”I think Superman is a very difficult character. He’s an incredible character, but the thing about Batman is that he’s so vulnerable, like physically vulnerable,” Ginn stated. ”The fertile territory of games design is being able to provide the player with opportunities for power, but also letting them know that they’ve got something to lose.”
Batman’s humanity and vulnerability makes him a better videogame character, because of the very real threat of death, which leads to a sense of accomplishment when defeating the enemy when the odds are against him.
”With Batman, you feel very powerful when you’re surrounded by 25 thugs who’ve just got baseball bats, but give just one of them an assault rifle and it changes the entire dynamic of the fight,” Ginn related, ”But with a character like Superman, that’s not possible. So, I wouldn’t want to throw Batman away because he’s just such a brilliant character to work with, and the psychology of him is just very rich for gameplay.”
The last Superman game, Superman Returns, attempted to solve this by a city health meter, in which the player would fail if the city, not Superman, received too much damage.
Is Superman really too powerful?
