Xbox 360 - Ironman 2

Ironman 2 by Sega

Against my better judgement, I decided to buy this game. I knew that it was a movie tie-in, but I had heard they made the suit controls better. Ok, so this game started out like it might actually have a chance to be something unique. It's unique alright. It's unique trash. This game is no better than its predecessor. The suit is still completely uncontrollable, especially War Machine. Effectively, this game is crap on a stick.

Story

Based on the movie. So, this is effectively a movie tie-in. Nuff said about that.

Gameplay

At least Sega could have tried. But, this feels very much like a game that was written in a weekend. Literally. They couldn't have made a worse game if they had actually tried.

Controls

So many problems with this, it's not even funny. Where to start. The weapons are weak, the weapon cool down is too slow, the rate of fire is minimal, you're constantly out of ammo, the suit is uncontrollable (especially when you're hit). I mean, there is so much wrong with this game, I don't think there's really one thing that Sega managed to get right.

And when it comes to War Machine, the game is simply pathetic. Not only is War Machine about a quarter of the strength of Ironman, he has crappy weapons and effectively no defenses. Yet, the game throws about twice as many enemies at you as it does Ironman. It's effectively impossible to win the higher levels when playing War Machine... especially the carrier levels (where the game forces you to play as War Machine).

Levels

The main problem in playing each of the mission levels is that the suit is completely uncontrollable. You're constantly being thrown in random directions.

There are these basic enemies:

• Ground crawlers: Big boss sized enemies that end the level when dead.
• Suited attackers: Their attack style is to just constantly melee you. Their attack style does nothing but kill the suit shield and eventually kill you. They gang up on you and attack you en masse to intentionally kill your shield.
• Drones: Drones fire laserbeams from a distance and use distance attacks against you. These are usually teamed up against you with Suited Attackers
• Ground Suited attackers: These guys are bigger and fire missiles at you from a distance.

Combining all of this with War Machine's incredibly lame suit which you are FORCED to use on some missions means that you are destined for frustration.

Frustration Central

The attack styles of the flying suited attackers is completely frustrating. All that they do is get close and melee your suit about 10 times with a super fast melee attack. It not only stuns you, but it prevents you from any kind of retaliatory attack while they are doing this. Worse, they throw at least four of these enemies at you at once on top of the six or so other type enemies on the level also targeting you. Ultimately, the suited attackers are the most single frustrating enemy in the game. They're not hard to kill, they just like to hide behind you so you can't see them and also gang up on you so you can't defend yourself and you ultimately lose health. The only defense from these attacks is running away, and even that's only temporary because they follow you at the same speed your suit can fly.

The second most frustrating thing is that when you're hit with a missile, the suit drops downward. When you're defending the flying carrier, it ends up throwing you below the carrier. Once you're down there, it's a b*tch to fly back up because the suit is uncontrollable.

The most problematic part of this game is that the Ironman suit should be able to fly supersonic. Yet, when you turn the jets on full, you're flying about as fast as a person walking. So stupid and unrealistic. If you turn on the jets on that suit, you should not only fly exceedingly fast, you should be able to control the speed to go well faster than anything else around you. Unfortunately, you can't use the jets to evade flying attackers. They just hang right behind you at the same speed. So, when you stop, they're right there attacking you again. So stupid.

There was even one time when, for whatever inexplicable reason, the suit decided to careen downward away from the carrier which ended the mission because it said that I had 'abandoned the carrier'. For whatever reason, the game didn't return control of the suit to me so I couldn't even control the suit to make it fly back up. Again, stupid.

Upgrades and Research

Sega wasted this part of this game. To include such a detailed upgrade system in a game containing such incredibly poor gameplay is immeasurably stupid and an insane waste of time. Because even though you get points to research upgrades, the upgrades do nothing to improve the suit at all... especially not War Machine. Worse, there is only one (1) War Machine suit to Ironman's 10 suits. Yet, at two levels of the first 6 levels force you to use War Machine negating the use of Ironman. This is supposed to be Ironman 2, not War Machine. Let me choose the character and suit I want to play. Don't force me to use a weak character!

Graphics

For such a cool suit, the textures are too low res. The game feels rushed and incomplete graphically (and in all other ways too).

Overall

This is a bad game with basically no redeeming value. If you like wasting money, feel free. But, if you feel you really must play, then you should only consider a rental or buying it on clearance for about $5 (or less).

Score

• Sound: 7/10 (average)
• Graphics: 5/10 (poor, cutscenes best part)
• Gameplay: 2/10 (weak, suits too weak, ammo too weak)
• Story: 6.5/10 (watch the movie)
• Bugginess: N/A
• Controls: 1/10 (uncontrollable)
• Bang-to-buck: 1/10 (no replay value)
• Play Value: $2 (recommend renting)
• Overall: 2/10 (Absolute garbage. Nothing redeeming here).

Sega, with this game, you've failed. This is probably one of the last Sega games I'll ever buy.