Score
Gameplay:	6
Graphics:	7
Sound:	6
FunFactor:	6
PlasmaFactor:	7
Overall:	6.4

Iron Man Review
June 2, 2008 by Jereme Puik

Movie tie-in games have a pretty checkered past, in terms of quality. Only one seems to have had a bright spot in this glorious catalog. The Chronicles of Riddick was the only title that brought in the fun of playing as the character you knew and loved from the movies. Since then and even before then, movie tie-in games have been less than stellar, to say the least. With Iron Man being the first comic-super hero released at the beginning of the 2008 summer movie season, the official game was bound to follow and it did, bringing with it the voice acting talent of Robert Downey Jr. himself to reprise his role as Tony Stark. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only great thing about this game.

 

I am… Iron Man!

For those who haven’t had the chance to experience the great movie that Iron Man is, here’s a bit of a plot run down for you: Tony Stark is the world’s richest man that also happens to be an industrialist and genuine inventor. After announcing and showing off new weapons developed exclusively for the United States military, Stark is on his way out of the country when his convoy is attacked and Stark is captured. He is forced to make a devastating weapon but instead builds a high tech suit and escapes. After having his epiphany, Stark realizes that he must destroy his weapons that have caused so much trouble around the world. He unravels a plot within his own company and sets out to make things right and to change the image of his company for the long term. As he continually makes improvements to the suit, he becomes known as Iron Man as he saves the world from the powers of his enemies.

The game starts off just as the movie does and pits you as trying to escape the clutches of the middle-eastern terrorists. You go through a bit of a tutorial through this first level showing you the controls and how to fight off your enemies. The prototype ultimately doesn’t get much playtime here as once you finish the level it disappears. Still, the basic controls remain with a few touches here and there.

You follow the design of the suit as Stark sees it. After every level you are given the option to customize the suit anyway you like and change its color and with the help of downloadable content in the future, be able to go back to the golden days of Iron Man in his original suit. The Mark III suit model goes through considerable changes throughout the movie and the same goes for the game as well. You’ll be treated to a nice training session in the beginning of the game to get you used to the flight controls and weapons aspects. In controlling Iron Man, one must hope that he or she doesn’t fall or hit the buildings and random items in front of you. It is strange that there seems to be no pedestrians on the streets during the middle of the day when an armed enemy military patrol comes rolling in out of nowhere.

It’s a battle to just keep up with Iron Man on the screen as you fight through countless enemies in mission after mission. When you’re on the ground, the combat is about as simple as your going to get with two-stick controls for movement and camera. One-button combat is mostly what you’ll be dealing with here. In the air, however, you’ll find yourself fighting to even stay in the air, as you must keep control of the suit as long as possible while getting bombarded by seemingly hundreds of missiles and various weapons fire. You don’t seem to get a rest here, as the enemies just keep coming. One mission has you fending off helicopters, tanks, and ground-to-air missiles, to top it off, soldier fire as well. It seems like those friends in the US military can’t help him now. The uni-beam weapon will be used quite a bit here and you should just make sure that you use it as carefully as possible because it could burn out quite easily.

The downer about the constant movement through missions is that there are no mid-mission save points. This means that the moment you start, you can’t stop unless you want to put on the pause screen because you have to get up and take a break. While there really is the feel of open world play here, it doesn’t give you the freedom you’d desire from it. Enemies will still notice you no matter where you fly and you will just end up in the linear path the game takes you.

There is a heart monitor that you have to keep track of to make sure you’re not too close to death. This is much like the Halo-esque regeneration during battle, as all you have to do is find some cover to recharge. Your energy beams also need some time to get back in order if you’re just firing away with at trigger finger. There is a line marker to indicate that you’re going to run low and if you don’t recharge you could find yourself dying at any moment’s notice. Of course, when you die the suit automatically recharges and you’re back in the action. There isn’t much of a lives system here.

Needs more Fire Engine Red

Iron Man may need a little more than fire engine red to make this title more appealing to the eye. The game boasts some well put-together 3D models that represent the characters that you know from the movie. Each character is faithfully detailed and you can easily see the expression on their faces when the camera moves in for a close-up, which it seems to do quite often during cinematic sequences. As for the suit, it’s about as beautiful as you’re going to see it. It’s nicely detailed and has that high-definition look to it that will make you proud showing it off. The special effects all tie in nicely and are appropriately placed. Loading times seem to be a bit off here and there as the 360 tries to catch up to the game, but doesn’t bother the gameplay that much.

What about the sound?

The game relies heavily on voice acting to tell its story and it moves along fine if you’re looking at it on the surface. With Robert Downey Jr. leading the cast, you can expect some quality voice acting from Iron Man himself. Everyone seems to be on par as far as the script goes and characters interacting with each other. The game seems to have its own soundtrack and plays in nicely and timely between and during battles and boss fights. Weapons all sound clear and accurate, as well.

PlasmaFactor

Never have I seen a title so fluid in its ways of extending replayability through customization as there are in Iron Man. Although you might not come to back to the title after completing every level, you might still just browse through to appreciate the different items and changes you can make to the Mark III suit. Sega promises in the future that there will be DLC content with Iron Man suits from back in the golden days of comic strip along with new incarnations to play around with. Another plus would have to be the leading man himself, Robert Downey Jr. reprising his role as Iron Man/Tony Stark. Not many movie tie-in games you see are able to land the actor who portrays the leading character.

Conclusion

If you saw the movie and want more Iron Man, then this game may be just what you’re looking for; however, at $60USD, it’s hard to give the game a full recommendation. While there is promise of DLC in the future, it might be better to wait for a discounted price or even rent before you buy to see if you really want to make the investment. There is a demo available over Xbox Live if you use that service as you given a good test run there. Just make sure you play thoroughly and really think about it before taking the plunge.