Although Iron Man proved his mettle at the box office, he turns out to be something of a lightweight in gameland.
“Iron Man” is Sega’s T-rated take on the new movie starring Robert Downey Jr., with additional action and enemies lifted from the original Marvel comics. It tells the tale of industrialist Tony Stark, who turns from arms-maker to arms-destroyer thanks to an unpleasant encounter in the Mideast. The decision to shut down his company’s production puts him at odds with his business associate and some unscrupulous arms dealers.
Tony also decides to create a metal suit based on one he used to escape from his Middle Eastern captors. It can fly and is equipped with some pretty impressive weapons — which Tony uses in his crusade to destroy other weapons and their makers.
Iron Man can attack using a variety of beams, grenades and missiles — or he can simply run over and bash something or rip it apart. Other options include dropping from the sky with an earth-rattling crunch or catching a missile and hurling it back at the enemy.
The controls are a mixed bag. The combat system is good — and very forgiving since the targeting reticle is pretty big. However, the flight system requires some practice to use effectively.
The enemies aren’t particularly brilliant, but they are very plentiful — sometimes impossibly plentiful. This means that even the early levels can be very tricky in spots.
The graphics are hit and miss. Iron Man himself and many of the settings look good. However, the video can get extremely choppy when the metal guy’s running around objects on the ground. Even worse, camera angles can be very unstable when he’s flying near objects. A level involving a giant flying fortress made me so queasy I had to pause it repeatedly to settle my stomach.
Iron Man also has a few problems interacting with his surroundings. For example, it’s rare that he can actually climb up on anything – even a 3-inch ledge can force him to take flight with his jets. It’s also surprising that there’s very little environmental destruction. You’d think that all those missiles and energy beams would chew up the surroundings a bit.
In the end, “Iron Man” will probably satisfy the fanboys who’ve been waiting for a heavy-metal experience, but it really doesn’t rise much above the standard movie-based video game.
Platforms: Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation 2, 3 and Portable; tested on the Xbox 360.On the Web: http://ironmanthegame.marvel.com
