The Worst Video Game Of All Time Brought A Beloved Superhero To A New Low

The 1990s really was one of the best times for kids' animation, especially when it came to superheroes. From "X-Men: The Animated Series" and "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" on the Marvel side to "Batman: The Animated Series" on the DC side, kids were spoiled for choice when it came to quality animated superhero programming. Part of what bound these shows together was a mature sensibility that treated their young audiences as if they were not just able to understand more adult storylines and themes but actually wanted those things in their shows (even if toy sales did dictate the first season of "Spider-Man: The Animated Series").

Naturally, after "Batman: The Animated Series" proved to be the definitive depiction of the Dark Knight for an entire generation, Warner Bros. was keen to repeat that success. So, the company quickly put "Superman: The Animated Series" into production, with "Batman: TAS" co-creator Bruce Timm overseeing the show. It resulted in a series that, while it isn't quite as celebrated as its Batman counterpart, remains one of the best on-screen iterations of Superman and his world. Like the other shows of the time, it came with a darker tone than you might expect from a kids' cartoon, along with the timeless setting and Art Deco-inspired design language of "Batman: TAS." All of this combined to make yet another great '90s superhero cartoon.

Before "Superman: TAS" even debuted, one enterprising video game executive could see the potential in the show and set out to secure the rights to the video game adaptation. Lamentably, the resulting game didn't even come close to matching the success of the TV series, to the extent that "Superman: The New Superman Adventures," or "Superman 64" as it became known among Nintendo 64 owners, has gone down as one of the worst video games in history. But the reason for this failure isn't quite as simple as the developers dropping the ball. The history of "Superman: The New Superman Adventures" reveals a fraught development process that shows how differences between creatives and licensors can have disastrous effects.

In 1985, at the age of just 19, Eric Caen co-founded Titus Interactive along with his brother. The French company produced several games in the ensuing years, including a number of licensed titles in the form of a "Dick Tracy" game and a "Blues Brothers" adaptation. But "Superman" was by far the biggest IP the company had ever dealt with. Titus landed the license after Caen reached out to Warner Bros. directly. He had heard the company was working on a new animated series based on Supes and took the opportunity to seize the video game rights before any other company had the chance. "They asked me three times if I was sure of what I was doing," as Caen once told Playboy.

Over the next two years, the Titus co-founder personally oversaw the development of three "Superman" games based on the animated series, with the company working on versions for the Nintendo 64, Game Boy, and PlayStation. Only two of these actually made it to market, however, and neither was very good. In fact, in the case of the N64 game, it has gone down as a misstep unmatched in the annals of video game history except, perhaps, for the abject "Rambo" game or that terrible "E.T the Extra-Terrestrial" game for the Atari 2600 that everybody hates. In the case of "E.T.," the game wasn't actually quite as bad as its reputation suggests, and the parts that were bad really came down to the developer's decisions. "Superman: The New Superman Adventures" for the N64, however, was a truly dismal adaptation hindered by an ongoing battle between Titus and Warner Bros./DC.

Part of the problem was that Caen and his Titus developers went into "Superman: The New Superman Adventures" with some ambitious ideas. The game was to be the company's first 3D action/adventure game, with its previous 3D offerings being either Chess or racing games. Caen envisioned a 3D Metropolis through which players could freely fly in what would have been an early open world triumph. What's more, all of Superman's powers were to be included, with Caen set on pushing the Nintendo console to its limits. Sadly, it didn't quite work out that way.

According to Playboy, a team of 12-15 people handled all three "Superman" titles for Titus, with two coders on each game alongside six to nine artists. Unfortunately for them, the licensing team over at Warner Bros. was let go just a few days after Eric Caen had managed to secure the licensing deal, with the Titus co-founder telling Playboy, "The next people in charge hated us the first minute they saw us and our project. They believed a major company such as EA Games would pay more and create a better product."

According to Caen, this new team actively tried to stall or outright cancel the game, requesting the developers change "Superman: The New Superman Adventures" from a 3D open world action/adventure to a "'Sim City'-like game" that would have seen the Man of Steel acting as the mayor of Metropolis. As you might expect, Caen and the team declined to follow Warners' suggestion, and from that point on, the development became what sounds like nothing short of a nightmare. Titus had to wait months for approval on pretty much everything it created, with Caen telling Playboy about how every little detail needed to be justified with receipts:

"We had to prove Superman could go underwater, because they had doubts it would be acceptable in terms of 'legacy.' We had tons of documentation, and had to go through it in order to tell them something like, 'In the October 1957 comic book on Page XX, you can see Superman was 'flying' underwater.'"

Elsewhere, Titus was forced to scrap what sounds like it could have been one of the coolest gameplay elements involving destructible environments. As Caen remembered it, DC pushed back on this idea as it would have, according to the company, cast Superman in a bad light. Not quite as bad as having an American pop culture icon appear in one of the worst video games ever made, I'd imagine — though, it's not as if Superman hasn't had some pretty bad movies.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when "Superman: The New Superman Adventures" finally debuted, it was far from the game Eric Caen had envisioned. The open world mechanic had been scrapped and the game was full of rings through which players had to guide Superman using some of the most frustratingly unresponsive controls ever developed. Supes would also frequently get stuck in various parts of the map for no obvious reason. As such, the game's reviews were incredibly harsh and criticized its many bugs, enemy AI, the way environments would seem to clip, and its general unfinished feel.

Matt Casamassina wrote a review for IGN that essentially amounted to a take down of "Superman," ultimately describing the game as "a huge, whopping disappointment" that is "so all-around poorly executed that it's downright offending to people like myself who have enjoyed the comic books, movies, television shows, and more" Casamassina also dubbed the game "one of Nintendo 64's worst" and criticized the "horrible control, unforgivable frame rates, and more bugs than can be counted." Just to rub salt in the wound, he finished up by claiming that Titus "should be absolutely ashamed of this awful game."

In the years since its release, the game's reputation hasn't improved, with Playboy referring to it as "one of the most hated games ever made." According to Caen, however, this was all DC and Warners' fault. The Titus co-founder claimed during a 2011 interview that the licensor caused so many problems that the "final quality of the product" was solely down to them. (Hey, it wouldn't be the only time Warner Bros. botched Superman.) Though he admitted that the initial design was "too ambitious compared to what an N64 was able to deliver," he maintained that the roadblocks he and the team faced were insurmountable. "The licensor refused to let Superman kick 'real' people," Caen explained. Asked why Superman's powers were limited in the game, he simply replied, "It wasn't our decision," before going on to state that "politics" and the approval process had taken up too much time during development.

Interestingly enough, Caen claimed that "Superman" actually sold well, turning a profit for Titus. However, the profits were quickly negated when the company was forced to scrap the PlayStation version at the behest of Warner Bros. despite the fact it had been, according to Caen, 75% developed. This, apparently, cost Titus a lot of money. Eventually, the company went bankrupt in 2004, and while that wasn't directly related to the "Superman" debacle, it couldn't have helped.

In his 2011 interview, Caen reflected on the creation of "Superman" and admitted that he and his company bore at least some of the blame for the games' failure. "Superman is a cult character," he remarked. "I don't think it is easy to deliver even a portion of players' expectations, and we were probably too ambitious and a bit presumptuous at that time." Still, the developer maintains that the game's terrible reputation is "exaggerated" mainly due to the Man of Steel's pop culture status.