Review:  Man of Steel / Platform: iOS / Release Date: Out Now

Superman returns to the app store, following in Batman’s footsteps for a side swiping bludgeon-em’-up adventure which loosely follows the plot of Man of Steel. You’ll step into Superman’s bright red boots to beat up General Zod and his invasion force, punching your way from the streets of Smallville to the grand metropolis of, well, Metropolis.

While the fighting style is similar to that of Arkham City Lockdown and the recent Injustice mobile game, Man of Steel is fresh enough to not feel like a complete rehash. There’s plenty of crunch to the game’s many dust ups, with the Kryptonians’ superpowers nicely escalating matters beyond your common street brawl. Enemies are punched through walls, into buildings and cars, through street signs, and up into the sky and then back down again. Best of all is the game’s use of flight, which allows you to grab an enemy, carry him like a rag doll through the air, bashing him into and through as many obstacles as you can en route. It’s like a version of Temple Run in which you go out of your way to hit things. Maybe when he settles down and gets a job and place of his own in Man of Steel 2, Clark Kent will learn the real cost of property damage.

With loads of character upgrades, superpowers and bonus costumes (alas, only a number of hideous Kryptonian Battle Armours) Man of Steel is addictive fun. It’ll enliven many a dull bus journey or boring lunch break. True, it gets repetitive after a while, but such is the nature of the gameplay that you can dip in and out whenever one feels like it. It looks good too, appropriately bright and cheery, and punctuated with some cute animations detailing the film’s highlights. Given that this is a game you’ve already paid for, the in-game purchases are inexcusable (either make it freeware or have your add ons – you can’t have the best of both worlds!) but such is the nature of mobile gaming.

Man of Steel, however, is, by virtue of not being Superman Returns or The Man of Steel (the 2002 Xbox thing) the greatest Superman videogame of all time (much as many are touting Snyder’s dangerously flawed Man of Steel as the second coming of Nolan, thanks to it not being Returns or Superman 3 or 4). Get on the case, Rocksteady, please.