Review: Iron Man

by David Osbon on May 9, 2008 at 5:17 pm

Iron Man

Comic book hero games are a curious thing. Tied in more often than not with a summer blockbuster movie release, these games normally suffer from being an afterthought, made to cash in on the whole summer blockbuster experience.

Although Iron Man does struggle under its own weight, it’s Sega who must be kicking themselves, for missing a great opportunity to release a polished game built around a genuinely great gaming idea– a hero in an iron-clad, rocket-booted suit of destruction.

OK, It’s not all bad. The game does a reasonable job of representing the various historical versions of Tony Stark’s pride and joy, the Iron Man suit. And yes, you do spend the majority of game time in one these guises or another, but the experience is offset by the poor combat structure, unwieldy flight mechanics, and unimaginative cutscene sequences that do little to develop the poorly executed storyline.

The first of these cutscenes show Tony Stark already a captive to the terrorists, but with no backstory of why he was out in Afghanistan in the first place, and with him already finishing his first Iron Man suit ready to plan his escape! This lack of tension in the story does nothing for the players association with Tony Stark, and is a criminal mistake that pans out throughout the entire game.

Combat, from the earthbound first level to flying combat later in the game, is hindered by a badly-managed set of controls. Flying as Iron Man is made frustrating by the overly sensitive reaction to each pitch or yaw action made, with the suit itself supplying very little in the way of a center of gravity. While Iron Man does fly, he reacts more like a helium balloon than weighty weapon of destruction.

Missions are one of the games biggest disappointments. They are far too linear, with repetitive goals of the seek and destroy kind. Faint rewards come in the guise of new Iron Man suits from the history of comic, or suit upgrades that can modify certain weapon and defensive mechanics. But this still allows you to have very little advantage over the faceless enemies while you’re engaged on yet another average mission.

The gloss of the franchise takes a hit from this Iron Man game. There are no two ways about it. Too much has been seemingly rushed through in this game to meet the demands of the movie release date, which is a real shame.

We should remember that comic book heroes are held close to the heart, by many of the gamer generation. Comic books and video games have held hands on numerous outings previous, with many mistakes being made in the process of this ongoing courtship. Sega and Secret Level have to some degree ignored the past mistakes made, only to repeat them again.

Although I can’t speak for all those who love both games and comic books, the Iron Man game I would have loved to see on the shelves right now would have been sounded out with these focal points in mind: the utilization of all the aspects of the numerous Iron Man suits, a multiplayer element and at least a co-op mode that could feature War Machine, a strong storyline (via cut scenes) that could be held up transparently to the movie/comic book story lines, and enough diverse missions so to feel part of a complete Iron Man gaming experience.

These points, if they ever were considered while Iron Man was in development, seemed to have been lost somewhere in translation. Instead the Iron Man game we get only delivers a shell of an idea that no self respecting hero would ever want to wear.

What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.