Superman (1979 video game)

Superman
Artwork for the front of a video game cartridge box. The words "Superman Video Computer System One Player are printed above an illustration of a dark haired man wearing a blue outfit with a red cape and a red and yellow "S" emblem on his chest.
Cover artwork for the game featuring comic book depictions of Superman.
Developer(s)Atari
Publisher(s)Atari[1]
Programmer(s)John Dunn
Platform(s)Atari 2600
Release1979
Genre(s)Action-adventure[2]
Mode(s)Single-player

Superman is a video game programmed by John Dunn for the Atari Video Computer System[a] 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. 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 received positive reviews on its release from the publications Video and The Space Gamer who proclaimed it as one of the best games from Atari while noting its high quality graphics and unique gameplay. Some retrospective reviews lamented that the game only used the character of Superman for his more action-oriented abilities, while others continued to praise the game's unique gameplay and high-quality Atari 2600 graphics.

  1. ^ Weiss 2007, p. 119.
  2. ^ Mozejko 2009.
  3. ^ Montfort 2006.


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