by: Jeff McAllister

The first Iron Man movie was released to critical acclaim, and while its videogame counterpart wasn’t so well received, SEGA is planning to make this year’s release a step up and escape the movie to videogame curse. We had a chance to sit in on a call with Dean Martinetti, the game’s Producer, and Development Director Mike McHale, as they went over the plans and ideas behind the Iron Man 2 videogame and how they hope it will be a much better title and give gamers the experience they originally expected.

Iron Man 2 is set to be an extension of the movie and not just a scene by scene recreation of the film. The game , co-written by The Invincible Iron Man writer Matt Fraction, will feature scenarios not found in the big screen version as well as battles that were explained to be too large for the film to handle – but perfect for the game. It was also mentioned that the game would feature some of the largest boss battles to ever be featured in a videogame.

The game will allow players to take the role of either Iron Man or War Machine, the latest addition to the film, also known as Tony Stark’s friend, James Rhodes. Each level will be able to be played with either character, except for one or two, allowing players to take a different approach to the missions. War Machine uses more brute force and conventional weapons, where as Iron Man uses energy based weapons and has a more acrobatic style to his attacks. While both characters will control the same, so not to have players needing to learn to different control schemes, the attitudes of each will be extremely different.

With two powerhouses featured in the same game, one would think that co-op would be a no-brainer, but unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. “Co-op was something that we wanted to be done,” said McHale, “but the development time wasn’t there to make it as good as it should be.”

When asked what improvements have been made over the first title, both McHale and Martinetti had plenty to say. The team listened to all of the complaints of the first game and did everything they could to make the controls handle and react better and more precise. “We now have one button actions this time around, no holding buttons. Fixing the controls was very high on the list,” said Dean. “We would go around and ask if it felt better, felt easier, and if there was a “no” in the group, we went back and fixed it.”