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Iron Man Review for the Nintendo DS (NDS)

Iron Man Review for the Nintendo DS (NDS)

I Hate Helicopters

By now, most people who are interested have probably already seen Iron Man. As every gamer knows, with most movies comes a plethora of – videogame adaptations. Most tend to be pretty terrible, but every once in a while you find a diamond in the rough. Iron Man for the Nintendo DS had the potential to be such a game, but a bunch of little problems stack up and ultimately makes Iron Man a pretty boring, forgettable game.

Iron Man screenshot

Plot-wise, Iron Man fails to do anything impressive. It follows the path of the movie fairly well, and the quality of the story doesn’t really affect this game one way or the other. After all, Iron Man is an action movie, so it’s no surprise that the movie spin-off is a shoot-em-up. It’s a fairly basic shooter, and while it does have some interesting aspects to it, it also suffers from the same problems that plague many less-than-great shooters on the DS.

One of the high points of Iron Man, however, is the controls. They’re quite similar to those of the DS version of Geometry Wars: you’ll move Tony Stark with the D-pad (or face buttons, if you’re left-handed like me) and fire by tapping the touch screen with the stylus. It’s actually a fairly intuitive control set-up that works well for a game like this, though it’s not the most original configuration in the world. In fact, it feels like the developers implemented this set-up just to use the touch screen, rather than having it offer some kind of groundbreaking experience. An alternate control scheme would have been nice (taking advantage of buttons for aiming rather than the stylus), especially because stylus-based shooting gets a bit repetitive and boring after a while.

Iron Man screenshot

Furthermore, that sense of monotony is very much accentuated by the title’s basic gameplay mechanic. It’s quite simple and can be summed up in just a few words: Blow up everything! There are no puzzle solving mechanics or occasional twists to the way this game works. You move and shoot stuff for the entire game, and the only real variation is whether you’re doing this shooting on land or in the air. There’s a slight difference in pacing between these two level types, but aside from that, the level-design doesn’t really manage to be unique.

The enemies in particular give you the feeling that once you’ve played one level in Iron Man, you’ve played them all. The baddies you’ll face off against are recycled over, and over, and over again: tanks, helicopters, turrets, vehicles, and the like are pretty much all you’ll see for the course of the entire game. Needless to say, this really is not a lot of fun. As I’ve already mentioned, level-design is lackluster and boring; sadly, the same thing holds true for the combat.

Iron Man screenshot

The game does offer some variation in difficulty, which is very much appreciated. However, this spike in difficultly isn’t done all that subtly. Instead, enemies just get stronger and there are more of them. It’s pretty dumb, because at the core there’s never any change in this game. You do the same thing over and over again for eight levels without any variety, change, or anything else remotely interesting.

In order to deal with the increasing amount of foes, the game employs a system similar to that used in RPGs, where you use points you’ve earned to upgrade various aspects of Tony Stark’s character. For example, you can upgrade his armor, allowing him to endure more enemy fire, or his guns, allowing him to fire faster and unload more powerful shots. It’s pretty basic and doesn’t allow for much customization, as you’re going to have to upgrade everything as often as you can if you want to stay alive during the later levels. Had there been more variety with level design, this mechanic could have actually been quite interesting. During my time with this game, I kept imagining opportunities to upgrade specific aspects of Iron Man that would affect the way you played the game. Sadly, as the game is essentially the same from start to finish, upgrading armor and weapons tends to be enough to take care of business.

Iron Man screenshot

There are some other quirks along the way with Iron Man DS that also take away from the overall game experience. For example, the camera is a problem, as it will constantly get in the way and make this game tough to play. It gets far too close to your character and, as a result, it’s hard to see enemies that are far away and firing at you. Because you don’t know where they are, you’ve got to fly around aimlessly until you find them. Sadly, there’s a good chance you’ll be killed while doing this. The game also lacks a map, despite the fact that it does have radar. However, the radar by itself is pretty incomplete, and it makes no sense why the developers chose to omit a map. When you’ve got missions directing you from point A to point B, it sure would be nice to know exactly where you are.

Iron Man DS is not a very good game, but that’s not to say that it couldn’t have been. The quality of the in-game cutscenes and the occasional voiceovers show the amount of time and effort the development team put into this game. The framerate is smooth and the game’s explosions and other combat effects look nice. But, it’s just a pity that the developers couldn’t have devoted similar attention to making the game a bit more interesting and fun, rather than monotonous and boring.

Finally, there’s the fact that Iron Man can easily be beaten in less than five hours. I blew through my first time in just a little over three, and there’s very little reason why you’d want to play through this adventure again. There are some bonus combat levels, but the game is so boring anyway that these will likely be completely ignored by anyone who bothered to reach the end of this game. If you’re a huge fan of Iron Man, this version of the game might be worth a rental. But, if you’re just looking for a solid action title on the DS, this is not the game for you.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.6 Graphics
Cutscenes look nice and the game runs smoothly. Monotonous enemy models get really boring after a while though. 3.9 Control
The best part of the game! Control is intuitive and easy to use, and makes the game easy to pick-up-and-play for almost anyone. 3.5 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The music is surprisingly good and the occasional VOs are well-done. 1.8

Play Value
A boring, monotonous, four hour game coupled with next-to-no replay value is not worth 30 bucks.

2.6 Overall Rating – Average
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • A devastating weapon: Iron Man alone battles armies of fighter jets, military tanks, and more.
  • Power control: Players will direct power to different parts of Iron Man’s suit, creating a variety of unique attacks.
  • Chaotic battlefield: Open-ended battlefields create adrenaline-packed combat filled with unpredictable challenges.

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