The Iron Man franchise is one of cinema's heavy hitters, and thus you can always expect a tie-in videogame to accompany it. The previous movies have all had game tie-ins, and like with most Gameloft releases, they have been of a certain level of quality. Not fantastic, but definitely playable and enjoyable in their own way. Now the last game was a 3D action brawler but since then the endless runner has become the go-to genre on the App Store, so no points if you guessed this is what Iron Man 3 would be. That bet is just too easy.

Emulating the Temple Run style of gameplay, you control Iron Man as he blasts through the streets and skies of 'undetermined beach and army base, USA'. First off, the combination of the visuals and speed at which Iron Man is zooming around, give a definite exhilaration factor as you're playing the game. This is somewhat exacerbated however as the tilt controls to turn Iron Man left and right are a little too loose. You have a health bar so you can survive some hits, but more often than not you'll find yourself crashing, especially in the oncoming missile segments, as you only have a second to make a judgement call exactly where on the screen you'll be safe. The gameplay is mainly broken up into two segments. Those where you're zooming along, following the trail of orbs that act as one of the in-game currencies, and when enemies assault you, in which you either drag a line through your multiple foes on-screen to defeat them with your laser, or you tap to fire projectiles.

Now I mentioned more than one in-game currency. This is correct. You have your main cash inflow which is used to upgrade the various parts of your suits, but as this is a freemium title, Gameloft have stuck the waiting mechanic in as well. Whether it's waiting to repair your suit after a game, waiting to build a new suit, or waiting on an upgrade, there are special gems which can speed this ordeal up. These gems also combined with your xp level and the cash will unlock all the new suits available to you (which is the main incentive to keep playing the game). This grinding and trickling out of content is annoying, especially since the controls do their best to keep your game time short. It stinks of designing around the in-app purchase model.

But for those brief sections when the game is working right, you can see that as endless runners go, and especially as movie tie-in games go, there's a solid title here under everything else weighing it down. Seeing it is free, if you like the license, aren't annoyed by the waiting, or just want to whiz around as Iron Man, give it a whirl. We'd probably recommend just going out and seeing the movie however.