Iron Man Cover Art

The Iron Man movie was a runaway hit, but the Iron Man game for PSP is a game from which you would not mind running away from. If the movie was such an awe-inspiring feat the game had some serious irks which the developers Sega forgot to iron out and that places this game in a very mediocre rank.

The game is based on the 2008 movie of the same name and was released on May 2, along with the movie and was targeted at all the major platforms including PS2, PSP, PS3, DS, Wii, PC and XBOX 360.

The Story

The game starts in similar lines with the movie and the first level tells the players how the Iron Man took shape. Tony Stark, an advanced weapons designer is held captive in a cave protected by heavily armed soldiers donning powerful weapons constructed by him. He gives design to a high-tech armor suit and with the help of it blasts his way out of the cave. Outside captivity he perfects the suit into a mean fighting weapon and vows to takeout all the various weapons he has sold before to dubious characters. Iron Man is pitted against scores and scores of enemies - many of them can be recognized from the Iron Man Comics - in a battle to annihilate all the evil and to salvage the world.

Almost all of the levels follow similar lines and much of the time is spend on making Iron Man fly from one place to another and blasting up hoards of weapons stored by bad guys. But the story line, which made the movie, such a big success loses all its charm when experienced on the game because of highly boring game play and mediocre performance in every phase of the game.

The Game Play

The cut scenes, which are shown in between missions, are bland and offer nothing spectacular. Most of the time Iron man is flying helter-skelter and the level of graphics is nothing much to boast about. The missions follow a similar line and you are required to blast of all the caches of weapons stored by nefarious characters all the while fighting off soldiers, helicopters and armored vehicles. The mission is to destroy all the cached weapons and meeting some additional but simple objectives and while doing this you can pop of as many bad guys as you like using an array of blast tools at your disposal.

Enemies are always present in big numbers on each level and to your annoyance they keep re-spawning after they take some laser charged snacks up their bellies. Yet the game play is simply too easy and this makes this title one of the most boring of affairs. Like all other aspects of the game the enemies too are not that motivated and they all act as sitting ducks while in combat. There is nothing to be talked about enemy AI and this can be seen by the easiness with which Iron Man can blast through missions.

You are armed with an array of powerful toys like gatling gun – to mow down a large number of badguys -, Repulsor Rays, Rockets and Unibeam – a cool powerful laser beam that can change a bad guy in to a toast – and the armor you are wearing keeps you going on with out a downfall even after taking a tank shell or heavy enemy fire. This makes the game play too easy and takes the difficulty edge out of the game. Most of the time Iron Man makes you feels as if invincible. And even if you are killed in action you can do a self-defibrillate quite easily which brings you back into the game. The auxiliary power supply provided with the armor can be used for many purposes, like strengthening the Armour, powering up your weapons etc, but they are mostly not required due to the non-aggressive opponents.

In PSP the game play unfolds in indoor spaces and there are not many open-areas to explore in many missions. The Graphics are far from spectacular and doesn’t push the graphic capabilities of PSP platform. And the frame rate is only satisfactory. The environment and other elements like objects and vehicles are only far from realistic. The background sounds are bland too.

Conclusion

Bland game play, dull combat, non-aggressive and bad AI enemies, controls which are a bit touchy - these all contribute to make Iron Man the game a not so good experience. The visuals looks blurred and the game reflects it y being a boring affair.