Iron Man 2 Conference Q&A
Mike is a veteran of both Golden Axe and Iron Man titles so he was the perfect fit to submit questions for the conference and he will be handling the eventual first hour and full reviews of Iron Man 2. Look for those in mid May.
On the call
Dean Martinetti - Producer, Sega
Mike McHale - Development Director, Sega
Question/Answer format
Questions were submitted by each attendant to the conference call. Questions were previewed by the moderator and asked in the most efficient order. All answers are paraphrases of the actual answers typed by me as I listened.
Iron Man 2 conference call
Brief Overview of the game
Mike McHale: Iron Man 2 is an extension of the film, it allows you to
further explore the universe. You can play as Iron Man or as War Machine.
There are fully customizable suits and lots of destructibility. There
are multiple villains both from comic books and the film.
1. How close are the game and movie content?
Mike: Following a movie point by point isn't the best way. Movies are
essentially two hour non-interactive cutscenes. Doesn't work for games.
Iron Man 2 is a completely new story with emphasis on making the player
feel like part of film. Doing this keeps the player guessing and avoids
retreading old ground. We didn’t want to try to shoehorn gameplay
into the movie.
2. Was it liberating or daunting to make a movie tie-in that doesn’t
tie in?
Mike: Very liberating and fun. Sega was cool. The emphasis was on making
the game feel like it could really happen in Tony Starks world. Iron Man is a very gameable character, with the suit and upgrades. The very
interesting characters and the vibe make it much easier to build a new
storyline within the world.
3. Are there any elements from the movie/comic that you wanted to include
but couldn't?
Mike: Not really. You can do things in a game that would be too expensive
in the movie, particularly the enemies and bosses are "bigger"
than in the movie. Example, the Helecarrier. In Iron Man 2, you’ll
see the biggest bosses in any video game ever made.
4. What were some of the challenges on improving the first game?
Dean Martinetti: Flight was the first thing. We took feedback from online sources,
magazines, etc. We asked, how can we make the flight better? Control
was a huge issue. Some things we improved: usability, getting in and
out of the game, improving accessibility. We wanted to make moves easier
to use. We allow you to modify weapons more easily. We made big improvements
to game content, melee fighting, weapon adaptation, combining weapons.
AI was also a big focus. People will notice immediately that the game
is better. It’s more easily understandable out of the box with a greater
implementation of Jarvis.
5. How long has IM2 been in development?
Mike: You never get as much time as you want. No game is ever done.
The Game was in development for about 2 years. Iron Man is gameable
but challenging. He has enormous ability, which makes gaming a challenge
when they can fight at range and can also fight hand to hand. It comes
down to Shooter vs. Brawler game design. But it wouldn't be Iron Man
without all those elements. Because of the success of Iron Man 1, we knew there
would be a sequel so we jumped on development out of the gate.
6. Is there a formula to a successful movie superhero game? If so, how
did that apply Iron Man 2?
Mike: Somewhat. You have to be responsible about the scope and the content
to make sure the game is on schedule for movie release but you have
to have enough time for polish. That’s what caused Iron Man 1 to suffer.
The formula for a movie game "for me", jumping off the script
but within the universe is the way to go. Following the movie is too
restrictive and doesn't work well with interactive content. Users don't
want to retread the storyline. They did a lot of research on gamer expectations.
Core gamers want a new story, rather than replaying what they saw in
the theater.
7. What’s the most important element in the game that you wanted to
accomplish?
Mike: Tony Stark. It’s about his lifestyle, his attitude, his genius.
We discussed how cool Tony was as a character and what that would mean
to play as him as a character. He's constantly inventing. His greatest
asset is his intellect and use of technology. For us it was, "lets
build Tony in and get that sense of the character". We also prioritized
making the player FEEL the power behind these characters, Iron Man and
War Machine. High destructibility was key to this.
8. Could this title stand on its own without being based on a movie?
Mike: There are advantages to being attached to a successful IP. Yes,
it could stand alone. The universe and character are enough, even without
the movie. But we do gain a lot by drafting on their marketing campaign.
9. Besides heroes and villains that have been announced are there any
other cameos?
Mike: Heroes include Iron Man, War Machine (James Rhodes), both playable.
NPCs include Nick Fury, a new character in Iron Man 2, Natasha Romanov ie. Black
Widow. Members of Shield also show up to help you out. As for the villains, we mined the comics for popular villains. Villains will partially
differ based on platform.
Also, the platforms game design
broke down as follows: PS3/360 are a single development platform meaning those games are essentially
the same. However, the Wii version was build from the ground up as a different
game. Ghost, Mauler, and Fire Power are exclusive enemies in the Wii
version. The DS includes Wilbur Day, Stilt
Man, and Dynamo. There is also a Massive Boss we can't tell you about. The final boss
is awesome.
10. With a bunch of other super hero movies, how does it stand out?
Mike: Iron Man had its flaws. The day after we shipped, we started talking
about what we wanted to do in the sequel. Strengthen and expand on what
people like, flying in a bigger space, suit customization. Controls
of shooter vs. melee.
11. How has the game been designed to deal with the go-anywhere nature
of Iron Man?
Mike: Open World is big right now. But it’s a huge challenge without
huge amounts of content. Environments are unique. It’s not a fully
open world. There is a different environment per mission, but those
environments are huge. Interior and exterior environments stand out.
Some are up close and force more melee. It’s a good mix. It makes
the player feel more varied.
12. What has the team done to improve the transition between flight
and hover mode?
Dean: Hovering in interior is good. It’s a simple button press to
switch between the two. It works well. We made it simpler, no holding
buttons down now. Simplicity and ease of use were important to us.
Mike: We held lots of usability tests and go lots of feedback. We moved
the flight control to the right stick from the left stick. It fixed
the problem of dive bombing when you switched modes. We tried to maintain
consistency of control between each mode.
13: Open World games have received a lot of praise for being more free
form. But they often lack compelling story. Was it ever in the cards
to do open world?
Mike: It could be fantastic,
but we'd have to be outside a movie schedule. In the games, the technology
and gameplay are built around the open world. Following a movie lacks
flexibility necessary to really do it right. Doing it our way allowed
us to make more unique missions rather than generic open world style
missions.
14: What have you done to differentiate Iron Man from the average action
game character?
Mike: Let’s get a great story teller to work with us: Matt Fraction,
the Invincible Iron Man comic guy. We talked to Marvel and they reached
out to Matt who had never worked on a game. He was very excited and
did some consulting on the movie as well. We had already started the
story outline and Matt came in and rewrote big chunks of the story to
fix potential logic flaws. He also wrote the dialog for the cutscenes.
Pro writers really elevate the quality. Matt would even edit the mission
dialogue content to keep it true to the universe.
15. Where do you see the Iron Man franchise heading from here? For example
Spider-Man is being used to make games even without a movie.
Dean: I'd like to see a true open world Iron Man game, one that goes
more toward the darker side.
Mike: That would make a great game, sure. We don't know what we're doing
with him after this. We're not ready to talk about it. But Iron Man
is a strong enough character to make a game around without a movie.
He's not as big as Spider-Man, but he's one of the best known solo characters.
We've only touched the surface of telling great gaming stories with
him.
16. As changes to the movie script were made, were you made aware of
them and changed the game also?
Mike: We avoided the trap of having missions built exactly on the movie.
So script changes didn't impact us much. What WOULD impact us would
be how Iron Man/Tony interacted with the technology in the lab, or things
they did with Tony specifically. We wanted to include the technology
of the movie in the game. We loved from the comics, the suit he carried
around in a suitcase. There’s dialogue back and forth and we got lots
of great feed back, but the most important thing was to make everything
really feel like it fit with the universe as created by the movie.
17. In addition to Don Cheadle and Samuel L. Jackson, are there any
other big name actors?
Mike. We worked with Robert Downey Jr. in the first game. Loved it. Triple
A film talent is very busy and hard to get. Iron Man is played my Eric
Loomis. He does Iron Man for all the Marvel animated movies. He did a
great job. You hear about film talent mailing it in on games. These
guys took it seriously and blew the doors off the performances. We were
really happy.
18. How closely did you work with the movie director?
Mike: Jon Favreau would look at the game from time to time but the movie
was his main focus. Mostly we met with Kevin Feige, head of the
studio and other producers about builds in progress. So I felt very
connected, but via the producers more than the director specifically.
We met and exchanged ideas because we both have similar challenges with
the character.
19. The first Iron Man had several main boss fights but the battles
were never toe to toe, weren’t really like a battle with a nemesis.
Will that change?
Dean: Yes. We emphasized melee. But the end result will be decided by
the player. Do you want to go in for the battle? Do you want to use
the weapons? "Its a UFC fight between Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo", really
gratifying melee. You can customize melee moves and make them more powerful
and brute force.
20. Are levels linear and repetitive like the first game?
Dean: The first game was very linear. With Iron Man 2, we've opened up the
interiors and exteriors. Level 7 in the game is a favorite of mine.
I can actually complete that mission 3 different ways and still get
to the end result.
21. The original Iron Man game featured some very intense action sequences
that really struggled with frame rate. Does this game address that in
any way? How is the performance in comparison to the first game?
Dean: It's a lot better. Things have gotten more strict at Microsoft and Sony
with regard to certification. I can safely say that its much better.
Frame rate issues are almost completely eliminated.
Mike: By capping things at 30 FPS, it does wonders to address that issue.
We can focus more on development of the level and the gameplay, rather
than worry about frame rate so much. It overwhelmingly adds to the quality
of the game.
22: Is there any online playability?
Dean: No.
23: Does each game platform have unique content?
Dean: Yes. PS3/360 is one development thread, DS is one. Wii/PSP is
similar. There are lots of cool things from High Voltage on the Wii
version.
24. How are gameplay meachics different between Iron Man and War Machine?
Dean: You can play as either Iron Man or War Machine on all but 2 missions.
One is specific to Tony and the other is specific to Jason. War Machine
is all about brute force. Iron Man is a bit more acrobatic and utilizes
energy weapons. Flying, running and melee are similar, but weapons and
strategy are different.
25: Will the game feature the new suit? Will there be special suits?
Dean: Yes, but I can't give away too much.
26: Whats the campaign length
Dean: 7-11 hours. If you run and gun, you’ll see a solid 7 hour campaign.
If you play more strategically and explore all the suits and content,
you’ll see 11 easily.
27: What was it like working with Matt Fraction?
Mike: Matt is a gamer, which was important to us that he understands
the medium. He plays in a group so he's familiar. He knows our limitations.
He’s very understanding, based on what’s possible on a game. It
was great, lots of back and forth. He educated us on what Tony would
and wouldn't do and what was his level of technology. We would write
dialogue and he would rewrite it and we would make sure it was fun and
not too long (writers love to write) that people start skipping cutscenes.
28: How much customization is in the armor research system? Is it linear?
Dean: In the lab area, you can customize your suit, your weapons, your
melee. You can make weapons of your choosing, with dozens of options
on each weapon module. You can make hybrid of munitions and energy weapons.
Its really cool.
29: IS there any co-op play with Iron Man and War Machine?
Mike: No. Doing co-op requires tons of extra balance and QA time. etc
etc etc. We were looking at it, but didn't do it.
30. Achievements and trophies. Are they accessible, or for hardcore
gamers?
Dean: There are easy challenges but there are also some that will really
push the total amount of content to the user. Many are suit based, completing
missions with specific characters and suits