Games

Iron Man

Publisher: Sega

Platform: Reviewed on Xbox 360, also available on PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, DS and PC

Price: £24.99

Certificate: 12

The indestructible Iron Man is here.

Smashing bad guys and taking names on all consoles is Marvel's Iron Man, headlining his first video game title. But after having made a mint at the box office will Iron Man set the games market alight too?

With moderately impressive graphics and star studded voice talent in the form of Robert Downey Jr. this release starts off well.

The first couple of levels open up easily too. They are painless to explore, and the control system is simple to get to grips with.

Plus it soon becomes apparent that all the features die hard fans of the comic book hero could ask for are here.

From flight boosters and missile launchers, to different armoured suits from varying stages of development - and the comic's history - you could spend hours looking at all the options.

But soon it also becomes horribly apparent that you can't die!

While this sounds like a fantastic thing any of us who have used 'god mode' cheats on games will know how quickly the novelty of this wares off - it makes the game simple and takes away the risk and excitement factor.

The worst punishment that can happen to your character is a 'power down', where Iron Man finds himself disabled for a few seconds before returning to his feet. Hardly edge of your seat, life or death stuff.

To make matters worse the further you get into this title the more and more it becomes obvious that immortality is far from the games only flaw.

The camera angle can be terrible, so bad at times that it gives the impression the frame rate is jumping. The aiming a little off too and the levels are no where near as open plan as they would claim. They soon become monotonous.

And to make matters even worse the flight controls share the same problems as recent Superman gaming titles in as much as you spent half your time flying in circles around enemies rather than being able to combat them.

The immortality aspect does raise some interesting questions Namely is Iron Man intended solely for comic book devotees and youngsters with little gaming know how who would become aggravated by character death?

If this was the case things would begin to make more sense and the game would begin to increase in its appeal.

However as Iron Man has a 12 age rating one must think if this was the plan, the game's programmers have included a little too much gore and as a result missed a large amount of their target audience, much like Disney releasing 'The Lion King' with a 15 certificate.

All in all Iron Man is an amusing release yet it continues the trend of poor movie to game tie ins.

Perhaps if the creators had a slightly clearer vision of the game they wanted to make as opposed to the Iron Man action scenes they wanted to programme this would have turned out differently.

Sadly it didn't and Iron Man is left feeling like a rushed release that will only go down well with fans and kids.