In the world of awful games, one title will often be raised: Superman 64. You'll often hear about its terrible graphics or awful controls, but up until today, I had never been subjected to it. I was tasked to see how long I could play it before I couldn’t take it anymore.

Clocking Out is our new feature which pits one of our writers against a bad game and sees how long they can last. It's a test of endurance, willpower, and foolhardiness. There have been first hours in the past where our writers wanted to give up before it was over, but now they can admit defeat and clock out whenever they'd like.

When I first boot up Superman 64, I’m greeted with a Super Mario-esque 3D splash screen of Superman’s chest and logo. After this point I’m reminded to insert a Controller Pak if I want to save. Wait, a Controller Pak? Well, there has to be something substantial here if there’s no room to save my game on the cart.

Alright, I choose to continue without saving and get on with it. The main menu is a typical sort of thing – a list of options ranging from New Game to Options and also a Practice mode. I’m not sure what the latter is for, but no matter. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

New Game.

On the positive side, the introduction cinematic lasts less than twenty seconds total. I definitely can’t take points off for minutes to action.

Here we go! Wait a second… Something’s not right here. I have to solve a maze in order to save my friends? What’s this about? No matter, it’s probably training. After taking a second to familiarize myself with the controls, I get to it. My task is to fly through this course of Stargates to get to the end…

...Several times. The controls are utterly atrocious. Who knows though, maybe when I’m done this I’ll get to punch some people and do some awesome Superman stuff? I fail twice, and then manage to get to a new section. I have to stop the cars from hitting pedestrians, in a virtual world? You’ve got to be kidding me. With only a few seconds to even figure out what to do, I promptly lose.

Of course, I don’t get to continue from where I was at, I have to start the god damn Stargate track again. Four more attempts at the Stargates go by and I’m starting to get pretty irritated. Sometimes I lose after missing three gates, sometimes I lose after five. This is completely ****ing arbitrary. Finally I decide to open the menu and see what I’m missing. There’s an option for “Story / Controls.”

"Lex Luthor trapped Lois, Jimmy, and Prof. Hamilton in a virtual world.
Superman has no choice but to enter this world to rescue his friends."

The controls, in order of appearance:

Take off, land with Z.
Accelerate with B, break[sic] with R.
Grab with B.
Throw, punch with A.
Read the last text with L.
Resume texts with B.
Use freezing breath with UP C
Use head vision with LEFT C
Use X-Ray vision with RIGHT C
Activate events with B.
Press DOWN C to guard.

I’m starting to hear the other shoe drop. I don’t even get a nice control diagram, it’s simply been written out stream of consciousness by some idiot that doesn’t know the difference between break and brake. Whatever, I’ll keep going. What’s the worst that can happen?

After failing at the Stargate maze two more times, I finally reach the cars. “Now I’m armed with the official controls,” I think to myself. “Maybe I should land to deal with this!” Nope. The game gives me all of its nopes as Superman proceeds to have seizure. This wasn’t the worst part though, apparently I lost due to an arbitrary ****ing time limit, because this is my Game Over screen:

The guy wasn’t even hit by the car! **** you Superman. **** you Lex. I’m going to kick both of your asses.

Back to the Stargates...

Next time I lose trying to fly to the cars. I’m going to quit – I’m going to. Wait! I get to resume from the cars now? How ****ing arbitrary is that? Whatever, I don’t have to do the Stargate maze again. Thank god for that.

I win! I saved the idiot pedestrians in the virtual world! Holy **** I’m awesome.

“Luthor: If you want to save your friends, solve my maze!”

**** you. Why do I have to do another god damn run of ****ing Stargates. Does Lex Luthor just have a boner for making Superman fly through flying rings? Is this his evil plan? They aren’t even made out of ****ing Kryptonite! I lose this one another four times due to the ***** controls. ****. Finally I beat this thing, I can move on!

No. The next section tasks me with save this police cruiser that’s being shot at with Bazookas. What does this have to do with saving Lois (because, you know, **** the other two)? Nothing, it has nothing to do with it. Whatever, Lex is a moron, I’ll save this car. Oh wait, you pick things up automatically and the action button just throws the car, so I threw it on the ground.

**** you Mr. Officer. **** you Superman. **** you Lex. **** you Lois – don’t get yourself digitized next time, because if I see another ****ing cock ring covered in stars, I’ll kill you myself. You win game. You win. If your objective was to make me hate you, you succeeded.

I can’t even be bothered to deride it for the awful graphics and the terrible heads up display.

**** off Superman 64.

Clocked out after 16 minutes. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I honestly had more fun playing with the infinite window-ception in my capture software after I had proceeded to kill the game with fire.

I score this heap:

What idiot thought this was a good idea/10

 

-This is Tucker, clocking out.