Another year, another comic book-to-film summer blockbuster. Another video game company looking to make a cash grab by releasing a video game tie in, another horrible video game. Right?
All of us that love both comic books and video games have suffered through the years as our favorite characters have been crammed into a video game that fails to capture the feel of being a superhero, often times delivering piss poor game play to boot.
So it was with great skepticism that I downloaded the
Iron Man demo from Xbox Live Marketplace. I had
seen the hype, but knew better than to fall for it again.
Okay, this time I was wrong. The game is fun!
Wait, let me qualify that by saying the demo is fun. The full game has yet to be released.
As Iron Man (voiced by Robert Downey Jr.) you fly around, attacking targets in order to complete missions, right all wrongs and earn upgrades for your super suit.
The initial setup screen that appears gives you the chance to upgrade to the Iron Man armor. With 5 different categories of technology to research and unlock, there does look to be a good measure of customization to your personal armor. In the demo however, you can choose to spend money on enhanced weapons or toughen up your armor. Weapons all the way, baby.
A mission briefing explains to you that you need to destroy targets on the upcoming map with an added bonus if you do it in less than 9 minute time frame or destroy more than 100 enemies.
Once the game starts, obviously the first thing to impress
me was the graphics. You stare out at a vast desert with targets
marked on your HUD. The game is gorgeous and the levels are
massive, so there is ton of room for action to unfold. Jarvis,
the suit's onboard personality, tells you your mission objectives
again.
My first challenge was learning to fly. Iron Man moves at either flying at supersonic speed or hovers/walks at a slower, more maneuverable pace. Left side of the controller is for movement, the right side is weapons and targeting.
The controls have an initial learning curve of about 10 minutes. It's a logical button layout when you think about it, but most players just aren't used to moving a character in 360 degrees of direction with that much speed. The Iron Man suit flies, floats, runs, jumps and shoots all with surprising fluidity after you spend a few minutes getting used to it.
Each of the targets you need to destroy is housed in a military bunker, surrounded by turrets, tanks, soldiers and missile silos. Initially I would hover above each base, raining fire down onto my enemies, but I was a sitting duck in the air. Once I landed on the ground, cover from enemies bullets was easier to find.
Iron Man merges two game genres by combining
a jet fighter dog fighting game with a 3rd person shooter.
At anytime while in the middle of a firefight on the ground,
I could activate the jet on my back, take to the skies and
fight the helicopters that were trying to get a missile
lock on me. The game bounces back and forth between these
two modes with seamless transition.
After playing through the demo a few times, I felt very
confident, rocketing from the sky down behind cover near
an enemy base, attacking multiple enemies with both my main
and auxiliary weapons and then rocketing over to the next
base.
Moving and targeting in 360 degrees became second nature
about 30 minutes in and the rest was an exercise in creative
destruction. The ability to catch enemy missiles, break
helicopters in half with my bare hands and rip the turrets
off tanks was just icing on the cake.
Sadly, the demo is short. The only objective I was given
was blowing up guarded targets, both moving and stationary.
If there is any possible downside to Iron Man,
it's that there may not be much more to do other than both
up XYZ targets or, god forbid, escort missions. That could
get repetitive.
But I'm being pessimistic. Fact is that the Iron Man
demo far exceeded my expectations for the game and I will
be eager to play the full game when it comes out later this
month. If all the levels are as big and as fun as the one
in the demo, it'll be a hit. If you have an Xbox 360 and
Xbox Live, you'd be a fool not to download the demo for
free and try it for yourself.
Iron
Man Xbox 360 Game
