It's pretty evident from the start that even Sega knows that its original Iron Man game wasn't all that it could have been. Therefore, the new team working on the game is going to great lengths to make sure that the follow-up, Iron Man 2, not only plays better than its predecessor, but also stays true to what Iron Man, the character, is all about. This is apparent with the new control scheme: switching between hovering and flying only requires some manipulation of the left and right analog sticks--a simple press forward on the left stick pushes Iron Man forward through the air in flight mode, while the right analog stick controls his direction.

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　　Iron Man 2 Interview

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　　Interestingly, something else that has been streamlined is the way that Iron Man's suit functions. Instead of manually switching between different power modes (more power to shields versus more power to weapons), the game automatically switches these modes based on Iron Man's current status. If he's on the ground, then Jarvis (Tony Stark's robo-butler and onboard suit AI) changes the power flow so that Iron Man's shields and weapons recharge at a faster pace while the navigation systems power done. Conversely, to zoom through the air at top speeds, Jarvis switches things around so that most of the suit's juice goes toward the boosters, depleting some energy from weapons and shields. The whole system makes sense, and best of all, it doesn't do away with a mechanic that otherwise gives the game a slightly more strategic feel.

　　And those aren't even the only changes made to the suit. At any point, you can switch between different melee sets, meaning that if you want Iron Man to use kung fu, then you can select the kung fu melee set. This gives Iron Man a few more nimble and quick punches and kicks that he might not have in the default setting. There's also a brute force setting where Iron Man's just a little bit slower but his attacks pack more power.

　　Not all of the attention is focused solely on Iron Man. Quite a bit of attention is also being paid to the environments and what Iron Man can do within them. In fact, in our brief demo, we got a glimpse of an indoor area--an arc reactor-powered factory--where Iron Man has to plow through groups of massive robots before finally making his way to the reactor and destroying it. The sequence afterward has you, as Iron Man, escaping from the factory as it explodes around you. It's sort of like the exploding Death Star sequence from Return of the Jedi. After making it outdoors, we got a glimpse of another aspect of the game that the development team is working on: destructibility. While it was certainly possible to create massive amounts of damage in the original Iron Man game, the version of it in Iron Man 2, in a way, is much more precise. Iron Man can destroy roofs, doors, and all sorts of other objects before taking down bigger things, like an entire building.

　　What's also interesting about this outdoor environment is that it looks a little less like a flight sim where everything generally appears small. There's seemingly a lot more detail in everything, and generally speaking, enemies seem to be much larger and more substantial than in the previous game. But some things that definitely are bigger in Iron Man 2 are the bosses. At the end of this demo, we got a glimpse of a massive spider tank that has multiple target points that Iron Man has to take out before striking the final death blow. We got to see an even bigger boss, which fans may recognize as Crimson Dynamo (who also isn't in the film), at the end of the demo in a teaser trailer, and to say that he completely dwarfs Iron Man would be an understatement.

　　From just about every angle, Iron Man 2 already appears to be a drastic improvement over the original Iron Man game. And best of all, the game's story is also being worked on by well-known Marvel scribe Matt Fraction, who is helping to ensure that in-game Iron Man and Tony Stark speak and are represented in the proper way. Iron Man 2 is scheduled for release next year.