IGN: The first Iron Man game wasn't exactly received warmly by reviewers. What were some of the issues in the first game you wanted to address , and how have you worked at getting those changes implemented into the game?
Kyle Brink: I came aboard late last year explicitly to do this game. I did my homework on the first game, and as the new guy I didn't suffer from any misplaced loyalties. I'm here to make the best Iron Man 2 game possible. Gratifyingly, the rest of the team feels the same.
First, I'd like to make clear that we built this game content and gameplay from the ground up. We're not editing or changing the first game in order to make this one. It's more accurate to say that we built Iron Man 2 with the first Iron Man game as a reference point.
The primary failings of that game in the eyes of players and reviewers can be boiled down to three things: repetitive gameplay, erratic difficulty, and counter-intuitive controls. There are plenty more, but those are the big ones.
We've approached each mission in our story arc as a separate game, in many ways. Different opponents, diverse play spaces (including interiors), and crafted encounters as opposed to infinite spawners are used to build a compelling game experience punctuated with cinematic moments.
The difficulty of the first game was controlled largely by how many points of damage an enemy could slap you with. The end result was highly erratic gameplay. Too often, the experience was either "I'm invulnerable, yawn" or "Yikes! I gotta hide!" Neither feeling was particularly heroic nor fun. The difficulty spikes were exceptionally painful without checkpoint saves. You could get to a point where you got killed over and over again until you run out of lives and had to restart the mission.
While you will take damage in Iron Man 2, there are many ways to feel threatened that have nothing to do with dying: knockdowns, grapples, and stuns, to name a few. This gives us a much wider palette with which to create the threat environment necessary to feel heroic. If that guy knocks you on your butt, you respect him and feel good about taking him down. He doesn't have to kill you off to be threatening and satisfying to beat. Oh, and we have checkpoint saves too.
The controls for the first game had a couple of key flaws. One was requiring the player to hold a trigger halfway down in order to maintain hover altitude. Another was reversing the meaning of the left and right sticks when entering flight mode. Our approach in this game was to analyze the control schemes of the top games out there, and use that as our baseline. Then we built a set of variant schemes, and we're constantly playtesting them (including some first-time-player test groups) so we know what's intuitive for the user.
One thing that wasn't expressly discussed in a lot of the reviews, but which really hurt that first game and kept it from feeling heroic, was the fact that the player was constantly "hunting pixels" engaging enemies from ludicrous ranges, and thereby missing out on any sense of scale or power. Then, if you ever did get close, you found yourself in the absurd position of throwing punches at a tank or hiding from a storm of small-arms fire.
We've integrated melee much more closely into our game, and have brought all weapon ranges in closer. This results in a more intense, visceral experience with a real feeling of weight and power and heroism.
That's a quick overview. I could go on for a rather long time about this. We studied the first Iron Man game and its reception very, very closely when we got started on this one, and we continue to do so.
IGN: It sounds like the sequel will use the same game engine from the first, but with some improvements. Can you talk about what those engine improvements are and what kinds of results the players may see.
Kyle Brink: It's actually two generations beyond the first game. We've added significantly to the melee system, enemy behaviors, dynamic lighting, destructible environments, hero controls, interiors, and physics.
You'll pick up the controller, ignore the manual, and just play.
You'll fight in twilight and underground as well as in daylight. You'll tear up the environment, blasting through walls and sending debris flying. You'll blow the lights out in an area, then see by the light of your repulsors and the fires of destruction.
Enemies will pursue you through destroyed obstacles. Truly colossal enemies will crash through buildings to get to you. Some enemies have mobility that rivals your own, and will chase you through the skies to engage in high-altitude beatdowns.
You'll choose your preferred melee fighting style, from brute force to Kung Fu. You'll block enemy attacks, then perform counter-moves. You'll disable an enemy, then perform special moves to turn him into a weapon.
IGN: In terms of how the game plays, can you give us an overview of what it will be like? Can players who checked out the 2008 Iron Man game expect a similar style and setup, and what things new might they find?
Kyle Brink: There's stuff that Iron Man has to do or he isn't Iron Man. You'll fly, you'll hover, and you'll run. You'll shoot a variety of high-tech weapons.
Aaaand that's about all that's the same.
You'll have epic weapons that can flatten hordes. You'll play through a crafted story arc with high-intensity encounters. These crafted encounters will from time to time open up into more free-form arenas.
You'll be playing a new story, not reliving the movie, and you'll do it in the world of the movie.
You'll face epic-scale foes, and you'll do it in situations where their full power and size is inescapable and viscerally present. (That's a fancy way to say "they'll be up in your face.")
You'll be challenged and threatened by enemies and effects that can do more than just kill you. You'll face opponents with a variety of recognizable and diverse moves, powers, and tactics. Your melee powers and your ground game will be essential to your success. Some enemies will shrug off your weapons fire, while others will seek you out and force you into combat.
Your foes and missions are all created with one central question firmly in mind: "Why is this Iron Man's problem?" If the army or the cops could handle it, you won't see it. Big, bad, epic foes. World-threatening situations. Stuff you can only pull off in a game or a comic book.......
