Iron Man 2
What was Sega thinking?
Posted May 9, 2010
Paired with the release of the highly anticipated sequel to the original Iron Man movie, Iron Man 2 actually takes place after the events of the second film (DVDTalk's Review Here). The story revolves around the theft of Stark's in-house AI computer named Jarvis. Jarvis is intended to be installed in Ultimo, an enormous robot that has the ability to heal itself. For anyone wanting to do battle with Mickey Rourke's character Whiplash, he unfortunately isn't found in this story.
The game is split into 8 missions, each of which takes about 30 minutes to 45 minutes to complete on normal difficulty. Before a level, the player has the option of choosing a suit to do battle in; a variety of Iron Man suits and the War Machine suit. The game uses a combination of shooting Iron Man's guns and fighting up close to fight off the legions of baddies.
One of the main issues with the game is a terrible targeting system when surrounded by enemies (which happens frequently). The auto target system alters targets so often that it's tough to get a bead on a specific enemy. It's even worse in boss fights as there's no priority level given to targets. A meaningless little thug has the same priority level as the powerful boss, which means you have to manually re-target the boss over and over.
Melee fighting is terrible as well due to a slow moving Iron Man, in comparison to the swarms of smaller enemies. You are better off putting some distance between you and the targets before picking them off with the guns. Of course, that means you have to use the wonky flight system. Flying alters the control scheme from movement with the Left thumb stick to the Right thumb stick. It just feels clunky and makes the player continually having to switch gears to play through the levels.
There are some light RPG elements in the game in the form of upgrading weapons / suits, different types of ammo and new fighting combos. It's an interesting inclusion, but the game's difficulty really doesn't require such additions. If the difficulty ramped up as the game progressed, these upgrades would actually have been handy.
There's no multi-player to speak of in the game. Achievements are fairly easy to rack up on the first play-through. There are achievements for completing levels, finishing the game on certain difficulties, beating bosses, unlocking armor, killing X number of enemies, etc… It’s a pretty standard set for a movie title. There’s very little creativity to be found here in earning achievements.
With Iron Man 2, Sega has renewed the widespread belief that movie studios love to churn out garbage video games tied in with their summer blockbusters. The game lacks the entertainment value, length and the presentation level that should be present in the late stages of the Xbox 360 life cycle. You could get more enjoyment out of spending $59.95 on an Iron Man Lobster statue than paying for this poor excuse for a video game. Leave this one on the store shelf.
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The game is split into 8 missions, each of which takes about 30 minutes to 45 minutes to complete on normal difficulty. Before a level, the player has the option of choosing a suit to do battle in; a variety of Iron Man suits and the War Machine suit. The game uses a combination of shooting Iron Man's guns and fighting up close to fight off the legions of baddies.
One of the main issues with the game is a terrible targeting system when surrounded by enemies (which happens frequently). The auto target system alters targets so often that it's tough to get a bead on a specific enemy. It's even worse in boss fights as there's no priority level given to targets. A meaningless little thug has the same priority level as the powerful boss, which means you have to manually re-target the boss over and over.
Melee fighting is terrible as well due to a slow moving Iron Man, in comparison to the swarms of smaller enemies. You are better off putting some distance between you and the targets before picking them off with the guns. Of course, that means you have to use the wonky flight system. Flying alters the control scheme from movement with the Left thumb stick to the Right thumb stick. It just feels clunky and makes the player continually having to switch gears to play through the levels.
There are some light RPG elements in the game in the form of upgrading weapons / suits, different types of ammo and new fighting combos. It's an interesting inclusion, but the game's difficulty really doesn't require such additions. If the difficulty ramped up as the game progressed, these upgrades would actually have been handy.
There's no multi-player to speak of in the game. Achievements are fairly easy to rack up on the first play-through. There are achievements for completing levels, finishing the game on certain difficulties, beating bosses, unlocking armor, killing X number of enemies, etc… It’s a pretty standard set for a movie title. There’s very little creativity to be found here in earning achievements.
Graphics
- This is one hideous Xbox 360 title. If I was one of the designers working on this title, I'd seek another line of work. For a game that's attempting to garner interest based on the celebrities designed for the title, they really did a piss-poor job.
- Character models are just plain goofy, especially the faces on Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. It's eerie to say the least. Character animation is even worse as it's plagued with freezing issues.
- Explosions are fairly ugly as well; odd for a game that's based on making things explode. There's plenty of texture pop-in during any fast paced scene and it reminded me of playing an early Playstation 2 title.
Audio
- Regarding voiceovers, Sam Jackson and Don Cheadle reprise their characters, but Downey is nowhere to be heard. The sound-alike Sega hired is average at best. Jackson is really the only standout in the bunch, but the script is pretty poor.
- Ambient sounds, explosions and gunfire aren't very exciting. The music is somewhat reminiscent of the Iron Man saga, but certainly isn't compelling enough to stand out.
Conclusion
With Iron Man 2, Sega has renewed the widespread belief that movie studios love to churn out garbage video games tied in with their summer blockbusters. The game lacks the entertainment value, length and the presentation level that should be present in the late stages of the Xbox 360 life cycle. You could get more enjoyment out of spending $59.95 on an Iron Man Lobster statue than paying for this poor excuse for a video game. Leave this one on the store shelf.
Discuss This Game on Our Forums Here