Iron Man 2 (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Up until recently the very idea of turning a comic book into a big screen outing was seen as a bit of a risk, so while you had your Christopher Reeves' Superman, you also had the TV movie versions of Spiderman in the 1970s. All that changed with Sam Raimi's first Spiderman movie in 2001 when it became clear that comic books were no longer just for kids. This trend has continued for a decade now and the surprise hit that was Iron Man was always going to get a sequel, especially with Robert Downey Jr. playing the lead. The DS game, based on the movie, was not as entertaining though and the on-screen action translated poorly to the dual screen. SEGA have another chance now so let's see whether they succeeded...

Gameplay

At its heart Iron Man 2 is a 2D action title, with the gameplay split into six different sections spanning a variety of locations featured in the movie. One of the most positive things about this game is that you can play as both the original Iron Man and the War Machine who both have very different skills. Where Iron Man is incredibly graceful allowing you to fly and move with ease, War Machine is much slower although he does pack a punch in the heavy weapons department.

The action generally involves you having to get from 'A to B' destroying enemies on the way and usually with a final objective of some description. The combat is very basic though and you'll dispose of robots and flying droids with few problems. The objectives themselves can be chosen, usually mid-way though a level you'll be able to decide which one of two paths you wish to take: destroy or protect. This has little outcome on the game overall but it's nice to see the developers attempting to make things slightly less linear. Once you have completed the area, both as Iron Man and War Machine, two new areas open up for play. The first of these is a puzzle (or timed section), where you must try to get to a given location or destroy robots in a set time and the other is simply a boss fight. Why these couldn't have been woven into the main game is anyone's guess.

Controls

There are two very different types of control at play here and the original Iron Man (the red one) uses the traditional d-pad and face buttons, which actually work very well, the other is all touch screen. The only real difficulty with the d-pad is aiming at your enemies. Lining yourself up can be very tricky especially when you have to take down a number of them at any one time.

Graphics

Visually, the game is nothing special and Iron Man 2 offers up what we've come to expect from movie tie-ins. There are a handful of environments for our hero to explore, the various characters and enemies are well rendered and animated and the menu system allows you to navigate around the various areas of the game. Sadly, there's nothing to distinguish Iron Man 2 from the many other similar games on the market and you do get the feeling that there may have been deadlines placed on the developers, which forced them to deliver the game rather than producing anything spectacular.

Sound

The soundtrack is a little generic and not terribly interesting and don't expect any voice acting as, here at least, Iron Man has nothing to say.

Dual screen

You'll need to utilize your stylus for the 'other' Iron Man (War Machine) because everything, from movement to aim, is controlled by touch-screen. This, unfortunately, has the opposite effect on the gameplay as the more traditional control set. Here the problem is with actually getting around rather than with the aim. There's also a rather odd mini-game which challenges you to align a series of disks in order to 're-boot' Iron Man. Unfortunately this is neither challenging or interesting and you do get the feeling that this was a last minute add on. It was a great idea to have two different styles of control but they probably required a little more tweaking to get things just right.

Final comments

So, is it better that the first Iron Man outing? Well, to be fair they are two entirely different types of game and while the first one was simply an arcade shooter, this one at least attempts to engage you in some type of storyline with a variety of gameplay objectives. On the downside, there really isn't that much to do here and once you've played one area, the rest are not that different. That's not to say that Iron Man 2 is a bad game it's just not particularly challenging or interesting and, as a result, only really recommended to younger gamers and fans of the film.

Pro: Good for the Younger Gamer Who Enjoyed the Movie.
Con: Problematic Controls, Very Repetitive, Poor Soundtrack.
Final score: 6.7

Share on Twitter or Facebook

Comments