Let’s Go Epic
June 17, 2010 – Ever since its reveal earlier this year, Epic Mickey has been a hotly-anticipated title. With a visual style that recalls a steampunk sensibility and some very dark images of classic Disney landmarks, this title certainly represents a change of pace for the house of Mickey. We went hands-on with this title at E3 and were definitely expecting a lot from Epic Mickey’s first playable offering. We weren’t disappointed.
The level we were able to check out is based on Skull Island, which is originally from the Peter Pan animated series. Smee, Captain Hook’s faithful (if bumbling) second-hand man has a ship that is stuck in the harbor, and Mickey has to help him free his ship by finding the anchors that are weighing it down and destroying them.
The World of the Wasteland (which is basically where cartoons go to die) is very beautifully realized, and right off the bat I was surprised by the level of detail in the game. I know its cliché to say that something looks good “for a Wii game” but Epic Mickey is one of those few titles that just looks good period. The visual styling of the game is very dark, but at the same time it features a uniquely Disney signature that helps the content feel “familiar” to Disney fans.
As we went through our Demo, a member of the development team explained that the Wasteland was comprised of two separate but equal components: toon and non-toon. Toon elements are the interactive elements of the game that look like they have been pulled from a Disney movie and can be anything from cartoon enemies to buildings and structures permeating the landscape.
The distinction between toon and non-toon is quite important, as it governs how you can interact with the elements around you. If you encounter toon elements, you can use paint as well as paint thinner to interact with the element. Paint thinner is Mickey’s way of erasing things from The World of the Wasteland, and it is generally used to dispatch enemies or erase obstacles in your way. However, if you are feeling less destructive, you can use paint. Paint is only really used on enemies and can change them to allies. This is a particularly effective means of fighting the enemy, as you can tackle a bunch of enemies by coloring half of them with paint and allowing them to attack the non-painted units.
There is also another reason to use paint instead of thinner; thinner turns Mickey dark. Though Mickey never quite takes the plunge in to absolute darkness, he does take on darker attributes, and NPCs will react differently to Mickey if he has been using too much thinner in one area. This is a very interesting aspect of the gameplay, and I was advised by the developer overseeing the demo to think about how I was defeating enemies, not just why.
Of course, the game also gives you a third option when confronting enemies: items. One thing that was new in the E3 demo was the presence of distracting elements (such as a TV that shows a Steamboat Willie cartoon) that can be used to draw enemies’ attention away from you (and not waste valuable paint and thinner). Although you can find many of these items just by walking around, the game also uses a currency system which allows you to purchase more supplies and items.
In addition to the regular action-platforming levels, there are also short side-scrolling minigames that facilitate transit to the game’s hub world. The side-scrolling level we saw took on the form of the Steamboat Willie cartoon and saw an old-school Mickey jumping around black and white obstacles on what looked like an antiquated celluloid reel.
Epic Mickey is definitely shaping up to be a cool game and could give Super Mario Galaxy 2 a run for its money this year for best Wii game. In addition to the content I was able to play through on the show floor, it was confirmed that classic Disney theme park locations like the Enchanted Tiki Room as well as the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse will all be playable in the final product. Though the game has always had a high “cool” factor in my book, my hands-on time with the game has cemented it as one of the must-play titles coming this fall. Though there is no firm release date yet, I have been assured that the game will be available before the end of the year.
Game Features:
Mickey Mouse Reborn
November 23, 2009 – Warren Spector, the renowned video game creator best known for games like Deus Ex and Thief, may initially seem like a strange choice to spearhead a massive new Mickey Mouse game. But once you hear a little bit about his plans for the game and his feelings about the character, it all makes perfect sense. A life-long Disney fan who did his Master’s thesis on the evolution of classic cartoon characters, Spector is a huge collector of Disney memorabilia.
As a fan, it’s not surprising that Spector has strong feelings about the current state of Mickey Mouse; namely that he’s become irrelevant in today’s world in which Pixar has supplanted its parent company Disney as the dominant name in animation. Warren Spector aims to change that, and the first step in his plan is to bring Mickey Mouse back to his roots in Disney Epic Mickey, the Wii-exclusive action game from Spector’s Junction Point.
Back in the early days of animation, Mickey Mouse wasn’t the dull straight man that he’s become. He was feisty. He was mischievous. He was a trouble-maker. He also wasn’t Walt Disney’s first star creation. Although he’s unknown to most Disney fans today, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit actually preceded Mickey, starring in several short cartoons until Disney’s financier threatened to take the rights to the character away if the animator couldn’t reduce his budgets. Disney walked, and the financier retained the rights to Oswald. Disney went on to create the world-famous Mickey Mouse, and Oswald was all but forgotten.
After Spector told Disney Interactive that he wanted Oswald in his new game, the company reacquired the rights to the character – by trading sportscaster Al Michaels to NBC Universal. Now that he’s back in the family fold, the relationship between Oswald and Mickey takes center stage in Disney Epic Mickey. In short, the two characters are competing for the love of Walt Disney. In the fiction of the game, the wizard Yensid (Disney backwards) created a world for Oswald and his other forgotten creations. Mickey, who has returned to his more troublesome roots, visits the world through a magic mirror and accidentally spills paint and thinner over the world. Mickey attempts to clean up and leaves, but the spill he created ultimately grows into The Phantom Blot (another old Disney creation). The Blot twists Oswald’s world into a skewed version of Disneyland – expect to see strange new versions of familiar character and locations. Years later it returns to drag Mickey back to his domain. Trapped in a warped version of Walt Disney’s dream, Mickey must win the trust of Oswald and the other lost Disney creations to battle the menace of The Phantom Blot.
Mickey will have a pair of powerful tools at his disposal as he ventures through this strange world: paint and thinner. Mickey’s paintbrush allows him to create new objects in the world, while the thinner allows him to erase them. You will also discover “sketches” that will allow you to summon objects that have specific effects on the world, such as clocks that slow time around you. Of course, based on the early descriptions we’ve heard, you’ll only be able to affect certain areas with the paint and thinner. Even so, the mechanic will allow for plenty of ways to interact with the world, as you’ll be able to create platforms and items from thin air or obliterate obstacles that stand in your way. However, if you destroy too much or fail to help others, you’ll take Mickey down the “scrapper” path, the more feisty, troublemaking side of Mickey. Alternately, if you help those in need and avoid needless chaos, you’ll keep Mickey on the “Hero” path, the good-natured version of the character that most gamers are familiar with. Straddle the two playstyles and you’ll set out on the “wastelander” path, a more neutral play style. Each path will have its own unique set of rewards and change the way the characters in the game react to you.
Epic Mickey is still a long way off, scheduled sometime in Fall 2010. More details will certainly emerge over the next few months about the gameplay mechanics, but already Epic Mickey is looking like that rarest type of game: a third-party Wii exclusive with blockbuster potential. What else would you expect when one of the biggest names in game design teams up with one of the biggest icons in the world?
Game Features: