When Stan Lee introduced Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #39, released March 1963, he wanted to add a little twist to the whole "superhero" business. Everything about the story and main character is against every comic book principle. Stan created Iron Man with the knowledge that his main character and story would not be likable, but he was gonna make people like it!

Tony Stark is the CEO of the biggest weapon manufacturing and selling corporation in the world. Although very smart, he is an arrogant bastard. And why shouldn't he be? His money can buy anything.

Until one day. In a business trip to Afghanistan, his convoy is attacked, and he is captured by terrorists along with his experimental weapons. He barely makes it as a native doctor treats his injury rather brutal, sticking an electro-magnet into his chest to keep shrapnel pieces out of his heart.

He accepts the task of building weapons for Ten Rings, his terrorist captors, with a secret plan. Ho Yinsen, the doctor who treated him helps, and becomes more than his doctor, opening his eyes to see the horrors war can produce.

Instead of constructing rockets for the terrorists, Tony starts constructing a powerful combat suit, the Mark I. This is where our game story begins. You of course play the role of Tony Stark, and with the aid of the Iron Man suit must escape captivity.

Contrary to the story of creating the comic book Iron Man, Artificial Mind and Movement, the developers for the PC version, had all the odds in their favor: the public already loves everything Iron Man related. Plus, a good recent movie raised interest in the eyes of everyone, at least enough to take a look at the game.

The only (but major) constrain I assume the developers had (they better off!) was time. Yes, time; it can make you or break you. Evidently the ~6 months they've had in preparing this game weren't enough. At all.

Ok, I understand PS2 and Wii, but it is a big mystery for me why wasn't the Xbox 360 version ported for the PC at least. Every major company does it. No, the current PC version of Iron Man the videogame is a (badly) ported version of the PlayStation 2 game.

Now I've seen the Xbox360/PS3 version, and while it may not be the greatest game on earth, it looks good, feels good, and plays well enough to make it worth your time/money at least. This is not the case for the PC version. In fact, it's one of the worst games I've ever played in my life!

I used to compare it with a license project one of my colleagues made for his university diploma. No, his license is not *that* good. Iron man is just *that* bad!

The graphics are ridiculous, and not even the first accelerated games (remember the old Turok on 3dfx Voodoo?) looked that bad. Physics... well... there are none. It makes me laugh a bit because there are two cases where game editors have problems writing: the game is really really good, and you can't write that over and over; and the game is really really bad, in which case you again don't have anything to write about really.

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So, where was I? Yes! You start burning your way through "so called" terrorists. They look like humans, but they certainly don't move like humans. They just stand there or walk towards you. You are immune to everything, and have unlimited ammo to your only weapon: a flamethrower. This is more of a tutorial mission, where you get used to the controls and stuff like that. Nothing special about the controls, except you can't see what they are in the options menu, and you can't change them. So far so good.

Yinsen's voice guides you through your "first" steps, just to die without you being able to do anything about it. You finally escape, and this ends your first mission.

As you progress through the game, you unlock Mark I (the first mission was a prototype), Mark II, Mark III and so on of your powerful Iron Man armor. Weapons, armors and flight upgrades are available for future versions of your suit.

After the "desert" mission, Tony Stark is helped by Pepper Potts, his personal assistant, and J.A.R.V.I.S., a sophisticated AI - guiding you through your missions, in your quest to become a better person, save the world and redeem yourself in the process. Yes, it does sound a bit like Miss World, doesn't it?

Mission 2 comes with the introduction of flight, and its two modes: hover and high-speed flight. Control is very annoying and inaccurate, and you keep ending up either on the ground or way up in the clouds. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? NO! It's Iron Man... eeeeh... wait; or was that someone else...

There is an option to invert X and Y axis, which I highly recommend if you made the big mistake of getting this game. It's pretty much the only good option available actually.

The rest of the missions are pretty much of a skirmish: you are placed in a specific warzone, with some (almost stationary) targets, and you have to point and shoot everything that moves. The minimap is supposed to help you, but in most of the cases it doesn't - since it's not 3D at all. I'd say it's rather confusing actually.

In-between the missions, Iron Man has a few FMVs, some more related to the movie than others. I'm neutral about them; they are neither good nor bad.

A kind of interesting thing is that you can redirect power towards one of the three systems of your suit for added firepower; better, speedier movement; or more life regeneration/added defense. Use keys 1-4 to switch between those modes. Extra firepower for example will enable that cool chest beam we all grew to love.

The only credit for this game could be given to the sounds. Wait, erase that. Sounds are pathetic. Read: voice acting is decent. Original movie actors Robert Downey Jr. and Shaun Toub amongst other gave a voice to the Iron Man videogame dialogues and did a good job. Too bad Gwyneth Paltrow didn't voice Pepper as well...

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Conclusion

One of the worst games ever, that there's really nothing much to write about. It's really that bad. If your 10 year old kid is the most fanatic Iron Man fan on the planet, he may have a chance to play this game for about 15 minutes. The game is rated 3+, so in no way is featuring any blood loss of any sort, scratched metal, squished butterflies, or ants killed with a magnifying glass, don't worry. Although at its price range, you could buy him a better game for Christmas.

Gameplay: 44

Every reasonable man, not to mention gamer, will quit after the first 5 minutes of playing. And why the heck didn't they port the Xbox360 version to the PC anyway? This game has no place on the shelves in 2008.

Graphics: 47

I've seen PlayStation 2 games looking twice better, and that's saying a lot about the 8 year old console and Iron Man. Same objection about the Xbox360 version, which features reasonably good graphics.

Multiplayer: N/A

Maybe it would have boosted its marks up a bit. Who knows? *shrug*

Sound: 55

Annoying and repetitive sounds, and odd choice of songs that don't match gameplay moments at all. Only thing worth mentioning is voice acting, where some actors were kind enough to lend their voices to the game.

Hardware: 78

It has problems on Vista, saves slow, and looks awful. Textures are blend and you can see flickering every now and then on the ground or on buildings/vehicles. Load times aren't bad, but then again, why would they be for such a game.