Movie licensed games have a reputation as being generally bad and at best mediocre, even for things like comic movies that have all the right elements to make a great game. Marvel Executive Vice President of Global Digital Media Group Ira Rubenstein indicates that things will be different with the games attached to his company's movies from here on out.

"We are not doing movie-based games anymore," said Rubenstein to Joystiq at Gamescom. "Actually, wait ... we are not doing crappy movie-based games anymore. You can quote me on that."

Rubenstein says that the generally well received mature-rated X-Men Origins: Wolverine game was but the first example of how Marvel's movie licensed games are changing. While he washed his hands of the first Iron Man game, which he said he was not involved with, he indicates that production on Iron Man 2 started right after the first game shipped and would be better this time around. Rubenstein also praised the team working on the Thor game and asked fans to look forward to it.

While the Iron Man 2 game might not turn into an instant classic, they're making the right move in starting work on it early; when movie licensed games have to be rushed out the door in a year or less because the studio dragged its feet, that practically dooms them to iniquity.

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