With the growing might of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch gaming and the box office success of Iron Man 2 the film, the prospect of a joint effort had the potential to combine the technology of the smart devices and the action of the movie in a pocket size, hand held game. However, despite its impressive looks the game is sadly a bit of a letdown.
A slickish 3D rendered world and Iron Man miss the mark due to unreliable controls and clumsy inn game movement that get more and more frustrating the longer you play. I think that the biggest problem with the game is that it tries to do too much with what’s available. The best games on the iPod Touch and iPhone are the simple games, but developers Gameloft have made the game controls as complex as you’d find on the PS3, but with a touch pad as your controller this level of complexity struggles, and normally when you’re in the tightest spot in the game.
The story and partial cinematic sequences are just as impressive as the in game graphics, taking the device’s capabilities of rendering a 3D world to their upper limits, but with the controls and navigation spoiling the gameplay you end up struggling to justify playing the game.
The only reason I kept on playing is the fact that for an Apple apps game it was fairly expensive at £3.99, so I wanted to get my money’s worth. Overall, the game was an impressive effort to bridge the visual divide between iPhone / iPod Touch games and those on the PSP, but without the controls to back it up, it didn’t quite stack up.
Iron Man 2 iPhone & iPod Touch game review: 2.5/5
