Bitmob community member Daniel Castro's article  about developer Rocksteady's Batman titles (which is immediately below this one on our front page feed) provides valuable commentary on how "branded" games need not be awful. But while it's great to talk about games made right, we can also gain a lot of insight from a series of dismal, catastrophic failures.

To that end, I think it would be a good idea to look at another superhero's attempts to cross over into the game world and what they tell us about this hobby we spend so much time writing and talking about.

Let's see what Superman has brought to the table, other than sadness and buyer's remorse.

The Gold Standard for shitty licensed games

Up until 1999, the general rule was that licensed games were rushed, naked cash-ins designed (only barely) to separate fans from their money. But they were all on a general "Yeah, fuck that game" standing, and we had not figured out a system with which to measure our disdain.

Then, like its title character swooping from the sky, developer Titus Software's Superman 64 descended upon us. And it was so bad. Here's an incomplete list of its crimes against video games:

• Takes place in a virtual-reality world, which means that even if you don't save the imperiled citizens of Fake Metropolis, who the fuck cares? They are holograms. The game still counts it against you if you don't save them, however.
• Buildings lack texture and look like a bunch of LEGO blocks sticking out of the ground.
• Despite having no textures to render, the game can only display about two city blocks in any direction. It hides this shoddiness with the equally crappy in-game explanation of "Kryptonite fog," which is not only lazy, but stupid. Remember that Superman is in a virtual-reality world, so he could eat a salad made from the Kryptonite he finds in there with no ill effects. Basically, it's just fog. Plain, boring, stupid fog. But they say it's made out of Kryptonite because "shitty game."
• Superman has to pick up tokens to use most of his powers, and they expire.
• Every other level is a race in which you must fly through a bunch of rings before an arbitrary time limit expires. This is, of course, the first thing I'd want to do if I were Superman.

That doesn't even include the horrible music, crappy controls, or other bad things I can't remember because I actually had a surgeon remove the parts of my brain that housed those memories. That very specific procedure was still a better use of money than the $60 Superman 64 cost when it came out.

This game was so incredibly bad and unplayable that anyone who saw it realized that this was licensed gaming at its worst. In other words, it taught us what "zero" was and provided a basis against which every future terrible game -- licensed or not -- could be measured.

More power, more problems

Whether you like Superman or not, you probably wouldn't turn down having all those powers at your disposal. The guy has so many special abilities that he seems made for video games. But that's part of the problem: He's so powerful that it's nearly impossible to build a good game around him.

How do you impose limits on a being who's stronger and faster than anyone? In more video-game terms, how do you create a life bar for a guy who is invincible?

A couple of games have taken novel approaches to this problem with varying degrees of success. Developer Infogrames' almost-okay 2002 effort for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Superman: Shadow of Apokolips, gave Supes Wolverine-style regenerating health, which is kind of like being invincible but way slower.

Electronic Arts' kinda-movie-based Superman Returns (2006) went ahead and let Superman be invincible, but used the clever workaround of applying the health bar to Metropolis itself. Both games give you full access to all of the powers, and their approaches to fail states put the burden of success squarely on your aptitude at using them. Unfortunately, the games had a bunch of other problems with their controls and cameras that rendered these attempts moot.

Wanting it is not enough

Perhaps Superman's greatest contribution to video games, however, is that simply having a megapopular character who would be fun to control is not enough to build a great game. We have so many games starring The Last Son of Krypton because he is one of the most recognizable characters in the world, and everyone who has failed to make a decent Superman game has either assumed that his fame is enough or that they were going to be the ones to finally get it right.

But when you look back at all of the failed attempts and horrible experiences, the most reasonable conclusion may be that a well-made game that is playable while staying true to the character and nature of Superman could be impossible. We may never see the Man of Steel's equivalent of Arkham Asylum.

If we do, I'll be as happy as anyone, and I will play the shit out of it. But we might have to face the possibility that a good Superman video game might just be more holographic Kryptonite fog.