Title: Marvels Iron Man VR

Description

Marvels Iron Man VR represents another concerted effort from the comic book powerhouse to bring its characters to gaming in a meaningful way. Following the immense success of Marvels Spider-Man, this PlayStation VR exclusive had a lot to live up to. The end result is a highly impressive action title that goes the distance to literally put you in the shoes of the titular superhero.

With a PS Move controller in each hand and the headset strapped to your noggin, you already feel geared up, and Iron Man fits the virtual reality mould very well indeed. Holding down the triggers fires the suits thrusters, and youll be propelled from wherever youre aiming your palms. To fly forward, for example, you hold the controllers down by your side, palms back to fly up, hold your arms out in front of you, palms down. Its an instantly intuitive movement system, and between your hand positions and the direction youre facing, youll be soaring through the sky and feeling invincible.

The cracking controls dont end there, either. Holding the Move controllers upright will allow you to aim and fire Iron Mans repulsors — its as simple as that. A little later in the game, and youll unlock auxiliary weapons, mounted in the suits forearms. To use these instead of the repulsors, simply aim with the Move wands pointed forward instead. Swapping between movement, repulsors, and your suits special weapons is something to get used to, but its a brilliantly fluid system thats great fun to use.

Good thing, too, because youll be doing a lot of it. The majority of the games missions see you suiting up for combat encounters against armies of repurposed Stark Industries attack drones. A mysterious new enemy, Ghost, has stolen Tonys old technology and is using it against him. Fortunately, youre Iron Man, and are more than capable of destroying the various enemy types. Most are up in the air with you, but they all employ different abilities to put you through your paces.

In addition to the aforementioned weapons at your disposal, you can rocket punch baddies by holding a button and throwing an actual swing, which is never not satisfying. A ground pound is performed in a similar fashion and is ideal against those pesky tank-like bots. Finally, youll gain access to Unibeam, a powerful laser blast that can cut through your foes like butter. It takes some time to charge up, but its useful when youre being overwhelmed.

All of this serves to make you feel like Iron Man, and its where the game really sings. Developer Camouflaj has put a lot of effort into making the gameplay as intuitive and enjoyable as possible, and it shows. Levels are mostly huge, giving you ample room to fly freely and explore the games systems. The downside to these open environments is frequent and lengthy loading screens, however, which can interrupt the flow of the campaign.

As we mentioned earlier, Ghost is one of the games villains, and kickstarts the story. She destroys Tonys private jet, injuring Pepper Potts in the process. Tony employs both his current AI companion, Friday, as well as his old partner Gunsmith, in order to track down this ethereal foe. The writing favours quips over drama, but the narrative does throw some neat twists and turns, introducing new threats and taking the time to slow things down. Indeed, embodying Iron Man means becoming Tony Stark, and there are lots of moments throughout the campaign that see you out of the armour.

Between missions, youll often be in his Malibu home where you can teleport to various spots and interact with a handful of things. Distractions like a pull-up bar and a basketball arcade game give you opportunities to cool off before tackling the next big objective. Theres even a wall dedicated to Trophies itll be populated by the trinkets youve unlocked as you earn them, which is a nice detail. The main attraction in this space, though, is tinkering with the suit.

Using points earned from completing missions, you can craft numerous upgrades to the armours systems and weapons. Whether its installing a thruster mod to increase your top speed or equipping new auxiliary weapon types, theres a fair amount to play with. The weapons vary from a shotgun-like blast to a cluster bomb, and offer ways to deal with different situations. You can equip two of these special powers — one on each arm — to be prepared for anything. You also get access to two loadout slots, meaning you can create a duo of Iron Man builds — one focused on speed and the other on power, for instance.

We mention this because of the games optional flight and combat challenges. As you play through the game, youll unlock races and enemy gauntlets to test your skills. Completing them earns you more points to put towards the suit, so theyre worth exploring. Beware, though these challenges are tough. There are times set by the developer that at first seem impossible to beat. With practice — and the right upgrades installed — theyre doable, but difficult.

You can also replay missions if youre short on points, too. Each one ends with a results screen and a rating out of five that determines how many points you get, so theres value in revisiting levels if you think you can improve.

Its a robust game, then, and has a decent run time for a PSVR title. Impressive as it is, there are some drawbacks on the technical side. As well as all the loading, hectic fights may cause some frame rate issues, which is a no-no in virtual reality. Having said that, we never once felt any motion sickness during our play time. Motion tracking is generally good, but we did hit some snags on occasion. Our advice for the best experience would be to play standing up, if you can. Its a shame the experience couldnt have been a little smoother, particularly with regard to the loading, but the action makes up for all the waiting around.