Iron Man

Moby ID: 35076
Windows Specs
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Description

Mostly based on the 2008 movie Iron Man, this videogame of the one-man-army hero has been released for seven different platforms.

The game of Iron Man puts you under the skin of Tony Stark. He is a billionaire weapon-industrialist and genius inventor who, after being kidnapped by terrorists who want to force him to build weapons for them, builds an armor instead to escape. Since then, he decided to stop producing weapons and keeps on working on the suit to fight them back.

The games take the story further, giving the player the chance to go through more than 12 different missions and even fight villains that do not appear on the movie, like Whiplash and Titanium Man. All this is shown through cinematics between every mission and use the voices of actors of the movie like Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard.

By foot or by air, with the first armor at the beginning and in the characteristic red and gold suit later, using range weapons or melee attacks, the game features Stark fighting with armies of soldiers, tanks, helicopters, canons, etc. with the help of an array of upgradeable weapons like missiles, micro-grenades, repulsive shots, EMP blasts, a flame thrower and the powerful "Unibeam". Both the weapons and the suit (propulsion and armor systems) are upgradeable, and there are many special armors from the comics to unlock in most of the versions.

Differences in this version from the Xbox360/PS3 version consist of altered visuals and altered upgrade system (rather than spending money on them, the player's gear is upgraded based on how much it has been used).

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Credits (Windows version)

450 People (396 developers, 54 thanks) · View all

Voice Actors
Executive Producer / President
Game Executive
Creative Director
Game Director
Production Manager
Lead Designer
Lead Level Design
Artistic Direction
Lead Programmer
Technical Lead Programmer
Lead Animator
Lead Artist
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 41% (based on 27 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 23 ratings with 1 reviews)

Iron Man?...More like Scrap Metal!

The Good
Well, it does feature the voice talents of Robert Downey Jr. (which is all that its not cracked up to be) and does feature Terrence Howard and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" is played during the first level so at least somebody who loves the song can enjoy it.

The controls are actually quite easy to learn, especially when it comes to flight and hover. At first it is a little dicey, but once you get used to it, it's actually quite enjoyable. There is one thing I am thankful for though, after the first stage you have training modes that are unavoidable and unnecessary. One of these exercises is flying through rings mid-air, a la Superman 64, but luckily it seems they have learned not to do the same. True you still have to fly through them, but there is no time limit and if you miss one you can turn right around and go through it backwards instead of having to make a U-turn and do it again.

The Bad
Well, there is a lot of terrible things about this game. It didn't feature Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges, which were the smartest of them and decided not to waste time on this (which is sad since Bridges character in the film made me think of a Bizarro version of The Dude from the The Big Lebowski, but the game's version gives me the impression of a cheap rip-off of Lex Luthor).

True, it does feature Robert Downey Jr., but it just seemed like he was messed up when he did this game. His speech in the game sounded slurred, plus he seemed more of an A-hole in the game than in the movie, I actually hated playing him just for the smart ass attitude of him.

I do have to admit the CGI for the cinemas were nice, but bad lip-synching and horrible wooden acting just ruined it. You can almost imagine the actors standing at a podium, looking at their watch waiting to get out of it. It would have been nice if they inter spliced footage from the movie into it, which would have helped it out.

The gameplay actually is repetitive and boring: flying around, shooting repulsor rays, machine guns and rockets at a wave of the same enemy over and over. You can punch them and make them fly back 50 feet, but that gets boring after a while. Which reminds me, in the first level in the cave, you can punch the bad guys, but they only fly about 2 inches and float in mid-air for a second then fall...what the hell?

Plus, when you look at the back of the cover, you get an idea of what it would be like. When I read it, it sounded like you can overturn enemy humvees (which looks like a cardboard cutout) and fly high up in the clouds and fight enemy helicopters and jets, but when you fly up too high, you hit and invisible ceiling preventing you from going any higher and you can only turn over one humvee.

The story of the game is far different from the movie, it doesn't even explain how you end up in the cave, it completely ignores it, plus the enemy you are fighting is called the Maggia, which is mentioned throughout the comic books, but this one has it where they are attacking Stark since they stopped doing business with them, so my first thought is that they kidnapped Stark at the beginning, but then you find out The Ten Rings exist, but doesn't fully explain if they kidnapped Stark or that....(Oh man, I have to stop, my head is starting to pound). There are bosses scattered in the stages, ranging from giant hovercrafts which had nothing to do with the film, just thrown in to fill in the game.

The upgrading of weapons and armor sucks, the only way to upgrade is to constantly use the features over and over, instead of buying them or through some other system, so inevitably the repulsor is the first thing to upgrade since it will be used more often, but then you have to switch between the operating systems, making yourself vulnerable one way or the other. Plus, the way you can switch extra power to weapons, flight and armor is neat, but it takes forever to switch over and you can forget about it at times.

The Bottom Line
If this game was made to promote the movie, it failed extremely miserably. The gameplay, the bad acting, even Downey Jrs. slurred acting really ruined the experience for me. This game isn't even worth a rental, which is ironically how I got to experience this crap-tacular game. True, there are much worse games out there, but this game isn't too far behind.

So, if you have an urge to experience Iron Man, rent the DVD, at least then you'll get some pleasure from it and you can pretend you're playing a super advanced game at least. My final thought for this game...Flush It!, because that is exactly what this game truly is.

PlayStation 2 · by Big John WV (26955) · 2008

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Spenot.

Additional contributors: Abi79.

Game added August 18, 2008. Last modified February 22, 2023.