KMGR of "Superman and Batman"

The game makes it sound so interesting... The two join forces against some special evil! And the intro seems to promise that... The question then is... What would cause them to join forces? Apparently Apocalypse wants Metalloid to steal something from both Gotham and Metropolis... And both Superman and Batman are obviously trying to stop such a thing... But in their way are all the baddies Apocalypse can send, and those can even hurt Superman...

Superman gets two special attacks: freezing breath, and heat ray. Otherwise it's dashing attack (which pushes enemies back), and good old fashioned slugging. Similarly, Batman also gets two special attacks... His batarang, and a special set of triple bat-bombs. Special attacks requires having some energy in the special meter, and of course, if you got hit, your life meter goes down, and if you're out of life, you must restart from beginning.

Batman doesn't fly, but he can use bat-rope to climb onto higher platforms. Superman, of course, can fly. And can do a special downward double-fisted smash.

Each can also call upon the other for an emergency "air strike" (Batman in his Batwing, Superman just buzzes by) to nuke all enemies on screen... if the special power bar is full.

Later enemies are tougher, there are more of them, there are these barriers that not even Superman can go through, and sometimes, barriers are mined with explosives.

Even though it's called Batman AND Superman, you don't play them together, but rather, alternately, Superman first, then next chapter Batman, and back and forth.

Animation is okay, but game is a bit easy when enemies fly into barriers and vaporize themselves, can be hit from all the way across the screen, and be killed by knocking them into the barriers. The barriers sometimes provide a bit of intellectual challenge as Batman must time his jumps and rope use carefully in some spots, but otherwise, nothing too special.

All in all, there is just nothing too interesting about "Superman and Batman" to warrant your dollars, IMHO. Save the money for something else.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: simple and effective controls, bashing vs. puzzle approaches
Cons: that's all they can do with these two great properties?