Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 plays pretty much like the first game (to which it is a sequel and numbered accordingly if somewhat misleadingly, and not a game of the film Iron Man 2), with a similar mechanic, upgrade (and despite what another reviewer says, a three year old could understand how it works!), mission and progression system - even most of the achievements are near identical (and if you're into gamerscore, this is a very quick ans easy 1000). Some of the complexities of the first game have been streamlined, making it flow a little easier, although it is more linear too.

It offers you the chance to play as either Iron Man in various unlockable incarnations or War Machine, a military application of an earlier Iron Man suit (ludicrously powerful one upgraded). A few of the movie cast reprise their roles, and while Robert Downey Jr. isn't one of them, the actor who takes his part sounds uncannily like the movie star. Despite views to the contrary elsewhere, the cut scenes are decently animated, acted and tell the stroy, such as it is, as well as any such in game movies - only the video compression lets them down, making them appear a little artifacted on a HD screen.

Ultimately the game is simple blasting fun, doesn't outstay its welcome and, while far from original and dotted with tedious boss battles, is far from broken and easy to control and master. If you want a quick game that burns your thumbs and not your cerebral cortex, this will do the job just nicely.

In today's gaming world, there a hundreds of fantastic titles to choose from that will leave you on the edge of your seat with your jaw on the floor. Also, there are times when you see a film and go "I want to do that!". When that happens, you go and buy the movie game and it's usually awful. Iron Man 2 is quite fun, but not a game that belongs in this generation with it's bad graphics and gameplay. This is a short game you play right after you watch the movie, enjoy it until it gets boring and then put it away until it's time to watch the movie again.

As far as cheap, quickly churned out movie related games go.........this is certainly one of them. It's clear that the developers started out with some nice ideas and good intentions, but as the deadline (as well as the movie's release date) approached, they all got thrown out of the window (or airlock...whichever one's more Iron man-ish).
This is extremely similar to the first (equally rushed out) Iron Man game, with the important notable difference that it's not actually as good. The first Iron man (hold your head in shame Sega) was extremely clunky and had the feel of a budget game without the good grace to actually have a budget price. Although, despite this, there was fun to be had and it was quite enjoyable flying over the vast expansive battlegrounds, destroying tanks and helicopters with missiles and picking off soldiers with Iron man's laser palm thingies (I'm pretending not to know what they're called in a desperate attempt to look less like a comic book geek). The game had a fairly nice structure to it, there was always a lot of action to keep the player occupied and it even featured celeb voices, including Robert Downey jr. Overall, it felt like a `proper' game that tried, but was just short of hitting the mark....with it's Repulser Blasters (damn I am a geek)!
The sequel is, sadly, a different matter. This doesn't have any of the quality feel to it at all and loses that little extra credibility it could've gained by failing to include any voice actors from the film (Tony Stark sounds like Jack Black doing a bad impression...of Jack Black). Somehow everything about this game has taken a giant metal step backwards and the overall impression (apart from the one Jack Black is doing) is that the game had even less development time and money than the original, which was; let's face it, not much! The graphics are worse, the controls seem less responsive and the game is much shorter and more linear than the first one. Iron man (and war machine, but we'll get to him in a minute) doesn't feel very weighty, and the character seems to glide along as light as a feather when he's walking around the (tiny) levels. The flying controls aren't great either; they're both awkward and unintuitive at the same time (this `is' a sequel after all), and switching from hover mode to flying mode then back again is a pain in the shiny metal arse!
As I mentioned earlier (in brackets...like this) you get to play as both Iron man and War Machine (this is a sequel after all, oh wait... I said that earlier too, also in brackets). The idea is that you play through the game twice, once as each character, to unlock additional weapons and costumes (armour) for the pair of metal heads. This is a good idea in theory, but unfortunately the armour and extra weapons don't really do anything better than the standard equipment your character starts out with and the extra suits have no real benefits other than looking slightly different (and never quite as good as the starting armour). The other problem with this dual play through idea, apart from the game barely being fun enough to play through once, is that the stages are `exactly' the same with both characters! The only differences are in the cut scenes. It would have at least made it worth playing through again if the different characters explored slightly different parts of the (tiny) levels or had, say, different mission objectives. But they don't, so you just end up playing through once as Iron Man using his laser palm thingies (I'm back to pretending) and a second time as War Machine using his mini gun.
The (tiny) levels themselves aren't as free roaming as the original game's either. At least in the first Iron Man (which wasn't actually that good, just to clarify) you were dropped in the middle of quite expansive areas which you got to fly around and explore a little before you blew everything to little metal bits. Iron man 2's levels are extremely restrictive and the player ends up following a very rigid path to the level's end, blowing things up along the way. As if all this wasn't sounding fun enough so far, there are even a couple of fun escort missions thrown in, because nothing is more enjoyable in a badly made video game than to protect a bunch of other vehicles when you can barely control your own weightless, badly rendered tin man!
This is a game that's only really worth renting for a couple of days to gain some of the X-box 360 achievements, which are at least fairly quick and easy to obtain. And it is slightly less monotonous to gun (or laser) down your 500th soldier if you know you're at least going to get an achievement out of it. Not that I'm admitting to hiring out poor games just to wrench out their achievements before flinging them angrily back at Blockbusters or wherever....
In conclusion, this is exactly what you'd expect of a movie release `tie in' game, unless of course you expect movie release tie in games to be any good...at all. Steer clear of this at all costs (even budget costs), although with the ropey, heavy (metal) handed flight controls, steering this clunky character away from anything is far from easy. If you are really `into' Iron Man and you want to test your metal (ha,ha) then you'd be better off buying the far superior, but only marginally good, original...which should actually have a budget price by now. There's a nice order to that...it just goes to show that all things work out in the end....
Overall score: 2 full metal jackets out of 5.