Iron Man

Heart-wrenching

So, it’s a got a fairly solid plot behind it. There’s the good guy who used to be a bad guy, the bad guy who everyone thought was a good guy, the nameless minions to plough through and Gywenth Paltrow on top of it all.

Mmm, what an image.

Unfortunately, the game itself is standing on ground that is a lot shakier and though the fundamentals of the gameplay are actually quite nicely laid out—which is probably why we’ve somehow overcome common sense and gotten excited about this game—the actual reality is far more flawed.

Anyway, this is how it all works. The game starts with little in the way of formal introduction and players are dumped straight in at the deep end. It’s modern day and Tony Stark is a captive American in the type of place which doesn’t really like Americans much at all.

His heart has already been replaced with no formal explanation and there’s no sign or threat from his captors. If you hadn’t watched the film then you’d just assume that he was a well-groomed engineer in a cave and wearing an odd t-shirt. You’d probably be very confused when he, for apparently no reason, suddenly appears as a clunky Arab-killing robot.


But that’s part of what makes the Iron Man character so popular, I guess – the no nonsense approach that, in this instance, is taking the fact that you’ve seen the film for granted.

After two brief tutorial levels, one on rampaging, one on flying, it’s quickly over to the main bulk of the story and Stark’s mission of redemption through excessive violence and large explosions. Hypocritical? Sure, but that’s Marvel’s fault, not Sega’s.

For the most part then Iron Man is a third person shooter set in mostly either American cityscapes or generic deserts in the Middle East. Iron Man tends to fluctuate between the two, with an array of faceless mega-corporations and wrong-doers as bad guys for most of the time. That said, the US military and some surprise nemesiseisisis arch-villains do occasionally pop up to provide a change of place.

There are two modes of movement and combat for Iron Man and you get introduced to them both very early on – there’s on foot and then there’s on wings, as I like to call them. Travelling around on foot is fairly easy, but a little slow and the levels are so large that if you want to move around on foot then it’s probably best if you make sure you have a comic book handy to pass the time.

Even better actually, have two comics handy and use one of them to wedge the analogue stick in position so you’re free to turn the pages. If you’re looking for recommendations then you can certainly do a lot worse than Marvel 1602 and Marvel Zombies, though really we’re only mentioning them for the sake of e-peen.


When flying, this isn’t a problem though and Iron Man can quickly zip across the maps using his thrusters. There’s actually two ways that Iron Man can fly too – he can use full-on flight and booster jets to chase down helicopters and planes and so on, or he can use a hover mode to close short distances quickly and steady himself for precision shots with his repulsors.

One of the best things about Iron Man’s abilities though is that they are upgradeable over time and, as you complete your primary and secondary objectives (that usually take the form of killing X baddies in X minutes) then you’ll be awarded with funds that you can use to upgrade the Iron Man suit.

Unfortunately, the upgrade process isn’t entirely smooth and you’ll have to actually commit to upgrading a certain area of the suit, such as weapons or power supplies, before you’re allowed to see the options. This means you might have to hand over all your cash to get access to the next level of Power upgrades, only to see that there isn’t a good option and you’d have been better off putting the money into a different area.

Of course, it’s usually too late by then and that is unfortunately the very least of Iron Man’s worries…