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Xbox 360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round 13

UT3, Bourne Conspiracy, Top Spin 3, Iron Man, Battlefield: BC.

Richard Leadbetter avatar
Face-off by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry
Updated on
197 comments

Iron Man

Not much can be added to Dan Whitehead's review for this, except to say that Iron Man is the new nadir in superhero tie-in movies - a game so teeth-achingly awful that even the digital kick-in-the-groin that is Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer feels almost competent in comparison. Iron Man's one-note gameplay and truly horrific control system are the stuff of gaming nightmares, but at least it has the distinction of actually running its 720p graphics at 60 frames-per-second.

Well, it does on Xbox 360 anyway. Most of the time.

Unlike Fantastic Four, Iron Man isn't an offensive-looking game. The digital representation of Tony Stark's armour looks pretty good, the environments generally fine. When it runs at 60fps it adds a certain, welcome degree of polish to the visuals that look very pleasing. The only problem is that when it's not running at full lick, it feels as though you're wading through treacle. Just the arrival of a few soldiers in the first seconds of the game can send the response into freefall. Still, if the movie sequel delves into the comic Tony Stark's alcoholic phase, the coders can rest easy that they've already got this bit of the game sorted out.

If the frame drops are not mentioned in the original review, it's probably because on the scale of gaming disasters that beset this grotesque release, it's probably very low compared to most of the other atrocities the developers have visited upon us.

Unsurprisingly, Iron Man's clothing was always immaculately pressed.

So there we go then. In terms of graphics, gameplay, and everything else important, both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are essentially like-for-like. Indeed, the only difference is that fragile support for 60fps gameplay. It's there on 360, but the developers haven't bothered with that on the PS3 version of the game, locking it down to 30fps instead. On the initial Afghan stage where proto-Iron Man is running amok with his flamethrower, there's far less in the way of slowdown on PS3, but later on in the game it's every bit as annoying as it is on the Microsoft console - and just like the 360 code, it's brought its old chum Mr Screen-Tear along for the ride too.

Overall then, a preposterously awful game in almost every way - a state of affairs magnified just a touch further with the PlayStation 3 conversion of the game.

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