PS3 Review - Iron Man 2

The Iron Man film was both a critical and commercial success. Unfortunately, the videogame tie-in developed by Secret Level didn’t exactly achieve the same success. The game was released to harsh reception from fans and pundits alike. However, Secret Level is remaining loyal to the franchise, aiming to improve the video game tie-in with Iron man 2: The Video Game, by allowing players to truly feel the power of Iron Man with massive new destructible terrains, epic enemy encounters, and an innovative combat system.

Iron Man 2’s story revolves around the game’s main protagonist, Tony Stark, gifting the world with new technology in order to make it a better place. However, his philanthropic nature isn’t enough to keep the enemies away as Iron Man’s enemies have devious designs on the technology. Tony Stark/Iron Man will be forced to fight in epic battles, face huge enemies, and in the end, the fate of the world will be left in his powerful hands.

The gameplay is noticeably improved from the original Iron Man game. The second installment in the action series allows you to take full advantage of the Iron Man suit as well as War Machine where you can battle through futuristic environments inspired by the movie tie-in as well as the comic book. These environments offer a new level of destructibility, making each encounter with enemies a more exciting and intense experience–something which its predecessor was definitely lacking. In spite of these improvements, however, the hand-to-hand combat is still bland and boring at best. Instead the focus seems to have been placed on improving Iron Man’s flying maneuvers, but even those feel sluggish.

The physics behind the Iron Man suit are not perfect, but not bad, either. Flying and floating around with your jets is fun to experiment with and a better way to kill enemies than on foot, but it gets extremely boring when progressing through the game and doing the same thing ad nauseam. One of the few bright spots in the gameplay, though, is the upgrade system, which offers a range of entertaining weapons.

The visuals are mediocre are best. Similar to the PlayStation Portable version of Iron Man 2 – Iron Man and War Machine’s character models don’t have much detail, and enemy animations are simple and lacking in texture. The cut-scenes are somewhat serviceable, as they showcase the essence of Iron Man’s movie and comic counterparts.

Every gamer hopes that one day we’ll get a half-decent movie tie-in game. Unfortunately, Iron Man 2 is not that game. It was clear from the beginning that the Iron Man 2 video game was just rushed to meet the movie release date, and in doing so, Secret Level has created one of the worst movie tie-ins of all time. Sure, laser cannons, flying, and blasting stuff into smithereens may sound enticing, and to some small degree it is, but ultimately, Iron Man 2 delivers a below-par experience that players are better off just flying on by.