Iron Man

Iron Man

Alongside Indiana Jones 4, Iron Man is one of the biggest cinema releases of the year. And, against usual comic-book-to-movie expectations, it’s really, really good.

The combination of a clever script, Robert Downey Jr’s dry, wry turn as Tony Stark (the man in the suit) and loads of high-tech gadgets and apocalyptic explosions appears to have won critics’ hearts. Of course, wherever there’s a big movie there’s a big movie videogame to tie-in and, for Iron Man, the job of transferring the big screen movie to small screen polygons has fallen to Sega.

In the game you play as billionaire industrialist and international playboy Tony Stark. Stark has ploughed millions of dollars into a flashy suit of armour that effectively turns him into a walking tank. The suit, which goes through three iterations before it settles on the iconic red and gold finish, enables Stark to fly, blast ‘repulsor’ rays and fire ICBM missiles like they were tennis balls. These are the abilities pushed into players hands throughout the videogame adaptation.

The main game is playable at three different difficulty levels (Easy, Normal and ‘Formidable’) and has you tearing through the skies, chasing down terrorists, destroying weapon caches in the desert and eliminating hostile enemy forces deep in the snowy mountain ranges. Stark’s ever-present AI companion, Jarvis, gives dry encouragement throughout, guiding you through each mission and highlighting where enemy tanks, gun emplacements and objectives are via the suit’s HUD.

Each mission comes with two bonus objectives, one a time limit that must be beaten and the second a minimum number of enemies that must be taken down. Additionally you’ll sometimes have to watch out for civilians or friendly military units, so it’s not all blind mass destruction. Before each mission you can configure the Iron Man suit in a dizzying number of ways, tweaking and upgrading its core system, repulsors, power system, auxiliary weapons and adding mobility enhancements.

Initially the game’s control system is a little overwhelming. The ability to fly and hover are separated out onto two buttons, and your main weapon is backed up by a uni-beam attack (which must be powered up for a few seconds before it deploys). There’s also a dash move, a melee/ grapple manouevre, another auxiliary weapon and a countermeasure deployment. If that sounds a lot to contend with, that’s because it is: in reality the Iron Man suit is a lot more fiddly to control than, for example, a MiG fighter jet in Ace Combat 4.

Nevertheless, in time you get used to the suit’s abilities and, as you upgrade its various facets you soon settle into the repetitive but enjoyable rhythm of taking to the skies, diving toward the ground below and blowing up everything in sight. The game’s look and feel is surprisingly polished for a movie tie-in game (a genre which often sees the development team pushed and stretched to get the game finished in time for release) and with the chance to go back and reattempt any mission and the fun ‘one man army’ mode, it’s good value to boot.

As with most movie games, Iron Man could have done with a little more development time to smooth over some of the control issues but, all things considered, it’s a solid and enjoyable ride that ably recreates the pace and fun of the movie.

3 out of 5