One of the most original and surprising games we saw at E3 was Disney’s Epic Mickey. Now, I know what you are probably saying, “Loot Ninja is mostly a hardcore gaming fan-site, focusing mostly on next-gen shooter titles and adult gameplay elements?” Well, guess what. You’re wrong. You should really care about Epic Mickey. If you don’t, you’ll probably end up with paint thinner on your head. Why is that bad? Read on for more.
We unfortunately didn’t get hands-on with the game during our Disney booth tour, but what we saw of Epic Mickey, it’s sure to burn the dust off of your Wii console. This game is one of the must-have titles that will be in your Wii disc tray for quite some time. It will probably end up being marketed as one of those games that the whole family will enjoy - both playing and watching. One gamer takes a turn controlling Mickey while the younger siblings plop down on the floor and holds their head up with their hands. This is definitely something that should cater to all ages - watching for the young ones, and playing for the older ones.
Unlike the normal Mickey world we’ve seen from the cartoons, Epic Mickey is dark. Not blood and gory dark. But just, well, dark. You won’t see Mickey hack and slash his way through enemies with blood spurting out, but what he does use to dispense of enemies is known as paint thinner. This magical substance is used to deteriorate the world, characters, and NPC’s littered throughout the game. Yes, you can walk on up to Schmee (sp?) from Captain Hook and throw thinner on him and watch him melt down to a small pool of color on the ground. It’s “technically” not killing him, but in the cartoon world, thinner is like the erasure (think Roger Rabbit and Toon World).
You’ll use the opposite of thinner (paint) to add things to the world that would otherwise be invisible. From what we could tell by watching was that these “invisible” pieces had this almost Predator look to them. You could technically still see an outline of something there, but adding paint to the world allows Mickey to traverse trees and add limbs in order to reach new areas. This definitely added depth for great puzzle solving and added a new strategy not seen in a Wii game before.
Using paint and paint thinner is monitored throughout the game. If you use a lot of paint thinner throughout the world, the cartoon characters will begin to fear Mickey up to the point that they possibly will not talk to you or help you out because of their fear of your magical paint brush. One of the cool features that we saw in our demo was how we found a collectible item and sold it to Goofy in one of the shops in the level. Goofy the shop owner was going to help us out if we found him five more of the same items. We didn’t have time in our demo to do it, plus we didn’t feel like doing it so we went to the back of the store and threw paint thinner on the wall. This allowed us to sneak inside the store and steal the same item we sold Goofy and sell it to him again four more times. These type of moments are littered throughout Epic Mickey, giving you choice, both good or bad, to do right or wrong. If you choose to do bad it really isn’t something you would want to teach your kids about stealing and reselling would you? So yeah, it’s kind of breaking away from that kid’s game motif isn’t it.
Another cool feature of the game we saw was the in-between mission 2D side scrolling levels. These hearken back to Mickey’s classic cartoon days, jumping from platform to platform to get through these levels. It’s a great throwback and should be used as a great way to introduce those new gamers to Mickey. Also it’s a nice break from the 3D paint and thinner elements I talked about earlier. We got to see the Steamboat Willie level that had been shown off before, complete with Mickey jumping on top of the steam boat, over crates, and around the boat driving cow. While we’re doing all of this, behind the scenes the next huge 3D level is being cached up for us to explore when we get there. It’s sneaky, but it’s a damn fine way to do away with loading screens on the less powerful Wii console.
From what we saw at E3 2010, Disney’s Epic Mickey looks to bring new and old gamers alike back into the magical world of Mickey Mouse. With hundreds of characters from classic cartoons making a comeback, look for all of your favorite characters strewn about the game in their very own cartoon themed worlds. Nintendo definitely had the games for the Wii console to back up the 3DS, and Disney’s Epic Mickey was definitely one of those.
This was absolutely my favorite game of E3. I want it. Now.