Iron Man Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 2nd June 2008

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Iron Man appears in this not so super game based on the blockbuster movie.

Iron Man Details:

	Action
	Xbox 360
	SEGA
	SEGA

TBA

Out Now

N/A

Making a videogame of the latest blockbusting action movies seems to have always been a bit of a stumbling block for games developers, so you can forgive us for not expecting much from this game based on the latest super hero movie to hit the silver screen, Iron man, will we be right or will the game be a cast iron hit?

As you would expect the game pretty much follows the same story as the movie with you taking the role of Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist and inventor who is captured during a routine weapons test in the Middle East, forced to construct a devastating weapon for his captors. Tony instead builds his own weapon – a powerful suit of armour enabling him to become Iron Man.

During play you are able to utilise various armour suits each with different abilities and enhancements over previous versions. You can also upgrade the suit as you progress through the games missions making the gold and red hero even more powerful. During play you are also able to concentrate power for Iron Mans suit to provide more fire power, better armour or for faster propulsion.

The game makes use of both the Wii remote and nunchuck. The nunchuck controls movement and flight, whilst the Wii remote is used for attacks and your aim. The games control system is pretty basic yet it has a very clumsy feel and trying to shoot and move at the same time is overly difficult to master. The game implements a motion sensing melee attack system which only adds to the woes of the games controls, often leaving you trying to regain your bearings as performing an attack throws your aim into multiple directions, why motion sensing controls for the games melee attack and aiming system were used, seems a bit strange to me because it only serves to confuse the player.

The game it’s self follows a pretty linear path with you usually having to complete several objectives before facing a level boss, it’s very simple and in all honesty that seems to be a path that the game follows throughout as it provides little challenge. Enemy AI is pretty poor with the bad guys seemingly stuck in one spot unable to avoid you, because of this even the most casual of gamers should have very little trouble progressing through the game as enemies are disposed of with little fuss, this sadly makes the game very unappealing to play and you will soon become bored with the slow pace of the action featured within.

Visually Iron Man isn’t the best looking game on the Wii! The game has a relatively short drawing distance and a very hazy look to it. Environments are fairly open and lack any real detail and often make use of a bland colour palette. Character models aren’t any better either and the highlight of the game is Iron Man himself, who stands out in an otherwise boring looking game.

Sound in Iron Man is ok but nothing to get excited about, this part of the game is really let down after an impressive start with both sound effects and music becoming repetitive after time. Voice acting as for the most part has been done well mainly because some of the actors (Robert Downey Jr., Terence Howard and Shaun Toub) featured in the film have also lent there voices to the videogame.

On the whole, Iron Man will disappoint fans of this armour clad hero, the game feels lack lustre and unrewarding to play, quickly becoming tiresome. The game needed to be action intensive yet the slow pace it moves at fails to absorb you into the title which isn’t helped either by its clumsy control system. Meaning this movie game goes the same way as many others and fails to live up to its blockbuster billing.