When the Iron Man movie came to theatres this year, it raised the bar for not only comic book movies but all action movies. It featured solid characterization, exciting action, and amazing special effects.
When Iron Man subsequently came to Blu-ray, it also raised the bar in production value for its medium, Making it the best way to experience an already epic movie.
Can a game, which only came out recently, well after the releases of the film and the DVD, hope to measure up, or is this another example of some disappointing cheap ploy to exploit name recognition?
Iron Man: Aerial Assault does not disappoint. Using Apple’s accelerometer and Multi-Touch technologies, you take the fight to the air, flying the entire game and using much of the Starktech from the movie and from comics to defeat enemies ranging from the easy drones provided in the training simulations by J.A.R.V.I.S., your faithful AI butler, to military jets, spacecraft, and other nasty opponents who will fight back with barrage after barrage of missiles.
If you played games like 1941/1942/1943 in the arcade in the 1980s, you’ll understand the basic premise outline of this game: fly forward while destroying as many enemies as possible, as many will come back if you miss them; dodge enemy fire; each level has a boss at the end; each level is progressively harder; survival through levels eventually brings you upgrades. This comparison really doesn’t do the game justice until you not only check out the screenshots as shown here, but also witness first hand the fluidity of the animations of Iron Man moving and firing on screen.
Game Play:
When you begin the game the first time, you want to get comfortable and set the angle of the screen to where it feels most ergonomic. The game will have you set this position as your default neutral, but if you like, you can go back into the settings options and change this later. Once you’ve done this, you have a couple of training levels where J.A.R.V.I.S. teaches you how to operate the armor’s controls, which are thankfully simple. There really isn’t anything in the way of steering. You’re on a set path and really all you can do is target enemies by tilting your iPhone until your targeting scope is over your target. Some targets, like drones and missiles, you will passively fire upon anytime your scope passes over them and then you will automatically shoot them down (if there’s still time) with your mini-missiles (as seen in the movies where the AI takes out only hostiles but leaves all the innocent civilians standing).
Regular planes can be shot down with a blast or two from your palm repulsors. Just touch the fire button in the upper right of the screen and you will fire off a single repulsor blast. Other more formidable enemies will take far too many repulsor blasts to destroy, so instead you can use your uni-beam on your chest. To operate it, simply hold down your fire button and wait until the charge meter on your targeting scope fills up, then release the fire button when the enemy is in your sights.
Enemies destroyed with the uni-beam rather than repulsors get you double the points, and if you want double the style points, time your uni-beam release for when two enemies cross paths right in your targeting scope and fire! Your beam will then split and take them both out simultaneously. As the game goes on, you earn additional weapons and armor features. Your uni-beam will eventually charge up a meter with each successful hit and when the meter fills up, your next uni-beam hit acts as a smart bomb, destroying all enemies on the screen.
You’ll see in the screenshots that the fire button rests along the right side, a little above the middle and there is also a triangular button along the left. I found this placement ergonomically very comfortable, although I found that dodging incoming missiles using the triangular button was more hit than miss, and not in a good way.
Why We Love Iron Man: Aerial Assault:
It’s Christmas, so you’ve just set up your new iPhone or iPod Touch and want to download a zillion apps for it. You usually can’t go wrong with a shotgun approach by adding a ton of the free apps, then deleting all but the few that don’t suck and you will actually use. But what of the pay apps? Sure they’re better than the free ones, but which ones are really worth it? If you’re looking for a great air combat game, look no further than Iron Man: Aerial Assault. It’s only $7.99 and worth every penny.
Previous to playing Iron Man: Aerial Assault I really hadn’t considered my iPhone as a gaming platform, but now that I have, I can’t wait to see what’s next. Thanks, Paramount Digital Entertainment!
ComicsOnline gives Iron Man: Aerial Assault 4.5 out of 5 Golden Avengers.
Available to own right now at the Apple App Store at http://www.itunes.com/appstore/
