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Iron Man 3 - The Official Game Review
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Reviewed on iPhone / 30 Apr 2013 2:28 PM PDT


"Yeah, I can fly."

Gameloft’s official Iron Man 3 tie-in game gives fans of the Iron Knight the opportunity blast away A.I.M. foes, dodge incoming rockets and plenty more – all for free. The trade-off for this free fun is that Iron Man 3 – The Official Game is a simplistic and sometimes awkward endless flier that occasionally oversteps its in-app purchase bounds.

With one major exception, the moment-to-moment gameplay feels great. Iron Man responds snappily, leading to exhilarating moments of dodging enemy fire and weaving around obstacles. Returning fire can be a bit finger-twisting, unfortunately. You’ll occasionally need to dodge attacks and counter-attack at the same time, meaning you’ll need two index fingers to get the job done. This means that serious players will want to play with their device laid flat or in their lap – not in their hand.


Each run randomly generates obstacles, pulling from a pool of obstructions and enemies. But this pool feels far too small. This isn’t a problem if you just want to get in a run or two each day, but it makes extended play sessions a slog. You’ll see the same missile-dodging sequence over and over again.

Daily story missions do help break up the monotonous nature of the action. You always have three generic mission goals to work towards (things like hitting distance or enemy kill goals), but once a day you can attempt to advance the story via boss fights. Most involve successfully flying a certain distance and defeating the pattern-based mega-foe. It’s a smart system that kept me coming back at least once a day, and I'll be looking for future endless runners to crib this concept to add deeper story elements.

Iron Man 3 players that refuse to spend any dough will still get a largely complete game experience, which is very appreciated. You’ll have access to Tony Stark’s Mark III and Mark V suits early on – 16 more, including Iron Patriot and Silver Centurion can be (sloooowly) ground out or unlocked early via in-game purchases. Unfortunately those purchases also infect the integrity of the leaderboards – when you can buy continues, score multipliers or other power-ups, the leaderboards can’t be trusted, so the motivation to keep playing after the story missions to beat back your friend’s scores vanishes.


Gameloft’s official Iron Man 3 tie-in game is a passable casual time killer that’s easy to pick up and play. But despite its good looks and good ideas, the experience won’t satisfy superhero fans looking for a challenging or especially rewarding adventure. The experience is a little too repetitive and too simplistic to truly shine. There are better freemium endless runners on the App Store.

Iron Man 3: The Official Game Released Apr. 25th, 2013