Believing Intergang to be starting up again, Superman learns that beings causing chaos throughout Metropolis are, in fact, a group of robots using Intergang's old methods. These "Interbots" have access to very high-grade weaponry, which is powerful enough to seriously injure or even kill the Man of Steel. These bots are being ordered by a leader that is later revealed to be Lex Luthor, who is secretly working with Darkseid.
Finding that the weapons come from Apokolips, Superman sets out to destroy the bots, and their weapons, having to fight a multitude of enemies that Luthor sends after him. Parasite, Metallo, and Livewire contracted to kill Superman to allow the bots free rein to obey Luthor's wishes.
At E3 2002, Infogrames revealed Shadow of Apokolips as a PlayStation 2 title, based on Superman: The Animated Series, alongside its unrelated Xbox companion game Superman: The Man of Steel, which was based on the comic books.[7]
Infogrames published a GameCube port of the game in March 2003.[8] The GameCube version, also handled by Infogrames Sheffield House, includes many additional features and improvements over the PlayStation 2 version, featuring three selectable difficulty settings, Widescreen, Progressive Scan and Dolby Pro Logic II support, additions of secret items in every level where cheat codes can be unlocked, a free-roaming mode where the player can explore Metropolis at their own free will, enhanced boss AI, and a "Making of" movie featuring the game's development and beta elements.[9]
The game received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregatorMetacritic. Prior to release, an air of apprehension surrounded the title due to the failure of the 1999 Superman video game, also based on the animated show. GameSpot praised the game's presentation, saying "...the Man of Steel has never looked or moved better", while panning the mechanics behind the game: "He's faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and can be trapped in walls because of poor collision detection: He's Superman!"[19]IGN felt it was the superior title to the Xbox counterpart, Superman: The Man of Steel, but calling it an "average superhero game".[24]Entertainment Weekly, however, gave the game a C− and wrote: "What keeps the game from taking off is the overly simplistic episodic nature of the missions set before you...The wacky control configuration also makes your heat vision, ice breath, X-ray vision, and superspeed incredibly difficult to use on the fly".[29]
GameRankings gave the game a score of 65.46% for the PlayStation 2 version[10] and 64.37% for the GameCube version,[11] while Metacritic gave it a score of 64 out of 100 for the PS2 version[13] and 66 out of 100 for the GameCube version.[12]
^"Superman: Shadow of Apokolips". Game Nation. Archived from the original on July 31, 2003. Retrieved July 18, 2024. Superman: Shadow of Apokolips is due for release on PlayStation 2 on the 22nd of November, so look out for it on retail shelves shortly!
