Iron Man

30.04.2008

My attention was drawn to Iron Man only because SEGA put it on its release list. Our trainee, who is a comic fan, explained to me that Iron Man was created by Marvel (HEY! I know the difference between Marvel and DC) and the movie probably will be one of the best Marvel film adaptions. Well - I did watch the trailer. One scene –our trainee also likes that one very much – is really cool. Iron Man avoids a rocket launched from a tank, rather irritated he shoots a mine at the iron hulk and then runs away in a relaxed fashion while a huge explosion tears a hole in the ground behind him. That is really cool. Well, it is so cool that I will watch the movie. Well, simply ... cool.

On the other hand: the official game to the movie is not that cool. It's just a quick release with the seal of approval by SEGA. It's nothing new that games, labelled "official game to the movie", are not particularly exciting. Either they are Third-Person-Shooters which flop completely, without any innovation, excitement or stunning graphics, or they are jump & run games, suitable for kids. Nothing more. Iron Man mainly falls into category one. Though the game is a bit better than many other movie-games, it didn't excite me. Although the flying one-man-army with super weapons could be the basis of a good game.

This is almost exclusively because Iron Man presents the player with the same stupid sequence, over and over and over again. Cut-Scene, fly out, shoot everything to bits, boss fight, cut-scene. Well - that's it. 99% of the game consists of pulverising scores of tanks, choppers, flaks, guided missiles and some stray soldier via automatic aiming devices. Whether you launch a regular attack or Uni-Beam - a heavy attack that robs almost 90% of the enemy's health points. Whether hovering or flying (take your fingers off that after burner because you will fly so fast that you overshoot any target). You always kill the same bad guys. Oh, by the way: you can't die in Iron Man. If your energy system is depleted you fall to the ground and the game comes up with a quick message "System Reload". You then continue from the same spot without loading delay. You only fail a mission if you do not or cannot meet a primary mission target.

Well, that's about it, folks. Iron Man tries in vain to get the player to attack secondary mission goals or to play against the clock. It didn't help much to get rid of the general dull impression. I care very little whether the rocket kills innocent factory workers or not. For that, not enough relation is built to the characters and/or possible victims.

Every completed mission makes the cash register ring. You can add to the prize of primary mission goals (which you have to achieve anyway) by completing some or all of the secondary mission goals. Because I was so bored with it, I never won more than what you get for completing primary mission goals. With the "hard won" money you can upgrade your outfit. A better gun, stronger armour. During play I did not notice too much of the upgrades to the outfit. Developer Secret Level added a tiny hint of tactics to the game. Via Digi-Pad you can choose how the Iron Man's manages his "Energy". A little more energy to your arms repertoire? Or would you rather be more agile? Doesn't matter! Despite introducing this feature in the tutorial I only noticed it at the very end and managed quite nicely without changing anything.

The Iron Man Model definitely deserves attention from a design point of view. It really looks great. Modelled using high-resolution textures and great attention to detail, it does come relatively close to the CGI-daddy in the movie. Additionally, the game features a stunning panorama. That's it then - that was all. Enemy units are modelled with astonishingly few polygons and are awfully textured. This becomes apparent in the fight against the final opponent. Even more irritating than the ever repeating attack tactics are ugly bump-maps and textures. You can only choose among 4 different environment settings. Desert, snow covered landscape, ocean and city. That’s it.