Iron Man (PS3)

Tony Stark's Iron Man suit may shine bright, but his new videogame is a tad rusty.
5/13/2008 2:31 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

It's so easy to be disappointed with a superhero videogame. They always start off with such great potential. After all, who wouldn't want to play as some dude who can fly around and punch other dudes through walls? The problem is, superhero games very rarely live up to our expectations. Sure, every now and again you get a good game along the lines of Superman 2 or Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but more often than not, you end up with a Batman: Dark Tomorrow or Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The problem stems from the fact that it's tough to design a game around an exceptionally powerful and nigh invulnerable protagonist and the sad truth that most licensed games are terrible. What does it say about the genre that one of the games that best recreates the feel of being a superhero isn't even a superhero game? Yeah, we're talkin' about you, Crackdown.

Still, hopes were high for Iron Man, which is of course based on the new (and quite awesome) movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. The prospect of climbing into Tony Stark's legendary armor to do a little fighting and smiting with repulsor rays is just too tempting. Unfortunately, it isn't long before you realize that this game's a bit more Fantastic 4 than it is Ultimate Alliance.

The game begins with a couple introductory levels that help ease you into the suit's powers. The first stage has you wearing the Mark I armor while escaping from your captors in Afghanistan. Here you learn the basics of moving and using simple attacks. Stage two places you in the Mark II armor for a brief test flight that leads to a conflict where you must master Iron Man's palm-mounted repulsor weapons. From there, it's into the Mark III armor and the real game begins. Like many movie-based games, Iron Man expands on the film's story by introducing characters and situations not seen on the big screen. In addition to tackling the foes from the movie, you'll also face comic characters like Whiplash and Titanium Man and evil organizations like the Maggia crime syndicate and Advanced Idea Mechanics.

Within each stage, you're given a variety of different goals to accomplish. These tend to rapidly change, and you'll sometimes have to stop something that you're working on to go tackle something more pressing. These are usually secondary goals that don't necessarily need to be completed to clear the stage, but doing so will earn you bonus points afterwards (which can be used to upgrade your armor). Additionally, if you skip or fail these secondary missions, you'll also have to listen to your artificial intelligence buddy, Jarvis, or your friend, Lt. Colonel Rhodes, tell you how many innocent civilians died because you didn't stop that missile from launching. Way to go, hero.

A big problem with the missions is that most of their goals ultimately break down to "fly to this location and shoot the target until we give you another target." To spice things up, the developers decided to populate the fairly dull landscapes with swarms of cheap, respawning enemies. There are two main classes of enemies: airborne (mostly helicopters and jets) and ground troops (tanks and gun turrets and whatnot). No matter which group you decide to face, you're constantly being pelted with bullets and missiles. Want to escape a battalion of tanks by taking to the air? Too bad! As soon as you fly a few yards off the ground, you're suddenly surrounded by choppers lobbing missiles at you. Iron Man has the ability to catch missiles and toss them back at his attackers, but while he's grabbing one projectile, two more are exploding on his back.