Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No - it's Superman Returns for the Xbox 360 flying through the air because I've just thrown it across the room in anger!

"Good morning Metropolis City! You all look like little worker ants from up here - I really am lucky to be able to see a view like this each day! Um, what am I going to do for breakfast? It's 7:00am and I need a bagel." Superman swoops down at light speed, from sky to ground in what seems like an instant. To your average bystander, Superman would be a blur speeding past undetected - he sneaks into the café. "Two bagels please and don't toast them!" Superman checks out the ass of the waitress that is serving him as she bends down to get out two bagels. She knows who he is - she's quite nervous actually - and drops one of the bagels.

Superman jumps out of his chair, bares his chest, and displays the S in all its glory. This_man_is_super! He, with his mighty breath, creates a table of ice before the bagel can touch the ground. The bagel falls onto the table - and Superman winks at the waitress. "Put the other bagel down on my table honey, I'm about to toast them!" The waitress does as asked and Superman uses his eye lasers to lightly toast his breakfast. While the bagels look nice and toasted, evenly on both sides, in hero-error it seems that our Superman has made a little kitchen fire, which is about to burn off the clothes of our sexy bagel-dropping waitress. It might also burn down the café! Never fear though, as Superman's last superpower is super wind breath and it doesn't take him long to spot the fire and blow it out! Metropolis is saved, Superman is fed, and it's only 8:00am!

Hi, I'm Dexter Pearson, and today Superman has given me the fantastic opportunity to pen a day in the life of this truly outstanding hero. Untraditionally however, our spandex-wearing champion isn't all that happy with his life and his surroundings. Okay, so he enjoys a good bagel and likes to see those women get all nervous around him, but in the day I got to write this article on him, he wasn't all that super!

Superman is a little disappointed with the look of Metropolis City. Maybe his eyes need testing, but everything he sees is just a blur. Okay, this is understandable and, as any superhero doctor would say, if you're going to be flying at those speeds then don't expect to be able to see properly. While motion blur plays a large part of Superman's annoyance, he also thinks that Metropolis City could do with a little facelift - it's looking old and worn, and Superman has thought many times that maybe he should just let it burn down the next time those robots attack. From high up in the sky everything looks the same, while down on the ground it looks a little bland. He's not complaining when he's blowing things into the air though and cars and enemies are soaring high. He's certainly impressed with the size of Metropolis City; it's huge and there are loads of objects that Superman can interact with, and by interact with, I mean destroy, blow, freeze or pick up - his best form of attack the last time he was called down to save the city was flying up to the highest point of Metropolis, taking off the sphere ornament of a globe, flying back down and bowling his opponents to the ground!

"Don't get me wrong, if you had the ability to fly around, you'd be taken with the first thirty minutes, truly, you would. It's quite something, being able to go anywhere, land on anything, look through bedroom windows located on top level apartments and see women getting undressed - the list goes on!" Superman didn't take me to see any women, but he did take me through the city and it was breathtaking, it really was. I knew what he was talking about though, as the buildings didn't look all that pleasing from a certain height, but hey, passing them by at light speed, zipping in and out of tall blocks, is a feeling I'll never forget.

Superman does get annoyed though, especially whilst he's flying around the city, cursing the weathered buildings under his breath, minding his own business when he's called down by innocent bystanders under attack from this or that. His job seems to get a little repetitive, and while Superman can command fire, ice and wind to get rid of his enemies, as well as a host of melee moves too, he just gets sick of disposing of the same old garbage. Our hero tells me that what I'm seeing today is very loosely based around the recent film that they made about him - Superman Returns. In other words, his life here hardly follows the story in the film, so don't really expect much of a plot when you hang around with the real Superman like I'm doing today. While flying around, Superman sees markers on the ground, events marked with exclamation points, and then he swoops down. When he gets close enough his mission starts and he has to dispose of whatever threat lies in the heart of Metropolis.

When Superman is attacking, he can use many different variations of his powers. His fire ray power can just simply shoot a ray at any target he selects, while the charged up version takes a few seconds to build up, but the wait is worth it, as you can expect a large area to be caught in the blaze when he goes for this super move. The same goes for his ice rays, which freeze things after his target is subjected to a couple seconds, while the charged up version freezes everything within a certain radius instantly. Finally, his powered up wind breath will pretty much launch anything that isn't windproof right into the skies, where Superman can fly back into the sky and finish off his foes in the clouds. This is especially useful for blowing smaller enemies into the air, so Superman can fight the harder enemies before dealing with the more menial ones.

As I stand in the busy streets of Metropolis City and watch Superman sort out his enemies, I'm actually very amazed. He seems to have no limitations. "Being Superman isn't all it's cracked up to be." He lets out a sigh. "While I cannot really die, if the city of Metropolis is destroyed by the day to day chaos it undergoes, I just fall to my knees and cannot go on. Ever get one of those moments when you did something wrong and wanted to reload at a checkpoint? That happens to me all the time!" Superman was right - if I could go back and opt out of this 'day in the life' article, I probably would!

Superman does have some great superpowers, but he really seems to struggle when he's fighting people hand to hand. He doesn't really lock onto his targets, so it's always very easy to miss, and some of the combos that this hero is supposed to be able to carry out are always often forgotten - his memory isn't what it should be, but he complains that the combos are either really easy or really hard; he longs for intermediate, more effective moves. On the sidewalk, from my point of view, it looks as if a Godfather fighting engine would have worked a lot better, with more logical lock-on features and the thumbstick to control lots of his moves - but alas, button mashing is here to stay.

As well as all of the above, like I mentioned earlier, some of Superman's best moves come from his brute strength - his ability to lift up things and toss them in the direction of his foes. This means that he can zip up, grab an iron girder, fly back down and use it to do some serious damage. If Superman is doing well at protecting his city then he might occasionally pick up the odd car and use it as a weapon too - but this is a bad idea if the city is on brink of destruction, as he'll only be contributing to the mayhem. "I once had to face Metallo and his minions down here. I hate that robot and normally I can destroy him without any effort. However, on this one occasion Metallo couldn't be destroyed, no matter what I tried. He just kept on walking into walls, I think he was malfunctioning." I can really see the look of regret in Superman's face as he reminisces. "You know those moments where you want to reload and start again? I couldn't. I hadn't saved for ages. So do you know what I had to do? I had to fly around Metropolis and destroy the city myself! Bystanders thought I was crazy, members of the media thought I had turned evil." His sorrowful frown improved, now looking more like a sad smile. "After my city had been reduced to ruins thanks to me and Mr. Malfunction Metallo, I could restart from a checkpoint, which wasn't as far back as my last save. The moral of the story is to save a lot, but it's glitches like these that take the fun out of being Superman."

"Metallo doesn't look all that good, not when you compare him to me - none of my archrivals look that nice for that matter. Alright, villains aren't supposed to look likeable, but you'd at least expect them to look menacing. In my view they look like some cheap action figure you get from Timmy's Toyworld down the road." Sometimes Superman gets transported to WarWorld, where he has to fight wave after wave of supervillains, all of them with their strengths and weaknesses, all of them really difficult to kill. Apart from these missions though, Superman roams the streets looking for trouble, most of it coming in the form of robots, but you occasionally get a monster too. It's a shame that Superman doesn't get to rescue civilians from robbers - he's actually jealous of Spider-Man because of this. "My so-called friend has the best of both worlds. He goes after bigger villains, like that goblin guy, but he also remembers where he came from and he can use his webs to aid the police in more trivial matters - he gets to have fun." I ask him why he cannot do the same. "Why? Well, it's because I'm too powerful for my own good! Spidey has great power and with that comes great responsibility. I have immense power, and with that, Dexter, I have an immense responsibility. I have the world to protect - and it gets tedious sometimes!"

Today, and tomorrow, Superman will always be Superman. He cannot change back into Clark Kent. How great would it be to actually walk past crimes as a zero - or even report on them instead of preventing them? Of course, Superman can't turn a blind eye, not since he's returned at least. He's always Superman, flying from one end of the city to another. Oh look, there he goes! I feel bad for writing this, especially as he's been so kind to let me analyse his day, but his catchphrases, as well as those as the villains he fights, are very repetitive. Is he losing his mind? I question him on the matter; he grins and replies "You'll be spending the rest of your days in prison, Metallo!" But I'm not Metallo!

Superman charges for me at light speed, he grabs a hold of me and flies me right into the sky. "Why can't you use your powers for good, Metallo?" As well as seeing all the sights that Superman has described as drab thus far, I'm hearing what it sounds like to travel at the speed of sound, 800mph. It's quite quiet actually - breaking the sound barriers makes the old ears pop, but the sound of intense speed is actually quite pleasant. Superman drops me and I'm freefalling. The Superman Fan Cape that I'm wearing today flaps in the wind, sounding like a windsock at a kite festival, rippling in the breeze. I see Superman darting towards me once more and then he punches me, before blowing me back into the air. All his ray powers sound like they feel - the fire ray sounds fiery would you believe and the ice ray sounds very cold. They feel cold too, as Superman has now frozen me solid and left me to fall to my doom. Frozen solid I begin to lose all consciousness and as I doze off all I hear are the devilishly loud noises of Superman punching his foes and throwing cars at them. Smash. I wish I was Metallo right about now, as then I might be able to survive this drop.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a journalist, falling…

I don't quite remember how I got here, in my bed, but I have my suspicions - and seeing a green shape out the corner of my eye through my window confirms this. The Hulk must have caught me before I fell to my death and returned me to my house. I turn to look at the time, but a note next to clock on my table distracts me. It reads "Not only have I saved you from Senile Superman as he's known amongst his hero peers, but I've saved you from having to play any other non-linear superhero game again, as the best one sits in your drawer." Reaching for the drawer, I quickly open it up, and there lies a copy of The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction! Superman Returns isn't a bad game, but at six hours gameplay it's far too short, as well as far too buggy and repetitive to enjoy to its fullest. The Hulk reminded me of how a superhero game should be, where the sky's the limit and the fun is a fundamental key in saving the world.

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).