OK. Let's give Superman all his powers accessible at all times. There's no there's no limit. I I don't know why they would ever do that.
That was dumb. But if you treated it like, you know, like a Dynasty Warriors, like hack and slash, just like every level and he gave you plenty of space to to work right, I think that would be a lot cooler. Yeah, yeah, like you said that you had a lot of fun with like the practice mode because it was more sandbox like. And when you mentioned that that Xbox game that that sounds like a great idea to me. Superman is definitely something that would work better in a wide open space.
Why is he flying through under underwater tunnels? It doesn't doesn't jive with me. But if it's open sandbox and you're just dozens of mooks coming at you like mobs, henchman, That makes sense. Cause the enemies in this, I don't wanna say damage sponges, but they take a few hits and again, you're Superman. Why do they take more than one punch right? It doesn't make a lot of sense.
The, the, it was on the footage that you had Dave, but there's a scene in like the first part where you go and there's like 4 enemies lined up and you just stop. And 1st off, Superman's like punching animation is just silly. He's just like uppercut like. Also, his run. His run is hilarious. His body doesn't move, just his arms. Just arms. Yeah, looks looks like a like a a Mull Walker. That's what he looks like. It's just a great poster. Great poster, though.
Great poster A. Nutcracker. A Nutcracker. That's it. Yeah. But yeah, you're. But you punch him, right? And they're animated hilariously. When you punch them, they're like, yeah, like fly off the screen. And it's so satisfying to just go down a line of them and just punch, punch, punch, punch. They're one shots. They go flying. That's what Superman is. That's what it should be. Or, or you fly into them and just knock them all down like they're like they're bowling
pins like. Yeah, that's what it should be, yeah. That is so much fun. It doesn't, you know now obviously they. Fly them up in the sky and just drop. Them. Oh my God, that'd be great. There's the one stage where you have to fight dark side. I think it's dark. Yeah, it's dark side. And you, you go, you have a small skirmish with him. You punch me a few times. He he falls flat on his back,
which does not make sense. But then you're picking him up above your arms and you're walking down the hallways. I think you're supposed to take him to a cop car. I think it is to get him arrested, which this is like, this is like one of the new gods, one of those powerful super villains in their mythos. And you're picking him up over your shoulder, getting stuck on the ceiling 'cause you know, Superman 64 geometry and he's getting arrested by the cops.
This, this is the the battle. This is what's in Lex's simulation. Like that's the other thing is this is all so so the ring thing, all of this stuff that's happening is supposed to be a simulation. It's. All a game. It's all it's literally all a game. Do you want to play a game like it's just it's what it is. No, I definitely do not. This is the is this the dark seed level? No, it's not.
Hold on. I'm trying to change it over so we can see it, but it's it's like, Oh my God, it's moving so clunky. What is this person playing this thing on? So this is the stage where there's destructible walls and if you're in the area of those, the frame rate tanks like it's a cool concept, destructible walls that they ruin the frame rate and. Right, one of these things. Where I wish they could have performed it better. Yeah, like that's these, these
the shadow figures. The shadow hench men. They look like like just a punch. Hey, there goes the wall. Oh. Wait, there it goes. Look. Look other than physics. Look at those physics. Oh, I. Love it. Like that's the other thing too, is there's not a ton going on in many areas of this game just because it's it's very empty. But like you just said, Jake, the the frame rate just chugs for some reason. It's not like there's overly detailed textures around you. It's not like, yeah, the Cape
flaps a little bit. That's all that's really happening. Why is it? Why is it chugging like you're playing on this old school PC with a brand new, you know, whatever Call of Duty game or something? You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't doesn't add up to me. Have you? Have you guys seen the speed run of this? Have you guys watched it before? I've never seen the speed. Run of this I, I have seen parts of it. I've seen parts of it, yeah.
The fun part of the speed run, I don't know if the world record still uses this trick, but the trick was if you go on the options there's an option to change the render size of the screen. So the speed run Strat is to shrink it down to the size of a postage stamp. Beat the game and because it's so small it renders faster and that's how you get through these stages 'cause this this would slow you down your time. Right. That is definitely not something that I saw. That's hilarious. Yeah.
That's unreal. The frame rate is killer. It's so bad and I don't understand it. Like I really, I, I don't get it because there's just not enough going on here for this, for it to be a problem like that's, that's so puzzling to me. I don't know I I understand that you're only capable of doing so much. I know that like the what's funny too. I don't know if you guys noticed the fog or I think I don't even know. Does he say this? Does Lex say this? The fog is green and it's made
it a kryptonite. Like, like hilarious hilarious. Well, you know what? I appreciate that though, because that's, that goes back to me liking Turok. The the the fog was part of the gameplay experience. It made sense to have the fog. I agree. Superman, there'd be fog. Yeah, my fog. Sure, why not? I mean, at least it's a simulation did. You ever play that one? No, on this, I have not played it. No, that's gonna be on the list, that's for sure.
'Cause they, they put the fog in, so you're like on top of the buildings and all below is filled with the fog. And in the story, it's just like they gasped the city. And it's it's pretty awesome actually. It's a good way of doing this. Sequence. Yeah, I love when they give a reason for it. Yeah, yeah. Like in Turok, it's, it's more just like, oh, you're in the jungle and it's like the rainforest, you know, whatever you wanna call it.
And so, you know, for the most part, not everywhere, but for the most part, I, I could see that, you know, there's the one state, what's the one stage called in, in Goldeneye. Same thing when you're out in the jungle where you. Like the Amazon with the What's her name? Yeah, where you face? Yeah. On the top. Yeah, exactly. When you face her and stuff like makes sense.
And I think Jiggy, when we played that game last year and covered it, we're like, oh, this is like Turok, That's what this feels like. And it makes sense. It totally does. It's just there's there's not enough of that in this to justify the frame rate dropping like a like a fucking brick in the ocean. Like it just it's ridiculous. Boom, there goes the wall. Like that's cool. That looks like it. That looks like when I did that, it breaks open like you are.
The walls in this particular level break open like it is an animated TV show almost right. The bricks are kind of just all in one piece and they just kind of fall to the side. Looks good, looks good, but nothing else does. Just 5 frames of animation, that's all. That's the only problem. That's all you do? Yeah. Punch that car, Superman. Punch that car. Oh, no. Here is Luther's card or car. I don't even know what that sound. I don't remember that at all.
This bank card Superman needs some new threads. He needs that scuba suit. And he's a where's that? Where's that PlayStation scuba suit? What's the other thing? The other thing I had to was I found the Nintendo Power issue. I always try to find Nintendo Power and see how they promote terrible games. Nintendo Power always looks way cooler than it actually is. Like every single time. It's such a good job. Just OK, so this is Kate. The crazy thing about this.
I'll I'll show you after you guys can guess like well, not guess, but I'll show you how out of place Superman looks in this issue, the game of. Steel. The game of Steel, it is issue 114 November of 1998. So this, they're promoting this game as if it's like the next coming of Superman. I guess I was gonna say Christ, but the problem with this, one of the issues is when you flip through all these pages, none of them show rings. You have 6 pages of Superman. Nothing.
Why? Would you only show the tutorial? That doesn't make sense. It's a sense, right? It's if. This if this, the creator of the studio said, oh, the rings are just the tutorial, they're not really the game. They must have added those interspersed levels to pad it out. They had to have late late in the stage. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's exactly what it is I need. To grab something because this looks more like.
Something else he's he's getting a hula hoop as we speak for the audio listener, he's going to go through a ring. Jump through it. Nice moves, nice moves. No, I was going to say this looks more like this game that I have on GameCube. Game command. Shadow of Apocalypse, which is Tuber Man 64 but on GameCube essentially. Is it really better? It's a little bit better, but it's still like it runs choppy and everything, but it like has like, I mean, it looks better
saturate. Does it have rings? Yeah. Does it have rings? That's the question it. Does not. OK, But yeah, it's like this is what these screenshots even make it look like. Like they're more saturated. Yeah, they. Look more. They look more. Which is more? The cartoon was very colorful, like the the style of the cartoon more it was like the opposite of the Batman animated show, which is very dark and grim. Superman was always bright and colorful and cheerful.
It was, it was interesting. The The funny thing about this, I don't know if you guys can see it from your perspective, 'cause it might be a little small, but one of the things on here, the preview stuff on here says also weird title, man. And Superman. I don't know what that's supposed to mean for this little like thought bubble here that they have. So Nintendo Power rites. Translating a comic book into a video game is very difficult.
Superman, Batman, Spawn, and others have been down the road before with mixed results at best. It's almost like they knew that there was a problem here. That's not true though, there's lots of great comic book video games. Right I. Agree. The Genesis was fantastic. Right? There's there's a bunch of them. I I agree, I think I think even even they they, they reference spawn as if like spawn some sort of like, you know, outlier and maybe that's the one that's not bad.
You play spawn on on on Game Boy or you or you play it on the SNES. It's not bad. It's not great, but it's not it's, it's OK. It's like all the other ones that are kind of like it. So maybe it doesn't differentiate itself a ton. Pick a 2D side scroller with some beat em up stuff that that's good at that time. And it was. And a lot of them are still fun today. I think so. I don't know. It's, it's almost like they were just trying to subdue the
expectations. Yeah. Yeah. Something in there for sure. Yeah, I gotta, I just gotta point something out about this animation style because it's always bothered me, OK? And it bothered me with the connection to the Batman series, and it bothered me when they still did it in Justice League. Why are his eyes Superman's only pupils? Like he's only got just black dots for eyes with a little like but like everyone else like even in his own show have actual eyes. Yeah, Lois Lane has eyes that
you can see him. Yeah, Yeah. Look at those eyes. Yeah, she's got eyes and like. Full eyes still. Out of place like look and in a blow up version of his face he's got pupils. Well, I mean, how else is he going to focus those heat ray vision, right? He has. He needs beady little eyes for beady little rays of heat. I mean, he's got to. Keep him under control. If you have too much eye you're it's everywhere you end up like cyclops. Cyclops. Yeah, it's exactly yeah. I mean.
And he sees the answer to Cyclops. And Cyclops doesn't shoot laser eyes. We know it's got concussive. OK, it's a concussive blast, whatever the hell that means, but whatever the. Punch dimension, that's what it is, yeah. Right, so. I went down that rabbit hole recently. X-Men 97 people watch it. It's excellent. Yeah. It's. Fantastic. It's so. It's so damn good. Don't. Jet and he's just like using his
oh to to just descend slower. I was like, that was awesome and I never would have thought about that. Yeah. Like and that's in the first like 15 minutes of the whole show that happens. Every week it's. Fantastic. It's great. It's absolutely great. Don't play this game for Season 2 and don't even listen to us talk about this anymore. Just go watch that show. Honestly, stop it right now. Go watch X-Men 97 then come
back. And then come back and then come back and hear our hear our thoughts, because clearly we don't land. We haven't figured out how we feel about this game. So the other thing, the final thing about this Nintendo Power issue that has almost nothing to do with Superman at all is all the games that are featured in this and why it feels like again that they they buried this game
in this issue. Because if you look at the review section alone, you have ocarina of time, you have Turok 2, you have an NFL game, you have buck Bumble, which is fantastic. People go play Buck Bumble, Wipeout which I haven't played on 64 but great series. NHL game Body Harvest Haven't played that either but supposed to be good. Extreme, G2, Glover and even the Gameboy colour is featured in here.
The Gameboy. Colour, like the actual review of the hardware itself or quote UN quote, whatever. You know, Nintendo Power reviews, if you want to call them that, like it's, it's what you have, but with some colour. Hey, I love the gameboy colour. Me too. Don't get me started in the Gameboy colour. That thing is awesome. Me too, I love that machine. Yeah, I still have my see through purple one. I don't know if it works. I haven't tried it in a while,
but yeah. Mine. 'S going around here too, yeah, but all those games are in this that the the front cover of this issue is occurring enough time that says it's the biggest issue ever and somehow Superman 64 made its way in here and and that's not a good thing. And it got not just a cover, it really got like a four page spread of of fluff. Yeah. Guys, you're, you're, you're misinterpreting what they're
saying. They're saying the biggest issue ever, Superman 64. That was the biggest issue they had so far on the 64. So that they had, they had it had like it had to. It was right there, plain as day, we. Should have known all along. What were we think? OK, so honestly, Superman 64, I'm glad I'm in a way, I'm glad we played it 'cause I just wanted to experience same thing that you that you were saying.
I think at the beginning Jake was like, I, I know I rented this game, but I don't think I really played it. You know, as a kid, I was too young to kind of be like, Oh my God, this is a horrible game. It was just, I'm like 10 years old. Like I don't, I don't know the difference sometimes. I mean, I know what games I like, but I wouldn't be able to say like, oh, this is a terrible flying ring simulator compared to the last ring simulator that I played. So going back and playing it,
I'm in a way I'm glad I did. So now I can say that this is definitely one of the one of the worst. I don't like saying that about games sometimes, but it's just not good unfortunately. I would just watch someone play it. I would watch a speed run potentially or one that isn't the size of a postage stamp so you can see the whole screen. Watch someone play it at a high level and you'd be like, OK, this is cool, but if you try it, you'll never be able to replicate that.
So I just advise you to not try and replicate it. But it's just a, it's a mess. It's just a mess. I mean, plain and simple, it's just a mess. Unfortunately so. Hold on a SEC, you didn't talk about probably the best part of this game, what? It has multiplayer. Did you not play the multiplayer? Did you try out the multiplayer mode? I didn't play. The. Multiplayer either I. Didn't I know there is one but I did not.
Please, please educate. Us so there so there's it's not just one multiplayer it's 2 multiplayer modes and I spun enough for like 10 minutes to give it a go. So it the first one is it's it's basically a first person shooter battle, but you don't play as Superman. You get to play as one of the various characters. So you know, dark side the, the, the black got trench coat guys, whatever, Amazo. But they don't move.
They sit in like a Charles Xavier style hover car and you're hovering through the city and it's the lowest Polygon city even for this game. I mean, they had to cut down the number of objects because it's multiplayer and it's split screen cause of course it is. And you're basically free flying around the stage shooting a gun from your floating car at the other player. And there's some mild power ups, missiles and all that kind of stuff. Oh, here it is. That's the first multiplayer
mode. Yeah, this is this is it. It feels like almost like a Mario Party mini game. That's what it kind of feels like to me. What? The fuck is this but. But there's like one texture for the building wall. They even on some of them use the same texture for the windows on top of the roof of the building. It's so janky, but it's this is the one mode. The second multiplayer mode is race.
One player goes slower, but they lay a trail of rings and the second player has to fly through the rings to kind kind of beat them. I'm so. Amazed they even did this when they're so pressed for time and so so struggling for gameplay. They added a multiplayer mode which is which is hilarious. I mean, I guess if you have more than one controller or you have more than two, you have to have four player split screen and some I. You can do two players as well. It's so puzzling though.
Like it like they had to. You don't. Even play Superman. That's what's at the Super car Like look why? Why what? Oh my God that's so weird. I did not try this. I'm look at all these rings. This makes no sense. Just make rings. Fly through them. Yeah, it's it's a wild, it's a wild game. And I get why it has reputation than it does. And I don't like this shit on games either, because there's somebody out there who actually probably really loves this game. Right? Like Jiggy?
Like you like it as a kid because of the sandbox part? You, you have some nostalgia. For. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, but this game sucks. It's you know what else has rings? Star Fox 64. That game has rings and they're fun. And that game is fucking awesome, like one of the best games on the console. Just just gather your rings on that instead. Jiggy, are you? Are you certainly disappointed that your childhood is now
crushed? No, it was never crushed because I can acknowledge and look at this game. Even as a kid I was like, man, going through these, that's why I specifically told you I was like play indoor levels. Yes, you did say that, yeah. What one thing I do think they're more interesting, but they also either run bad or your, your movement is so limited, which is probably the most redeeming factor of this game is the movement. And then you take that away. It's like, well, what do you
have left? Clunky punches. Yeah, yeah. And, and like it's one of those games where whether you're Superman or not, it's like this, this quasi tank control type of thing and that it doesn't, it doesn't make sense why he why he moves literally like a tank. Like it doesn't, it's not tank controls like the Resident Evil sort of ha ha, tank controls Resident Evil. It is literally just like you can't do anything unless you you're clunkily move around. Yeah, and barely move left and
right. Like, it's just so stupid when he's on his feet. So like you said, you give us space, let us fly around, and then you're OK. Not everything needs to be amazingly looking. Not everything needs to be like the greatest metropolis you've ever seen. But like, for shit's sake, you know? Yeah, I think if they gave you just one city like like here, right. And they just added a bit more detail, like it can still have the fog. That's fine. I know. Yeah, it's like all that.
But if they just had this and it was like you fly through the city and you're saving people and like doing different, different quest missions and things, I think it would have been not good, but I think it would have. Been better, yeah. I'm not. I'm not confident it would actually be any good but it but it. Wouldn't I liked flying in the water and pretending I was a dolphin as a kid? I did that a lot. Like like up and down and up and
down. And it makes the splash noise every time you do it. Oh, that's the other thing. OK, so the sound is not terrible at times. The music is definitely very repetitive. Unfortunately. The one thing I did notice is that every once in a while, I don't know when it triggers. This is something where it's like, you know, the sound on the 64 is sometimes pretty good. You know, the music and stuff.
It's actually one of the one of the better things that can have more more consistently across games and stuff, in my opinion. And every once in a while when you're flying, I'm going to turn the sound on on this. Maybe it'll actually work. When you're flying, you can kind of hear like the wind swoosh a little bit. Yeah. I was like, yeah, maybe it's the turn when you're going to certain speed. Yeah, I was like, OK, that's
some, it's a detail. They didn't have to twin any kind of, you know, but that's all it is. You know, that's all it is. There's nothing else to it. It's just very plain. This is cool. The music ramps up a little bit. Pick up the. Car. It's just there's only one of them, right? There's only one it's. Just a limited soundtrack and that's, I think that's the. Problem. That's that's exactly, that's it, yeah. Also when you miss, how many rings do you have to miss before you fail?
Cause I've missed like three in a row and it didn't do anything. It doesn't. So I I don't think it matters how many rings you miss, but you can't miss. Like if you skipped past and the ring was like purple or pink, like you skipped like three rings or something. Like say you fly just by these first three rings and you go to the next one and it's pink, then you fail. Oh, I see. OK. Based on distance rather than the amount of rings you miss.
Oh, so there's ways to cheat it? And you could probably skip a ring. I mean, it might penalize you, you know, if you do it so many times in a row. But. But like, if you miss one, it's not like you lose 10 seconds of time or any of that stuff, which I thought is what it would be. So that, I mean, maybe in the harder difficulty, I actually don't know. But yeah, anyways, that's that was like the the last thing I
was like, yeah, this. Yeah, like you said, the music's not bad, but it's just it's basically two or three tracks that replay a million times. And oh, also this part right here, the story of the game is played through the options menu. To understand what is going on in Superman, you have to go to let's see, I'm gonna go back through. When I went to option series, I think I was looking for the controls, maybe by accident or not by accident but for like.
Story and controls. Story and controls is somehow one together, why I don't know. And also both like the story is in the options menu because when the game starts, all you get is Lex standing there with Lois and whoever else is trapped. Yeah, ha ha ha. Escape my maze. You hear that? Last like my maze like. OK, no, you will be. Amazed. Oh yeah, we keep, we keep forgetting. We keep. Where is I don't have that beginning somewhere. Solve my maze. Like, no, I'm not going to solve your maze.
Anyways. If you really want to know what the story is, they're like two screens of text. You have to go into the options menu. That's essential. That's and then it tells you what the controls are, which are like A and the joystick like press. C. And press B to fly. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's all done. So dumb to. Use your power ups. So dumb. Yeah, 'cause that's in the comics, Superman has to pick up badges before he can use his breath And, and he can that's,
that's Canon, really. It activates. Breathe before he can just breathe. Yeah. All right, everybody. Superman 64 is not good. Probably not surprised by that. But wait, wait, wait. Come on. We got to sell this here because I I think it's so bad. You can find some entertainment in this. Hey man, whatever helps you sleep at night. Yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, get, let's get, get some buddies, do the multiplayer. That was phenomenal. Can. You imagine inviting some
friends over. Ever paid attention to that you? Wanna play some Maria? Party some Goldeneye? No, no, no. We're gonna play some Superman 64. Guys cover car off. Yeah, it's, it's it's retro multiplayer night, boys. Let's go. Get your rubble packs in. Is IT support rumble Pack? It does, yeah. And you? Have to like pop the card, the memory cartridge to pump in the the the rumble pack and it prompts you every time you want to say. It every time. Yeah, that's wild.
Yeah, the fact that I even used space on my memory card for this game was surprising. I'm not selling it. Sorry, Jiggy. I'm not doing it, man. It's not good. It's not Go. Play it, it's great. OK, all right, You know what everyone can it's it's also the best animation in this whole game. Is the is the save screen where you like it's the it's the brightest, most saturated, sort of like that's the best view. Yeah. Just his chest. Just his giant muscly chest.
I. Like these little Daily Planet like news? Yeah. Online like 90s web. I thought they were interactable. I was like, there's a, there's a cursor there. Can I move? I can't. I wish you good. No, I don't know. Maybe give. Maybe it would give you a story. Maybe it would give you more information or controls instead of having to press pause and do story and controls. I don't know. All right, we're all on the same page aside from Jiggy.
Never mind, two of us are on the same page, but go play it. Go play it. All right? All right. Some games are so bad they're good but this is just bad. I mean you should play at this to see how bad it is, but. Go play the sandbox, fly around, pick up a car. Yeah. That's all you need to do. Yeah, that's all you. Need. That's all I'm asking. I'm not saying play through the story, I'm just saying. Yeah, OK, fair enough. Yeah, yeah. Don't do that to yourself, people.
Please, please be. A dolphin live as a dolphin, not just Superman. You're super dolphin. Super Dolphin. Super Dolphin 64. You heard it here first. All right, Jake, before we let you out of here, where can everybody find your awesome stuff online? Man, you got a great show going on that I was on a couple months ago. I think it was a. February, Yeah, Yeah. February. We talked about Best Sense 64 Games. I don't know. Yeah. Well, I know. Yeah, we talked about Best Sense 64 Games.
So, yeah. You can find my podcast, press me to cancel. You can watch us over on YouTube or Twitch. We live stream on Fridays at 8:30 PM Eastern, or you can listen to the audio episodes wherever you listen to podcasts on the following Monday. So yeah, we've been doing it for about four years. And it's it's similar to what yourself do here, retro games, although we don't confide ourselves to bad ones like this, although we we do talk about bad ones occasionally.
I will say that that 64 episode was much more not contentious or or or anything like in a bad way, but like some of the titles that came up. I was like, how is are any of you saying that this is not the game that should win this head to head? Like it was just I was blown away sometime. I know we both were in some ways, but it was like, come on boys, I don't understand. Why nobody picked Turok with me? Turok is a solid game. Nobody. Nobody backed me up on Turok. I was kind of. Upset.
What was the? Game upset about it. That was the secret one you pulled out, right? Yes, Yeah, yeah. What was up against though? That's why I don't remember what it was. It was. Mario 64 or Banjo or or Turok and and nobody went with Turok and kind of shocked, I don't know. Yeah, well, between those three, between those three, I'm I'm, you know, the banjo guy, but Turok's not a bad game. It's not definitely not something I'm going to I'm going to bad mouth. Not not at all. Not at all.
So listen to that hilarity and the best in 64 games, narrowing them down from how many do we have like 12 or 10 or something. It was a decent amount. I. Think we did. I think we did 10 for that one, yeah. We were trying to keep it under under two hours this time. So I think we kept it there doing it. Did it tough. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a big round table. So it was, it was interesting. It was fun. Brett, press B to cancel find on your podcast feed. And Jiggy, what about you, man?
What's what's happened over the last little while? Oh man, just put out a defending Starfox Adventures video that was a lot of fun. It's doing pretty well. Channels growing, ever growing. Did you look back on YouTube? Because I always forget to say that. Yeah, got some some cool things cooking. I'm starting to get people reaching out and asking for reviews on stuff on products and games and things like that,
which is really cool. So I'll be doing some more of that, kind of expanding what I do on my channel a little bit, but not detracting from what I'm doing, just in addition to what I'm doing. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. If you like Rareware Nintendo 64, I make kind of theory videos and deep. Deep dives I would say. Deep dives and all. Yeah, all sorts of stuff. I've, I kind of. You ever think about the fish food from Jet Force Gemini? Well, I have a reason why they
put the fish food in there. OK, even they didn't have a reason. I created a reason but I backed it up with points. Well, that that's the thing that's not just shooting the shit for the hell. Like if there's there's research involved, everybody research involved, the science, the science is real. Yeah, yeah, watch my backpack video. Oh, that's, that's a. That's a gem. Math was involved in anything I did related to Banjo Kazooie is hilarious. That's why it's worth a watch,
man. That's why it's worth a watch. Check that out, Jiggy. Look back on YouTube. You can support this show and follow it all along on your podcast app of choice. Any kind of rating always helps us, but hopefully a good one. That would be nice, but if you don't like it, let me know. Maybe I'll make some improvements. Maybe I won't because I'm tired and I'm old and I don't have time, but just. Give them five stars, because why would you? Why would you be a jerk? I don't.
Yeah. Yeah, just yeah. Or you could do that. Describe and give them a likes. It's free, just you know. That that's true, that is free, but if you don't want it to be free, anyone support the show on Patreon? You can patreon.com/remember 64 show little as a buck a month. You will get episodes early, some extra content when I have the time and all of that stuff, videos and things early before they go up on YouTube. All that stuff is on there anywhere from 1:00 to 6:00 bucks
or five bucks a month. So pretty small and just keep the show going. Help us improve things here as we go as well. But that's pretty much it. Find us on podcast feeds right across the the internets, as they say say, that's what the kids say these days, don't they? That's it. Everybody don't play Superman 64 unless you're jiggy. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks very much. I believe they say the world wide webs. Oh, that's what it is. It's kibbity toilet web now or something.
It's a what?