Iron Man 2 should be a great game. The premise of a man in flying robotic suit shooting the heck out of other men in robotic suits should be perfect gaming fodder. The films are in essence a video game on celluloid so the transfer to video game should surely be a smooth one, Right?

As has been made a major talking point in the gaming press, Iron Man 2 was Sega Studios San Francisco’s last title before unceremoniously closing its doors and maybe that’s why the game feels rushed. For starters the first thing you’ll notice is how dated the whole thing looks and feels. The cut-scenes (usually preceded by a 2 second pause) are essentially okay but the representations of the film’s cast look very odd, and although you can just about tell who everybody’s supposed to be the characters do look more like bad look-a-likes then Hollywood A-listers.

One of the plus points of Iron Man 2 is the game’s plot, which ignores both films and goes for an entirely original storyline. It involves Tony Stark and Co. going up against a rogue version of “Jarvis” (Tony’s impeccably posh computer AI) and some bad Russians are thrown into the mix for good measure. The writers have managed to get at least a couple of fairly witty lines of dialogue in there which are delivered in a convincing fashion by the majority of the film’s cast including Robert Downey Junior and Samuel L. “Snakes on a Mother F-ing Plane” Jackson.

The levels themselves have you hovering or jetting through the environments locking onto enemy robots and blasting them until they fall out of the sky. Combat is a matter of tapping your right bumper button to lock on and then pulling the left and right triggers for each of your weapons until the bad guys explode. The lock-on can be a little frustrating, as it will often move over to another target if you attempt to move the camera, which in the heat of a frantic firefight can only annoy. There is the option to get your gauntlets dirty and get up close and personal with the melee attacks but this can seem a little pointless when you’ve got so many rockets, missiles and machine guns at your disposal.

As well as killing things there are the expected shield generators to destroy and panels to activate along with the occasional boss to contend with… and that is pretty much the entire game. Iron Man 2 frequently felt like it was an early PS2 game rather then a cutting edge next-gen title, which should of course not be the case. The only time I ever really felt mildly excited was during the final boss fight which after all the repetition was a welcome change of pace.

Iron Man 2 is a very rough and ready title, which never really redeems itself over its short length. There is a lot of potential in the licence and it’s a shame to see it squandered on this sub-par game. When the inevitable Iron Man 3 film arrives I can only hope something better is made of its gaming counterpart.