Within the game's narrative, Iron Man must traverse through a series of levels and recover one of his stolen suits of armor while battling supervillains such as the Blizzard and Crimson Dynamo.

While they praised the visuals and generally found the gameplay to be solid, they faulted the game's lack of variety and length, and held middling opinions toward the audio.

[3] Iron Man's primary offensive measure against enemies is a pair of repulsors built into his gauntlets, which are connected to an energy gauge displayed on the upper-hand side of the screen alongside his health bar.

[1] Special power orbs located in various areas allow Iron Man to fire a chest-mounted cannon or to detonate a bomb that clears all enemies on-screen.

[1][4][8] The reviewers of Nintendo Power enthusiastically compared the game to Turok: Evolution on the same console, and assessed that the graphics, audio and gameplay combined to create a satisfying experience.

[4] Craig Harris of IGN described the game as a "fun romp" that was reminiscent of the many licensed action platformers released for the Genesis and Super NES.

However, while he considered the gameplay to be solid with tight controls and decent collision detection, he felt that it lacked variety, elaborating that "there's no discovery; there's no extra weaponry and no special abilities beyond what [Iron Man] has at the beginning of the game".

While he considered the controls simple to master, he was aggravated by the swift appearance and firing speed of enemies and turrets, which led him to slowly creep across levels.

[1] Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer, dismissing the title as a "rather limp platformer-with-guns", was confused by the positive critical responses from American reviewers (citing Provo's commentary in particular), summarizing the game as having "few options, functional presentation and only one obvious route to take".

He was additionally disappointed by Iron Man's inability to aim his repulsors vertically or diagonally, arguing that such a limitation was "ridiculous" in light of the eight-directional shooting pioneered by Metroid and several other games.

[3] Provo and Harris praised the game's visual presentation, singling out the detailed and multi-layered environments and the large, colorful, and smoothly animated character sprites.