Iron Man VR

Could have been a great superhero experience.

There are moments when Iron Man VR nails that ‘oh yeah, I can fly’ feel of testing out Stark’s techno powers. Things like directing repulsor jets from your palms with the PSVR Move controllers to fly around, or flipping your wrist forwards to unleashing a swarm of tiny homing missiles feel amazing. When it gets it right, the experience of Iron Man translates well. But ‘experience’ is the key word here as, while some parts work beautifully, the attempt to stretch it out over a full game is less successful.

The opening gives the best implementation of an Iron Man experience: after a flight tutorial racing through checkpoints, you get a taste of hero work trying to save a crashing plane. It’s a thrilling few minutes of flying around the jet, firing back at attacking drones, or having to match its speed to fix damaged parts like landing gear and wings. I got a huge kick out of simply matching my speed to ‘land’ on the hurtling aircraft and stand there doing hero poses as it fell towards the ground.

Moments like this are exciting, showing off an ability to realise superpowers through gameplay, but Iron Man VR struggles to make it work over its entire 8-10 hour length. Part of that comes from the control scheme - you can fly around by aiming your ‘hands’ and firing repulsor jets to move but only turn using the triangle and square buttons. It generally favors two things: flying forwards fast, or facing something. The plane section works so well because you’re doing both - following a clear path with an impossible to miss focal point. Chases also work well for the same reason. However more open combat area become a fudge of high-speed movement facing one direction, while clicking buttons to track numerous targets that effortlessly fly all around you.

Obviously it’s VR so you can, in