Game: "Superman: Shadow of Apokolips"

Console: PlayStation 2; also for GameCube

Developer/publisher: Infogrames Sheffield House/Infogrames

Genre: Action

Number of players: One

Rated: E, for everyone

The premise: Scientists have been kidnapped across the city, and Superman has confronted a swarm of mysterious high-powered Inter-Bot robots. Behind the scenes, Darkseid has given LexCorp Apokoliptian technology that threatens the order and civility of Metropolis.

Game play: In a fitting tribute to Superman's comic-book past, "Apokolips" is designed with cel shading instead of normal 3D. This, and the old-style music, really brings the campy feel back to the Man of Steel — something modern graphics and processing couldn't create.

Those nostalgic aspects, along with the story that could be straight from a Saturday-morning cartoon show, are the good stuff this game brings to the table.

By far, the worst aspect is the controls. Not only are they terribly unresponsive, but the schematics are frustrating beyond belief. Many of Superman's abilities, such as throwing items, punching and targeting his heat and laser vision, require either double-tapping the X button or pressing and holding it. However, the response time is temperamental. So not only are you overworking the same button, but it's very likely you'll attempt a command several times before completing it — such as punching dead air while trying to pick up a box. Fun! Not to mention the Man of Steel's super breath has no targeting system other than a small stream of wind that you can hardly see on screen from a few feet away.

The logistics of Superman's flying are complex enough without having to deal with slow control time. There's a button to fly vertical, one to straighten out and one for super speed. You double-tap X to land, and the analog sticks control his direction. As if that weren't bad enough, the camera angles aren't the best help when you're chasing something while flying. It's not uncommon to be in a high-speed, midair chase and have your vision blocked by windows in a skyscraper.

Fighting is perhaps the most fun part of the game, being in the action genre and all. Button-mashing is the most strategy you'll need, for the most part. However, the closer you are to winning, the more reliant you'll be on the extra abilities you easily could have ignored before. But be warned: A poor collision-detection system sometimes leaves you trapped in walls and room corners.

My take: Good story and nice design aside, "Shadow of Apokolips" is just another unremarkable, failed attempt at bringing the Man of Steel to the video-game world. Superman probably has the longest streak of bad games to his name since the "Army Man" series. Even though this title isn't the colossal failure that the legendarily bad "Superman 64" was, you'd still need a Seinfeld-like fanaticism for Superman to enjoy this game.

Jeremy Castillo recently received his associate of arts degree from Windward Community College.