Trivia / Superman 64

• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: "The only thing you do in Superman 64 is fly through rings." The reason people make this claim is because the flying-through-rings segments (which are the parts you do first) are considered notoriously frustrating, but there are plenty of other parts as well, such as fighting mooks, disarming bombs, and walking around Lex Luthor's headquarters itself. However, the fact that these levels are notoriously long and drawn out and that they are a staple of the gameplay have contributed to this reputation being well deserved for many.
• Creator Killer:
  • Developer Titus Software did not last long after this game hit store shelves and immediately turned them and the Superman license into a laughingstock.
  • The game's critical failure was one of the multiple nails in the coffin of DC's Alpha Company status that they received in the late 90's, along with the critical and popular failure of Batman & Robin and the box office failure of Steel. The very next year, X-Men premiered, and Marvel has had a death grip ever since; it would take six years for DC to start rebounding.
• Executive Meddling: In an interview with ProtonJon (which has since been taken down, but is summarized in detail here), developer and producer Eric Caen blames Warner and DC for many of the game's more head scratching moments, like the virtual world setting (as they refused to let Superman hurt "real" people) and the reliance on power-ups to use Superman's abilities. Also, "politics" were apparently responsible for the game's delays, and the delays were responsible for the forced release of this unfinished product. A PlayStation version was also in the pipeline, but the developers' license expired before it could be released.
• Franchise Killer: This game ensured that Superman wouldn't star in a solo game for a long time to come. There have been a few Superman games in later console generations, but none of them were able to improve Superman's reputation in the video game realm.
• Hostility on the Set: One of the reasons the game was the way it was is due to the new management of Warner Licensing who hated the team and their project mainly because they wanted a high profile developer to create the game and went on their way to sabotage the game by requesting nonsensical gameplay ideas such as making the game a SimCity clone and rejecting features such as Superman swimming under water.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: There was a "Collector's Edition" of the game that came with a tie-in comic.
• Not Screened for Critics: By the time gaming magazines got their hands on the game and were able to do a review on it, the game was already out for a couple of weeks, though bad word of mouth about the game also came out in the interim.
• Saved from Development Hell: The game was announced in 1997. It was released in North America on May 29, 1999 and in Europe and Australia on July 23, 1999.
• Screwed by the Network: According to Eric Caen, who squarely lays the blame at the feet of Warner and DC. The money quote:
  "The licensor caused us A LOT of problems... they generated the final quality of the product!"
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The poor programming of the game and the capabilities of the aging Nintendo 64 had the creators Hand Wave the fog for the poor draw distance as Kryptonite fog. However, how Superman is able to breathe, let alone fly, with that amount of Kryptonite fog, along with why such an excuse would be required when the game runs in a virtual world, is unexplained.
• Tyop on the Cover: The New Superman Aventures (sic).
• Urban Legend of Zelda: The ending described here (ignore the Spider-Man references) is apparently a Crossover Punchline of sorts with Batman and... Duke Nukem??^note The site in question has a section where readers could send in their own ideas for games; it's likely that this was intended to go there. The actual ending leaves a lot to be desired.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A PlayStation version of the game was also planned. In fact, the developers for the PlayStation version were actually going to fix the N64 version's problems, but the license expired before they finished it, and they never got around to releasing it (Eric Caen claims the game was 75% complete before the higher-ups pulled the plug). Two prototypes of the game eventually leaked in 2018 and 2020, with the latter of the two (dated to June 22, 2000) being the most complete draft of the game made before the plug was pulled.
  • They originally considered using Bizarro, who actually had a model and some voice clips in the prototype, but was removed from the final product.
  • Brainiac was going to be the main villain of the game due to the virtual world setting forced upon the developers. But Executive Meddling forced a rewrite with Lex as the villain, even though Brainiac is still the final boss and Lex's opening line "In short time, your fate will be sealed, Superman" is very clearly said by Corey Burton as opposed to Clancy Brown, having been recorded for Brainiac.
  • The original pitch for the game was for an open-world Superman adventure where you'd fly around using all of Superman's powers to prevent crimes.
  • Warner Brothers' Executive Meddling pushed for a more SimCity sort of game where Superman was the mayor of Metropolis and alternated between protecting and developing the cities ala ActRaiser

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