Developer: Realtime Associates Publisher: Acclaim Released: October 9, 1996 Genre: Action
In the early to mid-90s it was hard being a fan of comic book video games. In the arcade Sega, Capcom, and Konami were creating gems. But at home we were mostly subjected to LJN drivel. That began to change around 1995 but every so often a few stinkers infested store shelves. Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal is a game that hearkens back to that dark period and is awful in just about every way. The seeds were there for a decent game but they do not come together in the end.
Iron Man and X-O Manowar must team up in order to stop a team of supervillains from grabbing the lost fragments of the Cosmic Cube. During the game it is also revealed that the space aliens that Aric stole his X-O Manowar armor from want it back. The two super heroes battle through several levels to stop the terrorists and their supervillain leaders from trying to rule the universe.
On paper Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal sounds like a cool idea. Both characters are armored heroes and possess similar abilities. It calls to mind your typical comic book crossover, when two heroes team up to deal with a bigger threat. Except in this case it is an inter-company crossover. Think of it as Death Mate except between Marvel and Valiant comics instead of Image. But in practice the game is pretty much a disaster, featuring ugly graphics and busted gameplay. Considering both characters have a ripe rogue’s gallery of villains this should have been an easy slam dunk. Instead we have a game that was quickly forgotten after its release and with good reason.
The choice between Iron Man and X-O Manowar is largely irrelevant. Both characters play almost identically. The two have melee attacks, a unibeam, a repulsor ray/ion cannon and can hover or fly. Flying uses boost power which refills slowly when not in use. There are many different attacks that use simple button combinations such as slamming enemies or firing into the background. In a better game these would give the gameplay depth; here they are a nuisance and barely work but I digress. Your weapons can be upgraded four times, from a dual and triple to a final homing shot. Unfortunately death reduces it one level but there are generally enough power-ups to get back up to speed at a good pace.
Most of the seven missions in Heavy Metal feature a secondary objective aside from defeating its end level boss. These range from disarming nukes to destroying all nuclear fuel canisters. Heavy Metal is primarily a side scrolling platformer but has minimal interaction with the environment. You can fire into the distant background at any time, a skill the levels take advantage of constantly. Aside from items and enemies quest objectives and switches are often hidden on the game’s second plane. It is similar to Klonoa or Pandemonium but obviously not on that level.
Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal is an ugly game; let’s get that out of the way now. The game primarily uses prerendered graphics for its sprites and backgrounds with the occasional polygonal building thrown in. Yet despite the gap in power between the Saturn/PlayStation and SNES it looks worse than Donkey Kong Country. The sprites are hideous, both incredibly low resolution and design wise. The art direction is simply not good and makes the game look very generic. Because of the awful art direction the various cameos from both Valiant and Marvel Comics alumni aren’t the least bit exciting.
If the game’s graphics were just bad on their own and it wouldn’t be so damning. Unfortunately it affects gameplay as well. The level design is oftentimes very confusing and run longer than they should. The maps don’t guide you as well as they should and the delineation between the foreground and background is not always as clear as it should be. When you have secondary objectives the game won’t let you move on until they are complete. Unfortunately the game hides these objects a little too well, leading to aimless wondering. This is not a particularly challenging game but it is incredibly cheap. On top of that you use long passwords rather than a memory card to save progress. The game reeks of a title intended for 16-bit platforms but switched at the last minute and released, warts and all.
In Closing
I like the idea of Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal better than the reality of playing it. This is bad. Really bad and pales in comparison to the 16-bit greats and even the middling licensed titles of the time. Stay far away.
