Mod of the Week: Iron Man IV, for Grand Theft Auto IV

CAUTION: we've been warned that the site hosting the download of this mod is an attack page that exploits security flaws in Internet Explorer to bombard you with Trojans.

CAUTION: we've been warned that the site hosting the download of this mod is an attack page that exploits security flaws in Internet Explorer to bombard you with Trojans. We understand that there is no issue while accessing the page using Firefox or Chrome, but nonetheless we can't recommend installing the mod. Apologies!

The creator of the Iron Man modfor Grand Theft Auto IVreturns with a sequel: the Iron Man IV mod. It adds several different incarnations of Iron Man's suits and complements your hand and chest repulsors with new weapons like micro-missiles, shoulder darts, and a minigun. Once again, you can streak through the skies over Liberty City as Iron man, battling cops and choppers, causing millions of dollars in property damage, and terrifying citizens. And who wouldn't want to do that?

Well, Iron Man , for one. He's a hero . He'd want to protect Liberty City, not destroy it. And that's how I decided to play the mod: as a crime-fighter.

I begin my new job as protector of Liberty City in typical superhero fashion: by perching atop a tall building and gazing down with steely determination. I will defend this city from crime! I vow with determined steeliness. Of course, I can't actually see any crime from up here, so I fly down to street level, hoping to pull off a trademark Iron Man landing: one knee down, head bowed, palm flat on the street of the city I love, nearby citizens awed at the sight of their new champion.

That doesn't quite work out. At least the women I land next to don't notice my faceplant, and continue their conversation about urinary tract infections. I fly back up and try again, this time sticking the landing but still not drawing so much as a curious look. That's fine! I need to prove myself to them by fighting crime. After all, who is going to be impressed by a miraculously flying metal superhero unless he's established himself as a crime fighter?

I fly around a bit, looking for crime. It's tricky. If I fly too high, I can't really see if there's any crime going on, and if I fly too low, I dong my head into lampposts and knock them into the street, causing traffic accidents and panic. I can walk, but then I just feel like some random Iron Man cosplayer who got lost on the way to the convention center. I eventually manage to find a way to hover slowly through the city at a height of about six feet. Beware, crime!

Crime is definitely be-waring, because I'm still not seeing any of it. Eventually, I spot two men standing on the street, having a discussion. Are they plotting something? Something like a CRIME? I swoop in and land awesomely, but sort of on top of them, sending them sprawling. One rolls around on the ground in pain, the other sails face-first into a building, smearing it with his blood, then gets up and flees in terror. I feel confident they won't plan a crime together again anytime soon if that's what they were maybe doing!

After a full day of slowly hovering around the city, drifting into people with my feet, and occasionally interrupting suspicious conversations, I head back to a safehouse to rest. Though I'm hit by a car at one point, I was sort of jaywalking, so I don't take any further action against the driver. This time. You're just lucky I was committing a crime when you committed your crime.

The next day, I leave the downtown area and head to the projects, hoping to find a whole bunch of crime. It's the projects, after all. I've seen The Wire . Shortly after I land, I witness a taxi cut a corner and knock over a pedestrian. The pedestrian seems unhurt: he gets up and chases the cab angrily, but the cab doesn't stop. Hit and run! That's a CRIME! Now, to FIGHT IT!

I blast the taxi with my repulsor ray, figuring the cab will stop, allowing me to then punch the driver in the face. Only then will justice be served. The cab bursts into flames and two people jump out, screaming, and run off together. Whoops! Didn't even consider there might be a passenger in the taxi, and now I'm not sure which is which and who to justice-punch. I decide instead to just completely destroy the cab with another blast. That will be a lesson to whoever the driver is. A lesson... ABOUT CRIME.

Just as I'm blasting the cab, an SUV drives in front of me, taking most of the blast. It too catches fire. Then the cab explodes. Then the SUV explodes. There may have been some other cars nearby. They explode. The police show up, presumably to thank me, but I fly off. I'm not in this for gratitude, fellas! I'm just here to protect the city. As the boys in blue fire their guns excitedly into the air (to show their support, I'm sure) I fly off to find more crime.

I'm on the waterfront, eying everyone suspiciously while they completely ignore the shiny metallic man slowly hovering around with flames shooting out of his boots. I notice a man in a suit has dropped a shopping bag, possibly because someone bumped into him, possibly a shiny metallic man who can't control his hovering very well.

He apologizes to me, which is nice, but then he walks off, leaving the bag on the ground. That's littering. That's a crime . Now, how to fight it? Missiles? I'm thinking missiles. I blast the man, as well as someone standing near him (an accomplice!) and they careen off into the air. They won't be littering again, unless you count their charred bodies falling in crispy chunks all over the city (I don't count that). As the police arrive-- too late to help, AGAIN!-- I fly off, once again modestly refusing their thanks, even as some of their thanks ricochets off my legs and back.

I head to the docks. Gotta be some crime at the docks, right? I've seen The Wire . There, I spot some workers, but they're not working. This might be one of those things the mafia does, where they give jobs to mob goons, but the goons don't have to do any work and yet still draw a paycheck. I've seen The Sopranos . I target two of the "workers" and fire darts into their heads. As they die, they drop giant stacks of manicured, banded bills. Yup. Mafia goons. Normal citizens wouldn't be carrying giant stacks of cash like that. Looks like I made the right call by shooting them in the brain with murder-darts. I dart a couple other people who also happen to be standing around, just to be safe. Safe from CRIME. Also, shooting darts into people is hilarious. Their hats fly off and they die!

The next day, I fly over to the airport to give some airline passengers a thrill as I fly by the windows of their plane, superhero style, only I crash into the plane and the cops show up with helicopters and start shooting at me. Looks like I've gone from hero to anti-hero. I get it. The cops need someone to blame, someone to take the fall. I've seen The Dark Knight . Fine. I will shoulder that burden. Because I can take it.

A few minutes later, someone honks at me as I cross a street. That's probably a crime, right? At the very least, it's rude. After I blow up the car, the police arrive again. Rather than fly off, I decide to go ahead and take them on. This is what happens with heroes. Sometimes, they fight each other. It happens in the comics all the time and the heroes have a spectacular battle with each other. It gives them a chance to flex their muscles, and no one really gets hurt. This is a little different because I kill, like, fourteen cops. Choppers arrive and I start shooting them out of the air while flying, which is awesome. Then some hovering robot drones added by the mod come flying over, and they blast me out of the sky. Then I'm dead.

I won't lie, this mod is a bit buggy. Sometimes my ears and hair show through the sides of the helmet, and sometimes the powers stop working, but re-equipping the armor seems to fix that. The mod is also a lot of fun, even if you decide to just blow things up instead of being a responsible hero like me.

Installation : I won't lie, the installation is not a breeze. You have to download and install OpenIVand then download the modand do a lot of file-backups and pull things from folders and drop them in other folders and edit files and it sort of takes a while. It's well worth it, though, and the Read Me included with the mod download is detailed and easy to follow.