Sega famously said that they had taken on board every criticism of the Iron Man video game, well they seem to have done this and made some leaps forward to improving the game in Iron Man 2. The only problem being this is a far worse game.
People lathered the last iron man outing as a very lack lustre game, although to my mind this was not very fair. Until the last game came out there had not been a Iron Man game, a game where the player controlled and made their way through a solely Iron Man driven adventure. The game play was not bad all things considering, a player could fly, hover, fire off rockets and iron mans famous repluser rays. The player could even go so far as to earn different in game suits in the form of playable character models, and upgrade the base ones as they saw fit, they could redistribute power to a system like flight or weapons to get the maximum out of that feature. This was all very promising stuff as far as iron man games went, it hadn't been covered before. Along side the vast maps players had to traverse it made for some interesting game play. The story didn't do much to help the games poor review. Seemingly set alongside the film and expanding it in the same way the Spider-man games aimed for.
Now sega took the criticism hard from the last game and tried to expand on these promising features from the first. One of the main complaints about the last game was the fact it was too damn hard, and rightfully so. Many a gamer would complain about how if you died half way through a level it was a whole restart from square one to get back to where you may just die again. Sega have decided to fix this by bringing in a mid level save point, but much like the checkpoints of Call of Duty World at War, they are as much a hindrance as help, early on one of these checkpoints kicks in right before a clunky cut scene and boss fight. The repetition becomes familiar to those who have played iron man 1 but worse, instead of having to grind through a level to get to your point of death you have to grind through a cut scene and back to a boss fight because no thought was put into saving the game after you beat this boss.
The armour upgrades is back, only this time its more than two options. Now we have the possibility of moving through slow menus to make our way towards some incomprehensible levelling up system. For every level you complete you earn research points, the amount seems calculated but if one really thinks about it they are nonsensical, as the research points must represent the amount of time Tony has thought about how he could upgrade his weapon suit from the last mission. It seems far he might come up with some ideas about how to better smash something up while in the process of smashing something up but how this translates into numbers I have no idea.
Navigating these menus becomes a torture as there is no install available at least on the PS3 leading to laggy response times witnesses in moving through menus and also in the amount of time it takes for the game to realise its time for some plot and give you a cut scene. Back to the point this upgrade system throws sense out the window. If I have researched an item why would I need to open another menu to request its fabrication, surely to have looked into it I would be egger to have it produced. Iron Man 2 seems to think not, believing you enjoy the lengthy manufacturing process of armour it makes the upgrading of armour as laborious as spending a weak in a cave hammering out your own.
Sega also touted this game to have far more in depth control. It is quite in depth, it may take you some time to get to grips with the dumbed down yet spread all over the controller affair we have here. The overly complicated simplification of this games controls has actually damaged one of iron man 1s stronger points the flight, a double tap of a shoulder button starts your flight and the left thumb stick controls speed. Simple, no it's the most unnatural(if there can be such a thing) initiation process of flight seen yet. If flight is your thing perhaps dark void is what you are after.
The story seeks to expand the universe of Iron Man 2 by taking place sometime after it and some time after Iron Man and War Machine became Nick Fury's private army, because I don't think that quite happened in the film, perhaps its set after Iron Man 3? The story does not know where it stands, I feel as though although I've read/ watched some Iron Man that this is on par with the 1990's cartoon show, and I mean a big pile of poo. Infact this game is largely comparable to that TV show rather than the film. It has the looks of the film and the ideas of the comic and mixed them all together into some sort of Iron Man stew, it tastes pretty bad.
One of the main problems as well may be the length, although taking pauses between levers in order to string the game out I have discovered that it is 2 levels away from completion. Why is this game so short? This could be something to do with the appendix addition of War Machine(not voiced by uncle Phil). After seeing the movie I realised war machine is maybe in it for 12 minutes in total. The game relies on the idea that the player, who has bought an iron man game, would want to stop playing as iron man and instead opt for a man who uses mark 2 armour outfitted with machineguns. Now this is an Iron Man game is anyone else thinking all I want is repulse rays? I think it is perhaps to safe to say it would be better if the game and more likely for people to want to play the game as Johnny 5 from the film 'Short Circuit', another shoulder weapon carrying machine.
This game is a pretty bad use of what could be a strong licence, after playing Sega's recent Afterburner title it seems odd that Iron Man couldn't feel as good as it sometimes looks. Perhaps if a developer was to shy away from the movie tie in game and concentrate on a stand alone game with inclusion of film armour people would get a game which will be more memorable.
I guess they will have to go back to the drawing bored as this game has not been built in a cave, with a box of scraps, by Tony Stark.
Pick it up if you really must when its being sold dirt cheap.