The second fight was even more elaborate. What started off with Galactus slowly charging through a futuristic city, destroying the walkway our team was on piece by piece turned into a race to stay ahead of massive concussive blasts. At a couple points, Galactus destroyed part of the cityscape to try to impede our progress, but we managed to stay ahead. Finally cornered in an arena with three vents, we had to change gears and hit three switches near the vent while fighting off an endless stream of baddies and avoiding Galactus' fist smashes and attempts to grab us before kicking off another motion sensing sequence with the Silver Surfer.

If Galactus did grab us, we had to shake the controller forward and back (just like the final part of the Ymir fight) to get free. Once the Silver Surfer few in, it was another string of random controller motions to kick off a blast that whittled down Galactus' health a little, and the process was repeated. This second motion sensing bit was far, far tougher, though we couldn't figure out if it was due to a smaller window to act or if the controller just didn't pick up the actions properly. The camera, too, was something that was interesting, mainly due to the fact that while playing four player, it would focus on one character and everyone else had to sort of follow along.

The rest of the game played more or less the same as the XML games. A basic top-down camera showed things nicely, allowed us to switch between characters and effectively beat the crap out of a handful of enemies and mini-bosses like The Scorpion and Bullseye. You can now level up your skills using points earned when your character goes up a level, or you can actually expend a ton of credits to do the same.

New to the game is My Team, reputation bonuses that lead to unlockable abilities for keeping one party through most of the game (as well as a penalty every time you swap out enemies), and of course there are still bonuses for assembling famous teams (for instance, the New Avengers). A new momentum system is built up as you mix up combos (and goes up faster if you finish an enemy with them). Once it's full, you can unleash an Extreme Power attack with a press of the Triangle button.

It's not all just cut and pasted corridors with the odd barrel or computer terminal to wail on until they explode, though; we actually ran through an incredibly cool level modeled after a fun house (we're guessing it was the Murderworld cooked up by old X-Men enemy Arcade) that featured a giant pinball machine and even an interactive Breakout clone. This level was probably the best example of the game's 1080p visuals of the ones shown, and there were some nice effects like subtly bump-mapped wood grain and some specular highlights.

The changes that have been made and the improvements to things have our interest piqued. We'll be taking another look at the game before the launch of the PS3, and we'll have updated impressions then. Feel free to take a peek at the new media we've got now to hold you over until then.