Iron Man 2 Hands-on
Are you ready to save the world Stark-style?

was pretty hard on Iron Man's last solo game. I ranted about the "next-gen" versions of the game being bogged down in ridiculous enemies, a radar that was nearly impossible to read, and the general lack of feeling like I was actually Iron Man. I dropped a 3.8 on the games and even doubled backed to list five steps  SEGA could take to make sure the next title does suck.

After playing every version of Iron Man 2 this morning, it appears SEGA listened to me… and the thousands of other Shellhead fans who were disappointed two years ago.

Don't take that as a blanket statement. There are still things that irked me about the Iron Man titles I played today, but there is some good stuff going on here. For starters, the porting problem appears to have been halted. Iron Man 2 on the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 is its own game, Iron Man 2 on the Wii/PSP is its own game, and Iron Man 2 on the DS is its own game. Every version shares the same story, but it is not pulled from the movie. This tale takes place in the movie universe, but it's not rehashing the big screen version, and it's written by Invincible Iron Man scribe Matt Fraction. On top of that, Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle are on hand to voice their characters (Nick Fury and Rhodes if you're a noob), and although Robert Downey Jr. isn't voicing Tony Stark this time around, Eric Loomis – the voice of Iron Man from the animated flicks – is on hand to give a really good performance from the little I got to see today.

Basically, there's hope for this game, folks.

Like I said, each game shares the same story, so every demo began with bad guys from Roxxon busting into a Stark compound and trying to steal the backup files for Jarvis, Tony's right hand, robo-butler. From there, things got different.

Before I even got into the first level of Iron Man 2, SEGA representatives asked me what I hated about Iron Man. I mentioned flight controls, the controller-hurling level of difficulty as the screen filled with bad guys, and the fact that I didn't feel like I was a superhero.

Their response was, "Good, we fixed all that."

I only got through about two missions in this version, so whether or not everything is ironed out in Iron Man 2 remains to be seen, but I can tell you that I did have fun wailing on bad guys as Tony Stark and I'm anxious to dive into the upgrade system SEGA has created.

However, the first thing I noticed about this version of Iron Man 2 was that the visuals weren't up to snuff. Sure, this is preview code and not the final release, but Tony Stark's head and body are blocky, Rhodes' eyes look weird, and one of the backgrounds for the sky I was flying in front of looked all sorts of pixilated. Usually I'd save that kind of criticism for the end of a preview – you know, talk about the stuff that excites me first – but this was my off-the-cuff first impression.

Still, the thing is, I didn't really mind the visuals. I wish they were sharper, sure, but I found myself getting caught up in the story and action more than pissing and moaning about how things looked. The scene I saw of Stark and Rhodes clowning around was great, and when Sam Jackson popped up to deliver his Fury lines, he sounds natural. Frankly, I'm sick of big names phoning in vocal performances in games, and these three sounded spot-on in the section I saw.

Now, the game actually opens on a bit of a down note. Like I said, it starts with Roxxon trying to steal Jarvis, so Stark has to fly into his own compound and take on his own gadgets that have been turned against him. As this gets going, the bad guys unleash an electromagnetic pulse that takes out all of the tech and knocks Iron Man offline. The hero begins having a heart attack and can't get Jarvis back online. From there, you get the flashback movie I was just complimenting for sounding great, and then, you're back to Iron Man dying on the floor. The hero gets the machine running, and slowly your abilities start coming online – slow enough that you're getting the hang of it in typical tutorial fashion.

Now, Iron Man can take flight whenever you want him to, but this game introduces the insides of buildings to Shellhead so jetting into a wall isn't your best bet (although lots of buildings are destructible). Running around on-foot feels fast enough. The reticule stays anchored in the middle of the screen as you spin the camera with the right stick and aim to take out baddies. If you get up close and personal with an enemy or machine, you can melee the baddie to move on; as you progress in the game, you'll unlock different fighting styles to equip. If a ranged attack is more your speed, you can hover as Iron Man and rise, fall and dodge left and right at will. When I took on the mega bosses and helicopters intent on taking out my SHIELD friends, this was the strategy I employed.

By double-tapping one of the shoulder buttons, Iron Man takes flight, but the controls are a bit simpler this time around. Once you're going, pushing forward on the left stick makes him go faster while pulling back slows you down. The right stick changes the angles of where you're going, and then there are all sorts of barrel rolls and tricks to get the hang of as you take on enemies. You can fly in close and bat machines out of the air or grab onto helicopter blades and take 'em down that way. Meanwhile, you can keep a bit of distance between you and the bad guys and do flybys where you blast everything to kingdom come. When you take damage, your shield wears down, and if that gets depleted, you start losing health. You can recover your shield but not your health, so you're going to need to take cover if things get bad out there.

Surprising – at least to me – is that strategy is going to be a big part of Iron Man 2. Before you set out on a mission, you pick which suit you want Iron Man or War Machine in (most missions let you choose which hero you want, but there are some that are some mission that are strictly Tony or Rhodes), and you're also going to pimp the suit out to your specifications. You can add different weapons, modify the tools of destruction with modules like increased range and damage, and swap in different ammo types like concussive rounds. If you're getting your ass handed to you in a firefight, chances are you should quit out and retool your loadout.

This is something I discovered early on.

See, wrapping your head around this game comes down to weapon management. You're going to have all sorts of guns to put on your suit – gatling guns, rocket launchers, missiles, replusors, etc. – and they're going to be controlled by with the left or right trigger. These triggers operate independently of each other, so you can be shooting rockets with your left finger while charging an ion blast with your right.

I loved this setup. I was tearing apart robots and helicopters with heat-seeking missiles while sending in straight forward rockets. The trouble came when they went to reload. I was blasting away with both weapons, and then just sitting there as the firearms took their time reloading. This led to me getting roasted, the SHIELD vehicles I was supposed to be protecting getting lit up, and so on. It wasn't fun – at least not until I got the hang of switching weapons. Left and right on the d-pad cycles the weapons assigned to the left and right triggers respectively. When one attack needs to rest, you must swap so that you're keeping up the pressure on the evildoers. I love my lock-on missiles, but trying to beat a bunch of bad guys with just one weapon is a recipe for failure.

Having all these weapons is undoubtedly cool, but I found that doubling up my weapons was the way to go. That SHIELD escort mission was kicking my butt as Iron Man, so I jumped out, restarted the mission as War Machine, and gave both of his weapons triggers gatling guns (along with other firearms). This meant I could have a constant stream of hot lead as I alternated my triggers and took aim at the bad guys out there.

All this swapping and suit changing provides a number of neat little Easter eggs for fans – including the fact that as you change this stuff you're doing it on Tony Stark's holographic lab display so look for his hands to come in and move stuff around as you change it. The possible Iron Man/War Machine suits I saw included classic Iron Man, extremist, sliver centurion, original Iron Man, and the suit from the first movie. If you change the mounted weapons on your character, those changes are reflected in the cutscenes. If you take War Machine into a level rather than Iron Man, the dialogue changes so NPCs understand who they are talking to.

In terms of stuff I didn't dig – beyond the visuals – it seemed like there was a bit of a learning curve to flying and although it was better, there was still a lot of stuff going on down in my radar. I think both of those complaints might get better as I play the full game. Still, melee combat felt a bit light, like my punches weren't landing on the tanks and enemies I was hitting. There are kill moves where you tap a button to shoot through a weakened tank or what have you, but these didn't look all that impressive. The game's fun, but it feels like in between interesting cutscenes there might be a lot of blasting and beating without much substance.

There are plenty of neat touches to Iron Man 2. Everything you do earns research points that you can then put towards new weapons, modules, suits, and ammo types, so there's a carrot on a stick for those who want the best suit they can possibly have. At this point, I don't see Iron Man 2 being an amazing superhero title thanks to its weak visuals and little issues, but I think it has a chance at being a fun title for folks looking to explore that universe a bit more.

I'm looking forward to May 4, 2010, and Marvel fans should be to.  Greg Miller