Welcome to another edition of Modern Gaming and Avengers: Infinity War has a release date set for theaters by the end of the month. I've been a Marvel fan since the early 90s when X-Men and Spiderman the animated series aired on Fox Kids. Ever since then I have been on and off with the brand and even now when they are at the highest peak of popularity. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is obviously considered a financial success as Josh Weadon started a shared verse. The only time a shared verse was ever done was either in the comics, cartoons, or a handful of games. At first, I thought it was impressive but slowly the quality of the MCU has dropped ever since the middle of Phase 2. As for the Avenger that started it all, Iron Man surprisingly had one game that got a release on GBA. It isn't often Iron Man receives a solo game as this was a time when he came off as a second-rate superhero. Of course, this was before the MCU solo film that jump started him into the popular character that he is now. Torus Games saw its development and the software got published by Activision in December 2002. Torus Games is known for its studio to take up licensing rights and often produces Shovelware titles like Monster High. Gameplay The gameplay and levels was structured around a run n gun style akin to Contra. The level design has the player go from point A to B shooting down enemies and avoiding obstacles. There isn't much to it as you basically gun down enemies through nine levels. The thing about Iron Man's power is that he's limited to the backup suit, and this makes him run out of energy fast. The game has two life bars one for the power that's used to shoot projectile attacks and the other for his health. Every time you use his regular attack it drains slowly and even more so when charging up his blasts. A charged shot does take out an enemy quickly but like I said, it will also drain your energy. Fortunately, the meter regenerates slowly and plus there are also pickup items for that reason. The stages themselves had a decent difficulty as the enemies and the pickup items had proper placements. It also helps that there is a check point in the shape of a machine with an orb. Throughout the game, the player does receive Iron Man's patent attacks such as the Unibeam which becomes unlocked in level 3. Torus Games got his abilities right as they include ramming and speeding in mid-flight. Since the narrative has Tony with a prototype suit, the player doesn't have access to all of his abilities at first. The bosses despite having a simple pattern, their challenges weren't all that easy. I understand that these games target a demographic of little boys and the concept is for a quick playthrough. However, for Iron Man's first solo game felt very limited and way too short. For only nine levels, this seems like a waste of money during a time when GBA games cost $30. There are literally no secret areas, no bonus stages or hidden weapons of any kind. On top of that, the enemies might have proper level placement but none of them through these nine levels had any differences. Their challenges were basically the same as the last area and the only difference is that they are reskinned. The obstacles were hardly a challenge as all they do is either block the player or damage them slightly. Strangely enough, this felt like it came out of a crappy arc that's used for those filler comics. As you can tell there are only three bosses as Morgan Stark, Blizzard and Crimson Dynamo were picked. So what the hell happened to Murdoch and Mandarin? It tells me that Activision got stuck with these third-rate villains because they didn't want to spend a little more on the license. The gameplay was barely above average with its limited challenges and no secrets to find. Rating: 6.7/10 Graphics/Presentation In the early 2000s, the GBA didn't have many games that pushed the graphics of the system. With that said, the graphics are above average as well and Torus managed to get the visuals to look decent. The sprites used a cartoonish design which looked appropriate for a game targeted to little boys. Despite that, I still prefer if they used the same concept from the comics back then. By this time, Marvel stopped using their 90s style for their cartoons as seen by the X-Men: Evolution series. It doesn't surprise me much that Torus would use this style for the character design. The environments had some decent detail to them with several location types. The animation is a bit too whimsical for even this cartoon style as it makes them look funny and weird. The designers obviously did their job as the sprites at least perform fluid motion as they move about. Unfortunately, Iron Man never saw his own solo movie or cartoon during this period. It's because he was a second-rate superhero back then unlike his stardom status today. Even in the 2000s, Tony wasn't favorable among people compared to Cap, Spiderman, X-Men, or Hulk. It's sad that nobody even cared that he's a major name in Marvel but at least he's popular now. The presentation came off very lazy, and it would seem the detail and animation was given more attention. The sound and music felt generic and muffled which is due to the GBA's crappy sound chip. If you're going to put this much effort into the graphics then you need to do the same for the presentation. The music sounded so generic that I thought this was My Little Pony: The Runaway Rainbow port. Yeah, you know the music is bad when I'm comparing its soundtrack to an MLP title. I also can tell they didn't bother adding any animation or special effects around the environments. There were many GBA titles with such visuals but the studio thought so little of these features. The enemy types were another problem as all the developers did was reskin the enemies from the first level. You need to do more than reskin the same enemies as its shows me that they were lazy and disregarded creativity. The still images explaining the plot did feel like they came out of a comic. However, there wasn't enough as we get shots of the characters' faces later on instead of the entire panel. Another thing I would like to bring up is Iron Man's older design that was often used in the 90s. I never was a fan of his design in that era and it never captured my imagination. We are probably just so used to his recent design from the MCU that it makes this seem lack luster. I'm about to rant here since Torus thought using third-rate villains was a great idea. Can I ask who the hell Morgan Stark is?! Well, it turns out he is Tony's cousin and the son to Edward Stark that posed a threat to him a couple of times. First Howard and now Morgan? Listen Activision nobody cares about these long-lost relatives to Tony so why use them. Of course, you also have Blizzard (another minor villain) and Crimson Dynamo who also uses his own powered suit. Blizzard I don't know at all who he is as this is the first time I've ever heard of him. Crimson however, I only know him from the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Warriors cartoon. In that show, he was a recurring villain to the Avengers and would team up with Murdoch and Zemo. These are truly lack luster antagonists and honestly this game felt like it was taking cues from those crappy filler comics. So why couldn't Activision get the rights to use Mandarin or Murdoch especially when he controls A.I.M.? It would've been ideal to have these as the main villains considering they are Iron Man's big solo enemies. Rating: 7.3/10 Features/Content There wasn't much content available considering not many license titles have any. The game does support a battery pack and can save up to three files at a time. Despite the easy difficulty, the game saves automatically from either quitting or completing a level. The only redeeming features is getting a level select after completing the single mode once. Of course, there are always the portrait items to get but the only thing about collecting these is so each one will be available in the gallery section. Is that all they could think of? It's literally no different from the effort that's usually done in most Shovelware titles. Fortunately, there's cheat codes you can enable on the title screen that gives the players access to invincibility, all weapons and infinite energy. I don't see the point of these cheats when the game is extremely easy anyway. The playthrough will take 30 minutes to breeze through making these completely pointless. The problem is its features don't really engage the players to let them want to play even more. After playing through the entire game, I had no reason to want to pick it up again. Kind of how I felt when Iron Man 3 screwed up Mandarin so badly. Rating: 6.8/10 Final Rating For Iron Man's first solo title was a complete missed opportunity by Activision. The gameplay did have quality aspects since its utilizing some of Contra's features from shooting to platforming. The problem is the gameplay and level design was way too simplistic to have any redeeming qualities. On top of that, there were no secrets or bonus stages with only nine regular levels. The graphics are the strongest area provided as they were at least above average for the system. Overall, it doesn't change the fact that they came off generic in execution still. The use of villains was an absolute waste of time when Activision decided to use third-rate bad guys. If only the publisher would invest more funds than we would've gotten the likes of Mandarin. The content felt average due to the game's simplistic difficulty. It will roughly take the players anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to finish the main mode. All this package has to offer is pointless cheat codes, a level select and a photo gallery. Torus definitely blotched this here and I blame the corporatists at Activision for not allowing this studio to make the game better. Gameplay: 6.7/10 Graphics/Presentation: 7.3/10 Features/Content: 6.8/10 Final Rating: 6.9/10 Average
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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