Review by: Michael Barnes

It was only a year ago that developer High Voltage was being hailed as the savior of core gaming on the Wii on the basis of its work on The Conduit. How quickly things can change, as Iron Man 2 on the Wii is an utter failure from start to finish.

Published by Sega and based on a successful movie franchise that has catapulted ol’ Shellhead into the strata of first-tier Marvel heroes like Spider-Man and the Hulk, the game has some degree of provenance and I was willing to at least give it a chance despite the simple fact that the phrases “movie tie-in” and “Wii version” in combination form an incantation that can only spell disaster. I mean, it couldn’t possibly be that bad, could it? Certainly donning the cool, modern Iron Man costume and blasting tanks with repulsor beams could offer some fun and I liked both the fact that War Machine was a playable character and that both had a range of upgradable weapons and systems play with.

However, my willingness to give the game a fighting chance was not rewarded. After a few hours with Iron Man 2, which is by all accounts close to half the length of the game, I almost couldn’t bear to play it any longer. There is simply no joy, no heart, and no fun in this title and I doubt even the most forgiving fan of the films or comics would feel driven to trundle through the game’s antique level design, AI that seems to be programmed simply to stand and shoot, and production qualities that made me feel like I was playing a bootleg game designed by garage programmers using a Nintendo 64 dev kit. Graphically, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to state that the original release of Perfect Dark- not the new HD version- had better graphics, better level design, and better technicals almost across the board. And that game is a decade old.

From the very first screens Iron Man 2 is an embarrassment to the Wii catalog, and given some of the utter rubbish that has unfortunately tarnished the console’s reputation that’s really saying quite a lot. The font used for the menus is almost unreadable, as if it had been scaled down from a higher resolution to match up with the Wii’s 480p limit. In the introduction cut scenes, poor Tony Stark looks squished and stretched, out of ratio because there again it appears that assets from a higher resolution version were poorly ported without attention or concern for visual quality. The character models are a complete disgrace, but it looks like Don Cheadle definitely drew the short straw- as Rhodey, he manages to look worse than the surrogate Robert Downey Jr. In most of the intermission cut scenes, there isn’t even animation. It looks like someone is puppeteering cardboard stand-ups of the characters in front of a background. That may work for a DS or PSP game, but for a full console game it smacks of cheapness.

In play, textures are muddy and animations are rudimentary at best. Technical glitches such as geometry errors, clipping, and intermittent pausing are present. The levels make the old Goldeneye areas look complex and detailed. Most of the missions, which often have confusing objectives that aren’t clearly defined, require Iron Man or War Machine to wander around locations held by rival corporations Roxxon or terrorist group Advanced Idea Mechanics to flip switches, blow up assets, or free civilians. There are also flying levels where your hero of choice shoots at helicopters and flies through trees. Boss fights against big, mechanical bad guys are an unexpected highlight- they’re mostly pretty well done and require more effort than just mindless blasting. Another high point is definitely the inclusion of characters and organizations from the comics and longtime fans might get about a dollar’s worth of entertainment seeing villains like Ultimo and the Crimson Dynamo or the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier in pixilated, low resolution action.

Controlling Iron Man or War Machine is actually pretty well handled with the Wii controls, and it’s easy to echo the “but it controls good” argument that Conduit supporters leverage. If anything, the nunchuck and Wiimote combination works better than it does in most games that have tried to make sense of it and as a result the game is actually playable to some degree. Pickups throughout each level award points to upgrade the two suits with new weapons, ordinance, and systems but I found the menus confusing so I didn’t really bother to stray from the factory settings. Plus, the weird, hairy arm that comes from the bottom of the screen to press buttons on the screen kind of freaked me out. Even without buying upgraded rockets, jets, or other equipment there was no appreciable difference in gameplay or difficulty.