Last week, Aeropause was invited to join in on a conference call with some of the development team working on the upcoming Iron Man 2 title from Sega.  Involved with the game were Dean Martinetti, a producer for Sega, Mike McHale, a development director at Sega and Chase from Access Communications as our moderator.  The developers went into the development process and along the way spilled a few beans of knowledge not yet known.  Check the jump for the full write up from the call.

Learning to Separate the Existing from the New

One of the things that are always a problem with developing a licensed property is trying to create something that is new to the player, and not just cribbing from the movie storyline.  The Iron Man 2 developers decided from the beginning to create a completely separate story for the game that leads into the film rather than just putting together a verbatim retelling of the movie script.  It explores more of the film universe, but stands on its own.  Iron Man 2 also allows players to play through the campaign as either of the movie heroes, War Machine or Iron Man.  In an interesting quote, we were told that, “watching a movie is like watching a two hour non-interactive cut-scene and no one wants to play through that cut-scene again in a game.”  That to me was a unique perspective, and more developers would heed this point when putting together a licensed game title.

Returning to the Drawing Board

Everyone on the call seemed to agree that the first Iron Man game did not meet up to the expectations that gamers.  Iron Man tried to create a wide environment, but most of it was rather dull and uninteresting.  A lot of the issues focused around the flight mechanic, which seemed broken according to most reviewers and gamers.  In Iron Man 2, the flight mechanic was reworked, and now follows the same control scheme as when you are just walking around.  So now, the left stick controls forward and reverse, while the right stick controls direction.  This unification of controls means that Iron Man 2 should be easier for a gamer to sit down and figure out without needing an engineering degree.

Other changes from the first Iron Man game focused around the conscious decision to fix the game to 30 frames per second vs. the 60 frames per second that the first title ran at.  Again, the developers said that while 60 frames seems to be the gold standard, lowering the frame rate allowed for new gameplay mechanics and graphical enhancements.  In Iron Man 2, most of the environment will be destructible in nature, allowing you to see more of the devastation that enemies will leave in the world.  The new attention to graphical details on the other hand has Iron Man and War Machine looking far more detailed than the previous title.  The same goes for the environment, as the levels in the game have far more detail put into them.  The sacrifice in frame rate is easily made up in the graphics department.

There’s Never Enough Time

The developer s also answered what I felt was a loaded question when it came to development time.  They were asked as to how long Iron Man 2 was in development, and if the team felt that they had enough time to put together a top notch game.  It was said that they were not under the gun with this title as they were with the first Iron Man, but quantified it by saying that a developer always wants more time.   “If you ask any developer if they want more time, all of them will instantly say yes” was one of the answers we got, and this is something I always hear from developers.  That said, Sega had started development on the sequel almost right after the first movie came out, knowing that it was pretty obvious that a second movie would be green lit. 

He’s Tony Stark

As the discussion moved to the characters in Iron Man 2, we were told that Tony Stark is an interesting character.  With Tony Stark, we have a technical genius, who is also a celebrity in the world, and Iron Man is an extension of that personality.  The developers knew that if you are going to make a quality Iron Man title, you have to include Tony Stark as well as Iron Man.  They felt that Tony carries a lot of humor that is not always expressed by Iron Man.  You get to interact with the laboratory while playing as Tony Stark and see how he creates all of these magnificent gadgets and weapons.

It was also asked whether Iron Man 2 could stand on its own without the benefit of a sure fire movie hit coming out.  The question was met with a resounding yes, as Iron Man offers a world of options and stories to convey in a game.  While it was prefaced with a “this is not in development at this time” commentary, it was stated by the developers that could easily see an Iron Man title set in an open world, sandbox styled game.  Iron Man is a character that has the ability to go anywhere at a moment’s notice, and a sandbox game would fit the Iron Man’s power set.

We Have Samuel L. “Mutha F***in’” Jackson

Our discussion moved towards the participation of movie voice work and casting, and in a change from the first Iron Man title, Iron Man 2 does not feature a lot of the main characters doing their voice work.  A lot of this seemed to be due to issues with scheduling talent, but that Samuel L. Jackson is voicing Nick Fury and Don Cheadle is providing his voice for War Machine (for those not informed, Don Cheadle took over the Jim Rhodes character from Terence Howard for the sequel).  As a bonus for those that are fans of the recent Iron Man voice work from the Ultimate Avengers titles and Invincible Iron Man, Marc Worden provides the voice to Tony Stark and Iron Man in the game. 

Also helping with script duties in Iron Man 2 is Matt Fraction, who is writing the current Invincible Iron Man comic run.  Most have praised his work on the comic title, and he came in and reworked a lot of the script, adding quite a bit of meat to the storyline.  Also, the producers of the Iron Man 2 title, as well as Jon Favreau and Marvel Film Studios came down to check in on the title and see the direction of where Iron Man 2 was heading.  It was interesting to hear how Sega was under the same pressure that the movie was in regards to creating animation and action set pieces.  They were able to bounce things off of one another to get a feel of how to approach a battle or event in the game.

The Left Over Nuts and Bolts

As we came to a close, there were a lot of little notes that came out of the question and answer session for Iron Man 2.  If you own a Nintendo Wii, DS or Sony PSP, your game experience will be a little different from the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game.  The Wii and DS versions were developed from the ground up and even get a few exclusive characters for their profiles.  The Wii will feature Ghost, Firepower and the Mauler, while the DS version has an inside joke dedicated to Wilbur Day, aka The Stilt Man.  Apparently, someone on staff was a huge fan of Wilbur Day and was able to get a reference into the DS version of the game.  The PSP version of Iron Man 2 will be based on the Wii version of the title.

This is a single player game, even though there are two main characters that are playable in the game.  All the missions can be played by either War Machine or Iron Man except for two character designated missions.  There is one mission dedicated to Iron Man, while another is dedicated only to War Machine.  Also, the new suit from the movie will make an appearance in Iron Man 2, but it was hinted that there may be more unlockable suits as you progress through the title.  The developers were tight-lipped on expanding on this point of discussion.  While play time varies from person to person, you can expect to get 7-11 hours out of Iron Man 2, and you can play it again to try out the other character’s powers and weapons.  While Iron Man is more of a finesse combat character, War Machine is more of a powerhouse, bringing massive amounts of firepower and brute force.

So far, Iron Man 2 looks to be a whole new game experience from the first title.  The developers at Sega took a long hard look at the first title and have made great strides to create a better title this time around.  Iron Man 2 is being developed by Sega for Marvel and will be hitting shelves on May 4^th, 2010 on the Sony PSP, Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS platforms.