Bizarro is one of Superman’s more colourful villains, originally created back when comics were a great deal more lighthearted and fun. Today’s Bizarro is a bit more tragic—an imperfect clone of the man himself who really just wants somewhere to belong. He has powers comparable to Superman, only some are switched—heat vision becomes ice vision; ice breath becomes flame breath. One would think he’d be super weak instead of super strong, but that would be no fun. In fact, Kryptonite, Superman’s bane, actually makes Bizarro stronger, so if they were ever both locked in a room with a hunk of the green stuff, Bizarro would crush Clark Kent’s head like a grape. Good times.

During the latest installment of the Listen Up podcast, host Garnett Lee tore into a design decision made in the recent Wolverine game that strips the hero of some of his powers, forcing players to earn them back, Metroid-style.

This anger apparently fomented during a mid-podcast bathroom break during which Lee and show regular John Davison, founder of What They Play, discussed the problem with super-hero games that involve heroes more powerful than mortal men.

Back from the restroom, they shared the following with the masses, at 1 hour, 24 minutes into their show:

Garnett Lee: If you’re playing a Hulk or a Wolverine or a Captain America, you know who those characters are.

John Davison: This is where video game conventions let down the super-hero genre.

Lee: Absolutely.

Davison: There are expectations of video games that super-heroes aren’t compatible with.

Lee: Like building the character. And having rewards based on how you develop the character. Maybe there’s another reward system somebody could come up with. I don’t’ know what it is.

Davison: In that situation you should be able to die. There are certain things in video games that you take for granted that a super-hero automatically table-swipes. That’s why the city-health thing [in EA's Superman Returns] I don’t think it worked but..

G4TV.com reporter Patrick Klepek: It’s clever. It was an attempt to do something different.

Rumours of the Lair developers closure surfaced in December of last year, following rumours that half of the staff had been let go. The rumours pointed towards the cancellation of their Superman project due to the failure of Brash Entertainment as a major factor in the layoffs and closing, which is backed up by the official statement appearing on the Factor 5 website today.

We are sorry to announce the closure of the San Rafael-based Factor 5 Inc. studio, but the obstacles created by the sudden bankruptcy of Brash Entertainment for the continuation of operations have turned out too great to overcome in the current economic climate.

Note that this development doesn’t mean the end to the Factor 5 name. The statement continues:

Factor 5 GmbH, which has been creating games since 1998 with its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, is completely unrelated to Factor 5 Inc. and the circumstances surrounding Factor 5 Inc.’s recent challenges. Although we are saddened by Factor 5 Inc.’s situation, our corporation will remain unaffected by these developments and has partnered with both old and new friends in the industry who will reveal our upcoming projects over the next months.

In other words, that other company had problems, and the German branch of Factor 5 would like to put as much distance between those problems and it as humanly possible.

We extend our sympathy to those left jobless by the studio’s closing, even if most of them have hopefully moved on to bigger and better things by now.

Factor 5 Website [Official Site]

Lair and Rogue Squadron developer Factor 5 was hard at work on a Superman video game before it contracted a near-fatal case of Brash Entertainment Publishing Agreement Syndrome. This is what that game looked like.

Unseen 64, where games goes when they die, has concept screen shots and a brief video of the planned PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game, visuals dating back to when Factor 5 employees were still being paid. It looks good enough, but also looks about as finished as the Flash game that BottleRocket was working on for Brash before the publisher’s collapse.

And Doomsday looks spectacular.

There’s really not much to see here, outside of a few environment concepts and early visual direction. The game was due to ship sometime in 2010, following a formal announcement at E3 2008 (which never happened).

More screens and a brief pre-rendered concept at Unseen 64.

Superman (Factor 5) [X360/PS3 - Cancelled] [Unseen64 - thanks, Miklós!]

Sony Online Entertainment reveals the first “case” for DC Universe Online, which gives players a chance to go toe-to-toe with Doomsday – the villain that killed Superman.

Of course he didn’t completely kill Superman, but for awhile there everyone was really sad, and Doomsday was the reason. Players will be able to side with Superman to take the massive beast down, or team up with Superman’s arch-enemy Lex Luthor as he attempts to capture Doomsday for his own sinister purposes.

As a comic book fan, I cannot help but squee with delight. Join me in my squeeing.

At its core it sounds very City of Heroes. Pick your alignment and powers, including movement abilities like flying and teleporting, and then run about locations like Metropolis and Gotham City (both confirmed in-game) and fight and/or cause crime. As you level up your basic power set is enhanced with further abilities to mimic the natural superhero learning curve.

The big named superheroes and villains will be out and about, so if you cause enough mayhem you might just aggro Batman, which is always a bad idea. Conversely, heroes may find themselves fighting side-by-side with their idols, or even fighting to save them. There will even be PVP arenas for those content on just beating the living crap out of each other.

By far the most intriguing feature discussed is the chance for comic story lines to crossover into the game world. Major events like 52 or Crisis on Infinite Crises will be experienced in-game as well as in the comics.

“We can tie-in future DC tentpole events and translate the stories for the gaming world, and have them occur simultaneously”, said executive creative director Jim)Lee. “The possibilities are numerous and very exciting”.

We’ll be poking at DC Universe next month at E3, where we’ll see if we can get them to say “tentpole events” again with a straight face.

New DC Universe Online details emerge [Eurogamer]

MK vs. DC Universe Official Site