"Superman Returns director Bryan Singer has revealed that Electronic Arts' long-in-the-making Superman game is being made for next generation platforms. In an interview with sci-fi magazine SFX, the Usual Suspects and X-Men director has offered hints about the gameplay - but with the game having been worked on since 2003, it will be interesting to see what form this leisurely-developed (by EA's standards, anyway) game will take.

It's been known for some time that the game was in production, EA having acquired the rights in 2003. However, the originally mooted 2004 launch of a game based on one of DC's World's Finest heroes came and went. Now it seems the project will finally bear fruit in the summer next year when the Superman Returns film hits cinemas.

"It'll be for the next generation console," says Singer in rather loose and vague terms. "It'll have elements of the movie in it, but it'll have elements that'll make gameplay more exciting, in terms of the construction of Metropolis and Superman and his powers. Things like that."

Most recently it has been confirmed that EA's Tiburon studio, makers of the Madden NFL games, has been charged with making the game - and Singer's suggestion (although vague) that the game will rely as much on the city of Metropolis as well as its iconic hero is no surprise given the number of GTA clones that have sprung up.

Every one of the major games publishers has turned its hand at producing games based on Marvel and DC properties - Vivendi's Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction arrives in just a week's time, with Activision introducing Spider-Man and X-Men games in October. With a large quantity of the print advertisements in American comic books being for video games, it's clear that the marketeers and ad men know there is audience crossover. Coincidentally, comic-based titles have been a staple of videogames since 1978's Atari 2600 Superman game - but a good portion of the comic book games since have failed to fulfil the potential granted by their source material. So, even if it was to be expected that EA was waiting for the bankable accompanying movie to come to fruition before drawing up firm plans, EA taking its time time over this one could prove benefitial. Presumably, the company is aware that it has games' own 'Curse of Superman' to contend with - previous games starring the Man Of Steel have reviewed poorly and remain long-forgotten bargain bin casualties."