Monday, May 6, 2013

Movie Magic Monday! Iron Man's average hours, total hours, & review scores averages. Official Nintendo Channel data report.


Coffee Beans
Iron Man 3 released last Friday, and is doing a nice job of wracking up hundreds of millions of dollars. With Iron Man 3 having just released last week, for this Movie Magic Monday feature we're taking a look at the first Iron Man video game on the Nintendo Wii.

Iron Man was developed by Artificial Mind and Movement, and published by Sega. The game was released on May 2, 2008 and received an ESRB rating of "TEEN" with "Alcohol Reference, Mild Language, Violence" listed as content for parents and gamers to be aware of.

A description for the game on Amazon.com says, "Iron Man, one of Marvel's most indestructible Super Heroes, is blasting onto video game platforms and the big screen next year (2008). The epic, action-packed Marvel Studios production will be directed by John Favreau and stars Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow. This third-person action game will immerse players in explosive militaristic combat from the film with loads of additional content created exclusively for the game."

The original Iron Man movie has a runtime of 2 Hours 6 Minutes, but how many hours can you expect from the Iron Man video game? Did the "additional content created exclusively for the game" as the game's description says, add more hours of "explosive militaristic combat" to the game than what the movie provided viewers? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look at the official Nintendo Channel data for Iron Man!

How many hours have you contributed to its overall data?
The Brew
Iron Man has approximately 114,111 U.S. Wii owners that have reported nearly one million "Total Hours" of game-play, as seen in the image above, with just over 5 years of data possibly being reported.

The game's average reported play time of 8 Hours 11 Minutes "Per person", averages out to be about 1 Hour 33 Minutes played per time reported on the Nintendo Channel. So, Wii owners have played the game in shorter sessions each time they play it, than it would take them to watch the movie.

While the Iron Man movie this game was based off of did extremely well at the box office, and has a 93% "CERTIFIED FRESH" on RottenTomatoes' Tomatometer, how was the game received by critics and customers?

Well, the game's "professional" review score average is 42.64%, based on 14 reviews on GameRankings.com. Its customer review score average though is 80.00%, nearly double the critic average, based on 18 reviews from Amazon.com.

Caffeinated Thoughts
If you never saw any promotional videos for Iron Man when it was releasing, below is one of the first trailers released for the game:

I have not played Iron Man, but I did see the original movie and its sequel, though I have not seen Iron Man 3 yet. I was a bit surprised to see Iron Man's average hours "Per person" sitting above 8 hours, but from what we saw in two March Movie Magic Monday posts, I probably shouldn't be anymore. It appears movie tie-in games are enjoyed a good deal by people that buy them, even if not by the critics that review them. (You can see the Alice in Wonderland and How to Train Your Dragon movie based Wii games data reports, HERE and HERE.)

Surprisingly, there has not been an Iron Man 3 movie-based video game released for the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 like the two previous movies had (unless I'm not looking at the right places). The Wii U and mobile platforms, 3DS and Vita, aren't getting an Iron Man 3 video game either, from what I can tell.

Sega was the publisher of both the Iron Man and Iron Man 2 console video games, and I'm wondering if perhaps some of Sega's latest ventures (like funding Aliens: Colonial Marines for a few years), is a result of them not licensing/publishing an Iron Man 3 home console game for this movie?

Even without an Iron Man 3 home console game, if you are perhaps in a store this week and see Iron Man for cheap, I would say based on the reported average hours "Per person" and some of the user reviews for the game that it might be worth grabbing if you're a fan of Iron Man. Also, if you're a Wii U owner, without a Wii, remember you can play Wii games on your Wii U system as well. So, even without an Iron Man Wii U game right now, you can grab this one for your Wii U (assuming you have the proper controllers!).

Questions
First, have any of you seen Iron Man 3 yet, and if so, what did you think about? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

If you played the first Iron Man game, or perhaps even Iron Man 2, did you enjoy it enough that you would recommend it to other gamers that might stumble upon it now for relatively cheap?

You can see Iron Game games and movie related products on Amazon.com below:

17 comments:

  1. Haven't seen Iron Man 3 yet. The lack of a game is really not that surprising, although it would be neat to see the armor interface HUD on the WIIU gamepad. I have both IM 1&2. TBH they aren't especially good or bad. Some parts are excellent; other parts like forced tutorials and easy to flub escort missions are really annoying. Also, when I first got IM1 I wasn't really used to the nunchuk/wiiremote combo, so the controls seemed awkward.



    The thing is, these games SHOULD have been excellent, with a nice budget and plenty of time spent on them. They are just okay though. The graphics are nothing memorable; they do the job but I'm sure a pickier person than me would bash them. Worth a look if you can get them cheap. The Captain America and Thor games are quite a bit better, while the Hulk game is pretty weak. Licensed games are rarely any good, so these being decent is pretty surprising.
    That said, I was a little surprised at a lack of an Avengers game, though I've already pre-ordered the LEGO one.

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  2. I did not play any of the Iron Man games - I don't recall hearing especially good things about them, and let's face it - licensed games tend to fall into those low, often still unmet expectations.


    The Movie... as a fan of the comics, I did not care for the handling of one of the characters at all. That said, I thought it was decent. About on par with the 2nd Iron Man, which is to say I did enjoy it, but not as much as the first, which is still be the best in the trilogy of movies imo.

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  3. Haven't seen Iron Man 3 yet. I never go to movies anymore. I just wait until they hit the dvd kiosk, or Netflix. So, yeah, I'll rent it when it releases on dvd. I've never played the games either, although the trailer looked mildly interesting. On a side note, I saw Iron Man and I really enjoyed it. I saw Iron Man 2 and was less than pleased. I didn't care for Mickey Rourke's character. Just my .2 cents.


    Oh, and I didn't skim this time Coffee :)

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  4. Now, do you own IM 1&2 on the Wii? I know the games released on the other consoles as well.

    One reason I ask, is because this phrase, "Also, when I first got IM1 I wasn't really used to the nunchuk/wiiremote combo, so the controls seemed awkward.", reminded me of one of the customer reviews I read for it. The person said it was a pretty challenging game, and had originally scored it low, but came back a month later and upped the score after learning the controls a bit more and beating I think the 1st or 2nd level. I'm guessing it's the Wii versions, because of the mention of the graphics as well.

    I just wonder if the controls were only awkward in the Wii version, or if it was across all the versions maybe...

    "Worth a look if you can get them cheap."

    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

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  5. "I don't recall hearing especially good things about them..."

    Yeah, based on the critic reviews, you probably didn't. The user reviews though are more positive (seems to be pretty standard for a lot of games).

    I've been hearing a lot of varying opinions on the latest movie, but I can't say I was super hyped about the first two (not bad, not good...just indifferent). "I did not care for the handling of one of the characters at all."
    Sounds like me with a certain big 2012 movie that released that has the words "Hunger" and "Games" in its title. I was a fan of the books, but not the first movie. I'm glad to know its sequel has a new director, because I don't think anybody could do a worse job than what they gave us in the first one! *outraged fan comment of the day...maybe hour


    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

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  6. "I never go to movies anymore."

    It's a rare event these days for us, VERY rare. We went once together in 2012, but I think Mrs. Coffee got out to them once (maybe twice) more with some co-workers in 2012. But with little ones...I refuse to be one of THOSE people in the theater that bring a mini-Cirque du Soleil show of 3 and unders with me, that involves jumping and sliding over the chairs in the theater for the entire movie.

    We use Netflix for a lot, and Redbox occasionally, but it's been mainly Netflix here lately.

    "Oh, and I didn't skim this time Coffee :)"

    Uh huh, we will see. We will see. :)


    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey Coffee! I was thinking of what you said about re-evaluating a game in regards to control scheme, and I have to agree, in retrospect it is better than I remember. I sat down this morning and replayed Iron Man 1,2 on Wii and also Cap. America and Thor. Not all the way through, of course. IM 1 starts out very awesome, with proto Iron Man breaking out of his cage and torching weapon caches. The Black Sabbath song plays until about halfway through, then a boring flight tutorial level starts. After that it is about destroying enemy weaponry and upgrading your own. Still not a great game, but better than I remember. Very solid,if short. Honestly though, if I see SEGA on a gamebox,I expect something very fun but arcade-like, meaning a great but limited experience.



    So that is fair. However,on Iron Man 2 AND Captain America, guess who the dev team was? Our friends High Voltage! IM2, to me was not inferior but different. They tried something new, it didn't really work out, we got an okay sequel to an okay game.
    Captain America is a very decent B- or C+
    Coffee, I already friended you on Miiverse. It didn't strike me to message you. Honestly, I'm not very social media savvy. I'm Drew or Lizard13.

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  8. "IM 1 starts out very awesome, with proto Iron Man breaking out of his cage and torching weapon caches. The Black Sabbath song plays until about halfway through..."

    Kind of funny you mentioned the song, as I heard it in one of the videos I watched while putting this together and thought it was pretty cool.

    "However,on Iron Man 2 AND Captain America, guess who the dev team was? Our friends High Voltage!"

    Yeah, I think seeing licensed games like these change studios shows the competitive nature of games development. It can have a big impact on a studio too, if they end up losing a contract they had with a series before. It happened with The Force Unleashed Wii games. Two games, two different developers. The first game studio had to make major adjustments after they lost the contract on the 2nd game.



    As for adding me on the Wii U, I should probably start adding by default, "Unless you have already!" I have reached close to the limit right now, so trying to remember who I am/aren't friends with on it can be challenging!


    Thanks for the continued feedback!

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  9. You sound like my son on the Hunger Games. Actually, he liked the movie well enough, but he was frequently grumbling too about this-that-or-the-other that wasn't handled as well as the books.

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  10. Iron Man is an appalling game - one of the worst superhero movies this side of Superman 64. Not sure what the user reviews people were playing.

    Regarding the lack of an Iron Man 3 game - Sega actually shut down the studio that made Iron Man 2 on the HD consoles (Sega Studios San Francisco) and I suspect it let the license to the franchise go with that studio closure.

    Gameloft now has at least partial rights to the franchise - it made an iPad endless runner thing based on the movie.

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  11. Tell him Madge would say hello! 30 seconds is all it would have taken...30 seconds, IF THAT! Horrible directing. I guess the author was blinded by the cash she received, and didn't care...I would have said. "You call this an adaptation of my book? I call this garbage! RESHOOT!"

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  12. Yeah, I saw the Gameloft iOS version, but was surprised there wasn't a home console game like the previous two movies. Considering they outsourced the Wii versions, I'm surprised they didn't keep the license even after shutting the studio down, and just licensing out the HD versions as well.

    As for the user reviews, Drew commented above as well, and he still owns both versions. Seeing the game's average above 8 hours was surprising, especially when seeing the critic scores so low. But, I think from the user reviews and Drew's comment that perhaps it took a little while to get used to the controls, and perhaps that was one reason. (Maybe the guys reviewing it on the sites at the time were under a limit of when the reviews had to be submitted, and couldn't dedicate a lot of time to it? Don't know for sure.)

    Like I said to Drew, one of the user reviews initially rated it a 1 star (I think it was 1), but came back later and rated it higher, because he had gotten better with the controls.

    I will say that the HD versions have a lower user rating than the Wii version, but I don't know how much of a difference between those versions and the Wii version there was (if any).

    Did you play just the HD version, or the Wii version as well?

    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I think Sega just pulled back from a lot of its licensed game business. There isn't actually much money to be made from those games, so it's not worth the investment if a publisher is struggling a little.


    I should have mentioned that - I played the Wii game. I haven't played any Iron Man HD games.

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  14. The Wii version is the best one!

    First you hated on the N64's best known superhero game of all time, (see it was "best" in a certain category!), and now on Iron Man Wii.

    Will it ever stop...

    *haters gonna hate

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  15. AWESOME trailer video. I cannot wait for IronMan on Wii. I'm not even that big of a Wii fan usually but something just tells me the game will be perfect for that type of console.

    So excited!

    Until then I'm playing waste-of-time games like Online Checkers and Scrabble haha

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