Review #762: Marvel's The Invincible Iron Man

 See? You can make a good Iron Man game.

 Iron Man has had it rough as far as the videogame world is concerned. While he has had some playable appearances on some truly great game, his self titled games have fared much worse, Iron Man 2 being one of the worst games I've ever played in my life, and I only played the demo. Thankfully, Marvel's The Invincible Iron Man for the Gameboy Advance proved that you could make a decent game out of the tin can hero.

 The game is made up of 8 stages, a few with minibosses, and 2 proper boss stages. It's not too short, but it's not lengthy either. The game has a few cutscenes and they use gorgeous 2-D art that must belong to a Comicbook, because it's just too good. As for the game itself, it's a 2-D sidescroller platform/shooter, like Contra or Metal Slug, but a bit easier provided you are careful.

 Iron Man can jump and double jump with the A button, tackle/dash with R button, although only once while on the air, shoot with the B button, and he can also charge his shots, and lastly, he can use the Uni-Beam or a area-clearing attack with the L button. These latter two super moves cost orbs, the uni-beam costs 1 orb and the AOE burst costs 2 orbs. I found that the screen-clearing move was much more useful and no situation really needed the uni-beam, save for the last boss, so I just hoarded orbs for when I needed the burst.

 The game has this weird limitation where your basic and charged shots consume energy from a gauge that refills over time at a very slow pace, although you'll find red orbs throughout the levels that will charge it a bit. This means that shooting willy nilly will come back to bite you in the back when you get swarmed by enemies and must rely on a slow stream of weak energy shots since you're out of energy. But in a way, this also teaches you to be careful. The game can be challenging if you're not careful and mindful of your energy gauge, which I know sounds like a hassle, but it's not too bad.

 If anything, this game proves that you can make a decent Iron Man game. It plays fine, it looks great and makes good use of the license.
 7.5 out of 10