Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal

In the early to mid-90s it was a rough time to be a superhero video game fan. The 8-bit machines had long since done everything they could do and the first wave of 16-bit consoles was starting to get really good. Still, this didn’t stop publishers like Acclaim from releasing a few stinkers that were better off being left forgotten on store shelves. Iron Man/X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal is one of those games.

The premise of this game is that the heroes of Marvel and Valiant Comics (and their respective rogue’s galleries) are forced to team up because someone has stolen the pieces of the Cosmic Cube. The cube, aka the Rock of Reality, will confer ultimate power to whomever holds it. Unless, of course, the heroic duo can defeat it in time.

X-O and Iron Man are both in their armored suits and battle it out against the combined evil forces of both universes. Each level is a maze-like structure where you have to navigate through a series of rooms and fight a boss (from either the Marvel or Valiant worlds) at the end of each area. The characters control similarly to old-school side-scrolling action games. They can walk, run, jump, duck and punch. They can also fire a (upgradable) unlimited laser beam projectile from their chests and a big (limited ammo) chest-mounted telescoping laser weapon. They can also recharge their weapons or temporarily fly/hover by pressing the jump button twice. Enemies drop various icons and powerups as you defeat them.

While the gameplay isn’t exactly bad it certainly isn’t great either. It’s a bit repetitive and it isn’t very fun to traverse maze-like levels where there’s no clear way forward. Plus, if you die at any point you have to start the entire level over again. The graphics are also quite ugly and even though this was one of the earliest polygonal games for the Saturn/Playstation it wasn’t very well executed. The sprites are hideous and the backgrounds are often too dark to be meaningful.

This is a game that was probably best forgotten when it came out and it’s hard to blame anyone for wanting to forget it even more. The stale, repetitive gameplay and ugly graphics make it one of the worst superhero games of all time. If you want to play an Iron Man or X-O Manowar video game then there are much better options out there than this one. It’s an absolute waste of time and money. Avoid it like the plague.