Disney gets awesome: Epic Mickey

Mecha goofy

Just quoting the highlight of the article:

This is being developed by Junction Point, a new studio headed by Warren Spector. Everyone here is probably nerdy enough to know who he is, but just in case, he's the brains behind Deus Ex, Thief, Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex, and Deus Ex.

Far and away the Wii's biggest and most potentially awesome third-party exclusive.

Yeah I'm anticipating. In Europe the Mickey Mouse comics are almost as popular as the cartoons, so th Phantom Blot is no stranger to me! I walk by a stencil drawing of the dude on my way to uni.

The concept for this is awesome. I hope the execution of the idea works out well. Some of that concept art is amazing. I especially like the creepy robo-spider Mickey Mouse thing.

And a year later, the verdict is... not so much. I finished this the other day, and it feels like Warren Spector checked out and wished everyone luck after brainstorming the concept and the paint/thinner consequences. I've never seen a game with so much thought and care put into some aspects while making so many fundamental mistakes in others.

The camera is a hot mess. Like, 1997 platformer bad. Combat (not that there's much of it) is terrible. The actual controls for using the paint and thinner are unwieldy. But most unforgivably of all, the game is often just tedious and boring. Most of the objectives are literally fetch quests, padded out with lots and lots of repetitive travelling. And the games general design philosophy seems to be, "why do something once when you can do it seven times?" It's a fifteen-hour game, half of which is basically "rinse, repeat".

The game gets two things right--first (and here is Spector's hand) the "moral choices" between using paint or thinner are relatively complex and are more along the lines of "creative/destructive" rather than good/evil. Although using thinner is certainly the "meaner" solution. Depending on what you decide to do, you can skip boss fights entirely, etc. You could probably have two significantly different game experiences based on what you do, it's difficult to tell what all the consequences are of your choices.

The second is that the concept is an amazing use of the Disney license. It might be the best idea for a license ever. The cutscenes are beautifully animated, the (unvoiced) dialog is actually amusing, there are probably a metric shit-ton of references and Disney easter eggs, and the story even effectively plucks a few heartstrings. I love Oswald The Lucky Rabbit as they've re-introduced him here; I actually hope Disney makes further use of him from here on out. There is so much love and reverence for all things Disney that I couldn't bring myself to completely tear it apart after such a heartfelt ending.

I can't completely dismiss it, especially if you're a Disney fan, and if it does well enough maybe the mechanics in a sequel will be vastly improved. I don't think Spector has "lost it", but Junction Point needs some major lessons in functional game design.

Sounds like Brutal Legend all over again: awesome concept from industry icon, but bad gameplay.

When I started seeing all those videos the first thing I thought was why this is in the effin' Wii? It would have looked glorious on the Xbox and PS3. And also it made me wish Pixar would make a Mickey movie...

Visuals aren't the problem. It looks great on the Wii, although the art design is often too dark. (Not thematically, I mean literally dark. Too many places where it's hard to see where you're jumping.) But it's one of the best-looking games on the Wii by a fair margin, probably just short of the Mario Galaxy games.

Being on an HD system would not solve any of the game's problems.

I'm guessing this is going to come to the PS3 on move. I can't imagine why it wouldn't, other than Nintendo paying to keep it exclusive, but thats a tactic employed usually by MS or Sony. When and if that does happen, hopefully they fix the problems.

Is Warren involved with that new Deus Ex game?

Spector has no association with the current Deus Ex team, aside from his "created by" credit.