Iron Man the game does not compute

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

LET’S see if an Iron Man video game based on the movie-comic book tie-in would save the world from the bad movie-video game curse.

Nope, it won’t.

Our faith in even the most beloved comic book franchises cannot save the poor gamer from having to suffer from the effects of playing video games based on movies. At some point you would ask, “Why do all movie-video game tie-ins suck?” Iron Man the game is a big joke. Which begs the question: why do developers and publishers bother releasing a title that they know will suck? Simple: some of us get suckered into shelling out a few bucks to satisfy our curiosity and at some point, to falsely believe that there’s a future for video game-movie tie-ins until they’re dashed the moment we chuck the game disc into our players.

Just the same, it is still the duty of a few poor reviewers to play the game all throughout just to come up with believable and unbiased reviews, to save other gamers the trouble of having to play a crappy game. Luckily, Iron Man for the PlayStation 2 is one short stint. I can’t say the same for reviewers on the other consoles but most likely they’d share similar sentiments.

Iron Man the game is loosely based on the movie of the same name (that’s obvious enough). The video game’s story begins almost the same way as the movie does where Tony Stark gets kidnapped by Afghan terrorists (incidentally called Ten Rings, a direct reference to the Ten Rings of Power wielded by Iron Man nemesis the Mandarin) to make a weapon using Stark’s own equipment. Instead, Stark whips up a simple armor to make his escape. He returns to the US where he develops a new armor, which he uses to stop the Ten Rings, and later on, against the Iron Monger worn by his rogue executive Obadiah Stane. The story arc continues beyond the movie and Stark faces off against other enemies from his comic books including Titanium Man, Melter, Controller and Whiplash, all of whom are bosses. The story is pretty simple and does have a lot of reference to the comic books. But I can’t say the same for the gameplay, which is nothing short of being deadweight.

The game is played in third-person perspective with the camera right behind Iron Man. The control scheme is similar to nearly all first-shooters; the left analog button is for movement (forward, backward, strafe left and right) and the right is for the camera angle. R1 is for firing weapons, R2 is to activate flight and L1 is for hovering. The D-pad serves as a power conduit wherein the player can set where the energy level of Iron Man will be utilized, such as his propulsion, his palm repulsor blasters, and armor strength.

The game features a lot of explosions but they are all repetitive. The first time Iron Man takes flight the player will get a chance to enjoy flying around swooping and shooting ground enemies with his repulsor blasters and most often his Gatling gun. When bored, the player can use Iron Man’s Unibeam, which is similar to his repulsor blast but is much wider and can take out more enemies. However, it takes some time to charge up the Unibeam and in which case, it won’t be used that often unless during boss stages.

Yes, Iron Man is particularly tough even in the game. In the comic books, it takes much more powerful weapons to even dent his armor. The video game gives that much credit to Iron Man so he won’t need any life globes to charge up. What he uses is backup battery power. When Iron Man’s armor level goes down he goes into a “life-threatening” power drain. No worries. The player can start it up again simply by playing a mini-game to defibrillate Iron Man. When properly timed Iron Man can charge up his armor level again and he can go back his merry way destroying enemies.

Unfortunately, it’s not always merry because the enemies are somewhat slow, uncoordinated and less challenging. Iron Man can just fly around destroying anything that’s moving. Even the boss stages are pretty easy. I would have half-expected the Titanium Man to pose a challenge to Iron Man but I’m left just avoiding his attacks and countering with the Gatling gun or repulsor blast.

Bar none, Iron Man the game is one of the most boring movie-video game tie-ins ever made. Not even the game’s 3D cut scenes and the borrowed voice acting of some of the movie’s actors (Rober Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard) can bring the game to life. It’s a total waste of time.

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