Superman

Le jeu

Superman is a video game programmed by John Dunn for the Atari Video Computer System and released in 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls Superman, whose quest is to explore an open-ended environment to find three pieces of a bridge that was destroyed by Lex Luthor, capture Luthor and his criminal gang, and return to the Daily Planet building. The game world is populated by antagonists such as a helicopter that re-arranges the bridge pieces and roving kryptonite satellites that cause Superman to revert into Clark Kent. Atari was owned by Warner Communications, which was also the parent company of Superman publisher DC Comics. Superman (Atari 2600) Following the financial success of the film Superman (1978), Atari asked programmer Warren Robinett to adapt his prototype of Adventure (1980) into a Superman game. Robinett was not interested, but he gave some of his code to Dunn, who agreed to do the game if he could have four kilobytes of space for the cartridge, as opposed to the usual two kilobytes. Superman is a video game in which the player controls Clark Kent and his superhero alias Superman. On hearing about a bomb scare in Metropolis, Kent examines the situation and finds Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor leaving the scene as the waterfront bridge explodes. The goal is to repair the bridge, which has split into three parts, capture Luthor, and return to the Daily Planet as Kent in the shortest time possible. Superman can be damaged by kryptonite satellites; if they touch him, he loses his ability to fly and can only be revived by interacting with Lois Lane. A helicopter moves around Metropolis occasionally moving parts of the bridge around the map. To capture a crook or carry bridge pieces, the player must fly into them to grab them and release them by landing. Luthor and his henchmen are placed in jail by flying them into the jail bars while carrying them. The game was made prior to the introduction of side-scrolling, leading to the player moving from screen to screen and arriving on the next frame for them to enter a new block of Metropolis. A miniature radar consisting of six markers representing city blocks is displayed at the top of the playfield, with the largest marker showing the proximity the player is to the potential targets of Luthor or one of his henchmen. Each of these areas is connected on four adjoining sides, which can be traversed by flying up, down, left and right through the screens. The player can traverse through different subway entrances for quicker travel. After entering, the player can traverse different exits by moving upward off screen through different colored areas and then exiting by moving off screen left, right or down. The player can enable Superman's x-ray vision to see any of the four adjoining frames. While viewing these, Superman cannot move but can still be hit by kryptonite satellites. The game can be played with two players. The player using the left joystick controller will have priority over the left and right movement of Superman, while the player using the right controller will have priority over up and down movement of Superman. Superman is one of the earliest console games to feature a Pause option which could be activated by pressing the select switch on the Atari 2600. The pause feature does have a bug that allows the game to be completed without having to repair the bridge or capture Lex and his gang.