Iron Man 2 Demo Gameplay

JudoChinX

May 14, 2010

Here's a taste of the action from the Iron Man 2 demo.

I barely made it, but I'm proud to announce that I survived the Iron Man 2 demo. I'm sure you've all heard of the atrocity that was the original Iron Man game. Seeing how bad the first one was, why wouldn't there be a sequel released in conjunction with the Iron Man 2 movie? I can think of a thousand reasons, but I guess Sega didn't feel the same way, because someone over there gave this game the green light. It's crap like this that makes me lose faith in Sega.

I really enjoyed Iron Man 2 the movie, so I had a small hope and prayer that this game would do the film some sort of justice. Was that out of line? Probably, but still, you can't blame me for hoping. The first thing you'll notice upon starting the game is how awful it looks. The character models are terrible, explosion effects are a joke, and the textures are bland. It's almost funny to watch, but I'm not laughing.

As you can imagine, the gameplay found in Iron Man 2 is mostly comprised of flight and combat. You can lock onto targets, move in for some close quarter combat, or attack your foes from afar using your weapons equipped on either arm. It sounds like a pretty basic but sound idea, however the execution is lacking to say the least. I didn't know this was possible in a game, but locking onto a target, something that's normally done to make it easier to keep track of the action, actually makes the game more disorienting than it already is. The combat is overly basic, the only two things you can do while close to an enemy are hitting and grappling. I wasn't really able to find combos, but it was so hard to keep track of the action, and the controls are so clumsy, that I could have missed something.

If there's one redeemable thing to this game, it's that you have unlimited ammo for your arm-mounted weapons. And those are effective weapons. Probably too effective. But if there's one thing I'm looking for in an Iron Man game, it's the feeling of power, and these actually do an alright job of granting this.

Some of these shortcomings could have been overlooked had there been interesting mission objectives or story, but you'll find neither. The first chunk of the demo involves getting from point A to point B. Along the way you'll destroy drones in your way, maybe hit a switch, and destroy generators. The second chunk of the demo requires that you search nearby warehouses for a computer terminal, so you fly around, look for marked buildings and fire down the door. At that point, you usually find nothing. Next, you move to the next mark on your map. Once you do find the terminal, you then defend the area, and eventually end in a boss fight. That boss fight was really bad. First, it wasn't really clear where I was supposed to attack the enemy. Different parts of it lit up at different times, but my strategy was to move in close, and punch and shoot until it died. That worked. It was anti-climactic and unfulfilling.

As far as the story goes, there's basically none. The events of the demo seem to take place during the last chunk of the movie, but even having just seen Iron Man 2, I wasn't able to make any sort of connection as to what in the movie I was actually seeing. The game did have the benefit of having the voice of actor Robert Downey Jr., but of course this opportunity was squandered, and the writers neglected to write anything interesting or witty.

A demo is supposed to show off the best moments of a game; it's supposed to give you a good idea of what to expect in the final product. Sadly, if this is how the game plays the entire way through, then you can skip this without regret. This is a licensed game in every sense of the word. They take a cool character, make him bad, throw him into poorly thought-out situations, and make a game out of it.

Discuss in the forums. Is this a game you're going to buy, trade or stay away from?