Gaming Target - Game Boy: The Invincible Iron Man

Written by Matt Swider on February 27, 2003

Review: It could have been called The Inevitable Iron Man now that every Marvel franchise is appearing on the handheld.

It wasn't at all surprising that Activision announced Iron Man for Game Boy Advance this past October, but the outcome of the game was unpredictable to everyone except those working on it at Torus Games. The developer has created several sought after Advance titles, many of which were published by Activision. Torus has even impressed us with Marvel's Spider-Man franchise on the Game Boy Color some years back. While history alone doesn't constitute a sure-fire hit, I figured The Invincible Iron Man would turn out decent, granted the superhero didn't portray a pudgy, peanut-sized fat man wearing a suit. Though this dilemma is persistent among portable action and platform games alike, Torus was able to overcome the problem by focusing in on graphics and creating gameplay that makes Iron Man feel a lot like Mega Man.

The visuals are definitely the strongpoint of The Invincible Iron Man, which is able to capture the flair of this comic book series throughout its nine levels. Cut-scenes provide plot details between stages, and though all of them seem rather quick, they make an excellent use of comic book quotes and colorful backdrops. The backgrounds continue to be impressive during moments of intense action by scrolling along with Iron Man as he walks. Certain levels feature moving streams of snow or leaves to add a nice effect to the foreground as well. Once Iron Man blasts through a pair of stages containing similar environments and the same enemies, he lifts off and heads in totally new direction.

Although the locations are constantly changing, there is no doubt that Iron Man matches his comic book color scheme throughout the entire game. His animations reproduce more of basic superhero abilities such as blasting, hovering, and charging. While hovering and charging come with unlimited use, blasting is somewhat of a different story. Players must either remain patient when the suit's energy meter is busy refilling or somehow conserve their firepower and collect power-ups. This pause and play action defeats the high intensity gameplay that many thrill-seeking fans might be expecting Iron Man to provide. At the same time, since Iron Man doesn't have the ability to shoot up or down, a hint of strategy is needed to overcome enemies fast enough to fire off that single shot. From all of this, it's obvious that timing and endurance are a large part of what it takes to play The Invincible Iron Man.

Besides using the standard and charged repulsor beams that are available from the start, Uni Beam power-ups can be found scattered throughout the levels. Firing off this special weapon produces a beam of energy that has the power to destroy everything in its path and collecting two increases the blast radius. This single weapon enhancement seems rather shallow considering the fact that it can be experienced in the first level and leaves the remaining stages somewhat dry in the end. The same goes for the music, which starts off to being a nice selection for each location, but becomes stale over time. While already citing flaws with Iron Man's weaponry as well as the game's audio department, the two come together to form some remarkable sound effects. A charged blast, whether it comes from Iron Man or one of his enemies, packs a powerful sound effect each time.