Combining Marvel’s intellectual property with virtual reality is a difficult task, but when you first take off and fly across land and sea, it’s an incredible feeling. At the beginning of the game, they guide you through the skills of the suit with some holographic flight lessons around Tony Stark’s billionaire heritage. You fly just like Iron Man, pointing your hands down to shoot up, forward, backward, or sideways. Arch your hand, and your repulsor rays will be ready immediately, with just the pull of a trigger.
After a little practice, everything begins to combine beautifully. You fly with one hand and shoot drones with the other, you jump at a robot and hit it, throwing yourself back into the air to avoid being shot at. It all sounded gruesome, yes, but there are times when the control system sings.
To help you see where you’re going, the controller’s Move buttons (does not work with DualShock 4) rotate your perspective, making it easier to track enemies and align their attacks. It feels like Iron Man and it feels good.
For a moment.
Iron Man VR It made me feel dizzy if I played more than 20 minutes. Multi-axis motion is more aggressive than most VR titles, so that’s probably the cause. I had to take regular breaks to keep up. The last time this happened to me was during the now notorious Resident Evil 7 Demo at E3 a few years ago: An issue Capcom managed to fix for retail gaming. Now, you could have a stronger constitution, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
While you can charge Tony with bespoke weapons, you’ll end up relying on the charges you’re most proficient with: repulsor rays and heat-seeking missiles, and you’ll largely avoid melee attacks. These never quite fit with Iron Man VREither because it has so many long-range mid-range attacks, or because it’s disorienting and induces nausea to fly around by hitting flying robots in virtual reality.
The rhythms of the campaign story will sound familiar to anyone who has seen a couple of movies or followed the comics. Stark is getting out of the gun business and focusing on his bona fide superhero.
Ghosts from your past (the villain of the week is literally called Ghost) are here to remind you that it’s not always easy to keep going. The unimaginative antagonist is a good example of how obvious and flat the campaign story is. Most of the rhythms are predictable, and there are too many static exposure monologues. (Maybe they could have been layered over more relaxed flight sections?)
PlayStation, YouTube
Worse yet, it’s not as if Ghost even mattered – you’ll be battling drones and robots for most (almost 90 percent) of the game. Forget the idea of coming face to face with Marvel villains like in Marvel’s Spider-Man. On top of that, there are also only a handful of drone models, and none of them have a particularly elaborate look. It is where the game begins to fall short.
The same can be said for several of the levels. Whether it’s beige canyons and cityscapes that look like they’re made for a PS2 game, save for the introductory plane fight and Tony’s seaside mansion, most environments are pretty boring to watch and often so boring to fly It’s drone waves, augmented reality lever flips, chase scene and repeat. Don’t be fooled by the visual fidelity of the first screenshots and trailers. Everything is noticeably harder inside the PlayStation VR headsets.
The antagonist Ghost is a good example of how obvious and flat the campaign story is. Most of the rhythms are predictable, and there are too many static exposure monologues. Maybe they could have been layered over more relaxed flight sections? I think they mess up who’s pulling the strings in one of the first blots of text on the loading screen.
This slow progress is exacerbated by load times and those transition screens, and it’s particularly jarring on PSVR, which often leaves you staring at a completely blank canvas for more than ten seconds, stuck. And this adds to the separate loading screens. It is another sign that the PSVR, launched in 2016, is reaching its limits. Or that the PS4 is just plain old. (It is.)
The Move controllers also don’t offer the degree of tracking you can get from other newer VR configurations and the suite. Iron Man VR Experience requires standing up to play the most. It’s hard to fly with your arms out to your sides when you’re sitting on the couch. You try.
These frustrations build up on top of each other. Some of the weapon gestures are really difficult to handle once you try to combine them with flying.
Point your palm outward to attack with low-power, high-speed beams, or you can launch a missile shower by tilting your wrist down. But with the lens extended it can sometimes be painful. Flitting between the two, which the game is pushing you towards, and, as I have already mentioned, I avoided using melee attacks whenever possible. Combined, these snap you out of the Iron Man dream and ensnare you in an occasionally neglected virtual reality game.
Outside of the shooting, you control Tony Stark without the suit, teleporting around his mansion and garage to outfit your suit for the next fight / hear more about the bad guys. His house is full of Easter eggs and cute touches. There are books and magazines to browse and even an arcade game to play. Inside your virtual reality game.
