The first thing one must ask himself as they stare at the Aquaman box on the shelf at their local retailer is "Did the world really need an Aquaman game?" Long considered one of the lamest superheroes ever, Aquaman was saddled with the hilariously weak ability to talk to fish for a superpower, and the crushingly large duty of patrolling every underwater area of the planet, about 70% of the Earth's surface. So the answer is no, the world doesn't really need an Aquaman game. Unfortunately, we have one, and it's a stinker.

This is not the clean-cut and fully dressed Aquaman from the Superfriends. At some point DC decided that he needed to be revamped for the new generation, because we all know kids love guys who talk to fish. So Aquaman lost a hand and replaced it with a harpoon, grew out his hair and beard, and took off his shirt, replacing it with a metal shoulder pad. Unfortunately, no matter how much you change his appearance or try to play up his role as King of Atlantis and his responsibility for patrolling the majority of the planet, Aquaman still sucks.

The first thing you see when you pop in the Aquaman disc is a series of comic-like panels telling you the story. These appear to have been created in the actual game engine, but they don't move and there's no voice acting to accompany the world bubbles above the character's one-expression faces. Aquaman always looks like he's shouting and his advisor is grinning manically no matter what conversation they are having. The writing is also dismal, which would be ok if they'd just get to the point and out of the cut scene. Soon you find yourself frantically mashing the button to get through the cut scene because no one really cares what part of Atlantis is under attack, you're only going to approach it one of two ways.

The first and most common approach to an attack on Atlantis is for Aquaman to declare that the Imperial Guards must be used for anything other than their real job and go out to face the intruders himself. He then swims through the dullest underwater city ever imagined, following a compass that tells him where the nearest cluster of bad guys are. Once you reach the bad guys it's time to punch them. The fighting system is very shallow, consisting of a couple of special moves and combos that are revealed after clearing a level. If you are feeling cheeky you can use Aquaman's superpower and summon a dolphin or shark to mindlessly ram one of the bad guys to death. But then it's back to watching the camera manically switch positions, trying to switch opponents to the guy who is actually hitting you instead of the one that's still 200 yards away, and mashing buttons. The second way of fighting, and one you'll only encounter 4 times in the course of the game, is when Aquaman decides to let his guards work for their money and everyone jumps in a submarine to shoot at enemy submarines. While this is marginally better than the fighting portions of the game, the original Descent had better 3D shooting action than this.

Visually the game is a disaster. The city of Atlantis, where you spend your time punching heads, is extremely bland. Various simple structures jut up from the ocean floor, and the only things in the city are power ups, bad guys, and the dolphin-squeaking mermen that the bad guys are bit too fond of taking captive. The enemies are completely uninteresting, most just being simple variations of a few basic types. The only thing that looks even halfway decent is Aquaman's flowing mane, which bounces and floats in the water. Sadly, a good head of hair alone does not make for a good game. The sound is similarly bad, beyond the squeaking of the mermen and Aquaman's call to the fish; the only sounds are a painfully generic adventure-themed soundtrack and muffled kicking and punching sound effects.

While adding unlockable characters is a noble shot at giving the game some replay value, no one is going to want to suffer through the entire game multiple times to get them all. If you're looking for an addition to your "Most Miserable Superhero Games of All Time" collection, then Aquaman is a must buy. Everyone else should save their money.