When Gameloft announced it was making the official Iron Man 2 game for the iDevices, I was happy. Consider Gameloft's most recent licensed movie game: Avatar. It was well-made and turned out to be a big hit. Iron Man 2 did not turn out as well as Avatar, sadly. Though Iron Man and War Machine each look like the zillion bucks Tony Stark spent to develop them, too much else in Iron Man 2 is rusty. The camera is unfriendly. Enemies are dull and repeat entirely too often. The auto-targeting system is as finicky as a cat.

Iron Man 2 starts off at the latest Stark Expo in New York City. Stark is showing off the brand-new suitcase armor to a waiting crowd (which looks just awful in comparison to the crispness of the Iron Man suit – a problem with all civilians in Iron Man 2) when robot drones arrive and start causing havoc. This kicks Iron Man into an adventure that spans the globe. You may also play as War Machine, but there is not that much difference between the heroes beyond War Machine's slightly more powerful attacks, although both suits can be upgraded to roughly the same power.

Iron Man 2 starts rough. Right away, you are introduced to the limitations of the control schemes. While the idea of sliding the fire button up to release the Unibeam attack is great, the auto-targeting is just not cooperative, especially when Iron Man or War Machine is surrounded. You are repeatedly pummeled by off-screen enemies that you must clumsily scroll around (taking a finger off either the control stick or the action buttons) to see. I understand why Iron Man 2's camera doesn't snap all over the place, as that could induce sickness (especially in the aerial sequences), but trying to identify and target flanking enemies is just cumbersome. This is a pacing issue more than anything.

Pacing problems actually plague a lot of Iron Man 2. Nobody should have ever expected an open-world Iron Man iPhone game, but this is such a hand-hold. It is a game loaded with checkpoints. (The iPad edition at least includes a useful, scalable map you can use for easily identifying objectives. This feature is not in the iPhone Iron Man 2.) Fly here, Tony. Run over there, Tony. Beat up those bad guys before the invisible walls holding you in a tight area drop, Tony. Tap that hand icon to lift those heavy things, Tony. Time to go swimming, Tony. At no point are you really encouraged to explore or just have fun being Iron Man. While I am happy that Iron Man 2 does offer a number of different things to do – flying, fighting, hacking, suit upgrades, searching for hidden collectibles – none of it really gels. It's too bad Iron Man 2 doesn't drill down on one or two things, like flying combat, and just perfect those.

I'm not surprised Robert Downey Jr. didn't lend his voice to the game, but that voice actor doesn't really sound all that much alike. The JARVIS voice, on the other hand, is very well done. The uneven voice work and writing mirrors the uneven visuals. As mentioned, Iron Man and War Machine look spectacular. The iPad edition is a visual step-up from the iPhone version. Not only are the heroes more attractive, but the environments are feature more detail. The difference between, say, Times Square in the iPhone game versus the iPad edition is considerable. However, enemies are repetitive and dull, and civilians are downright dreadful collections of boxes.

Verdict

Iron Man 2 is an uneven adventure that doesn’t last very long. You can burn through it in about two hours if you just sit down and play it from one end to the other. Too much of Iron Man 2 just feels too uneven to recommend it. The camera is as much of an enemy as the Hammer drones. The checkpoint system is almost overwhelming. And while visuals do not trump gameplay in any situation, the chasm between Iron Man/War Machine and everything else is so glaring. I suspect that only the absolute hardest of hardcore shellhead fans will really enjoy Iron Man 2.