E3 2010: Epic Mickey Preview by IGN.com
It's time to put on your Mouse Ears, children.
June 15, 2010

by Greg Miller


I'm no Disney fanboy, but Epic Mickey is looking… well, pretty epic. The game is pulling from more than 80 years of Mickey Mouse history, and that means even a Disney novice like myself is going to find something he or she can latch on to – like Steamboat Willie.

You've seen Steamboat Willie. This is the black and white cartoon from 1928 that was Mickey Mouse's first appearance. Epic Mickey is a third-person adventure/platformer/RPG hybrid, but to get from Point A to Point B, you need to jump into old film reels and make it though 2D environments.

When Mickey jumped into Steamboat Willie, this game became certifiably cool.

This looked exactly like the cartoon – same camera angle, same 2D-ness, same visual look, a celluloid border rolling across the top of the screen – and that was awesome. The level itself was just some easy platforming with a collectible or two placed in an out of the way spot, but the real treat was the visuals and being in that iconic space.

Still, Epic Mickey is no slouch outside of the more than 40 classic 'toons in this title. If you're hearing about this game for the first time, the idea here is that Mickey's in "the Wasteland," limbo for misfit/rejected Disney characters. Here's where you'll find the folks who didn't quite cut it or aren't in circulation anymore. There's Smee from Peter Pan, a dude named Scurvy Pat and black and white cows.

You already know about the classic cartoons, but there are two other types of areas – hub worlds and missions. Hub worlds contain various quests for you to go on. The one I was in was Adventure Land. Here, Smee's crying because pirates are being carted off to Skull Island and turned into robots (this is told through some wonderful-looking cutscenes). To stop the horrors happening across the sea, you have to assemble a few parts to get your boat up and running. A guy named Damien Salt has part of what you need, but he won't turn it over until you help him win the heart of Henrietta the black and white cow. You can buy him flowers to give to the girl, but to get those you have to get Tiki Sam to trade with you and to do that you have to find a number of tiki masks hidden around the world.

Now, leaping around the hub world and climbing into the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse is one way to get what you need, but a big component of the game is painting in and removing objects in the world. In Epic Mickey, the mouse is running around the world with a magic paintbrush. When he comes to interactable objects, he can either paint them into the world – stuff like platforms to leap to – or erase them with his paint thinner to reveal hidden items and tickets you need to collect as well as destroy enemies.

This painting/removing dynamic carries over to the missions. Once I collected all the parts of the ship, I left Adventure Land and headed to Skull Island. There, I found a bunch of enemies and seas of paint thinner that I had to carefully platform over. When enemies got in my way, I could tap the button to fire a simple shot of paint or hold it down for a constant stream of paint. Obviously the thinner will wipe bad guys out, but the paint will turn certain bad guys to Mickey's side so that they fight for you instead of against you.

There were some big monsters to fight and a few more puzzles on Skull Island, but that's the gist of Epic Mickey. It's pretty, it's fun, and it controls really well. This seems like it's going to be a tight platformer with a lot to do when it comes out this holiday season.

Preview: Disney Epic Mickey by Joystiq.com

by Mike Schramm, Jun 16th 2010


I've actually been lucky enough to see Epic Mickey twice now, once at a pre-E3 event a few weeks ago and then again this week at E3. And while my first reaction to the game was twinged with disappointment (which I'll explain in just a minute), after seeing it a second time, and talking with Warren Spector himself, I think the game will turn out to be something really special.

What changed in between then and now? Honestly, I don't think they're showing the right demo. The Epic Mickey you can see on the floor of E3 this week shows a middling-to-above-average platformer, with few simple stages and a paint/thinner mechanic that allows you to draw and erase various walls and platforms. But I am convinced anyway (perhaps wrongly, I'll admit) that there's a lot more to this game than that.

The disappointment I felt the first time I finally laid eyes on Spector's Epic Mickey came mostly from the graphics. Frankly put, they're not impressive. Textures are pixelated and blocky, and at times the game looks even older than the already limited Wii hardware it's running on. That's a disappointment -- the concept art that we thrilled at showed a game that could escape the limits of its hardware into the art of its design, and so far, that just hasn't happened. While the graphics are colorful, they're not beautiful, and in a game based on a primarily visual medium, that's a serious disappointment.

But of course, good gameplay can overcome technical limitations, and in that regard, Mickey is coming along well. The platforming is solid, the exploration is fun, and the paint/thinner mechanic already shows some complexity even in the two short levels at E3. You can use Mickey's paint and thinner to draw in walls, fill up or break evil machines, or befriend or attack enemies. You can solve puzzles by erasing doors or drawing in certain areas, and you can find and unlock secrets and collectibles by spraying paint or thinner around in the right places.

At that point, Epic Mickey is like any other above-average platformer -- it's got some good ideas, but it's not amazing. But I'm not ruling out greatness just yet. Because when you start to pull at some of the threads in the short demo we're seeing, you start to uncover more complexity and mastery woven into the fabric.

Mickey can undertake a few simple quests during the demo, and while at least one of them is a simple rote task (find five items by following platforms around), the others hint at a deeper story. In one, you're assigned to find three tiki masks for a shop keeper, but clever use of thinner means you can give him one mask, sneak into his storehouse and steal it, and return the same mask two more times, tricking him into thinking you've done your job. Another quest has you helping a pirate Romeo pick a gift for his cartoon cow, but recommending the wrong gift can make the couple even more miserable than before you got involved.

The final area has a machine in it churning out bad guys, and Mickey can either use paint to convert the machine into a good-guy creator, or fill the gears with thinner to shut it down completely. Either way is perfectly valid in terms of the game world, and while we didn't get to see any major consequences to all of these actions before the demo ended, it's hinted that Mickey isn't just choosing what's fun -- he's profoundly affecting the world he's exploring.

And finally, Spector himself lays out the story: the game takes place in the Wasteland, an island of Walt Disney's misfit toys, where lost and forlorn cartoon characters go to spend the rest of their days. Mickey, very much not a lost or forlorn character, accidentally causes trouble in this land. And when you realize that Mickey is really a stranger in this world he's exploring, the changes he's slowly enabling seem much more important. Who is he, a somebody, to meddle in these nobodies' lives? And what makes Mickey so epic compared all of Walt Disney's other creations?

I might be wrong -- the Wii certainly has its share of less-than-stellar platformers, and Spector is so invested in the license and Disney's history that he could be missing the boat on the game's quality. But I'm convinced otherwise. I think there's a lot more, in terms of the progression and story and meaning of the game, that we haven't yet seen. Right now, Epic Mickey's look and feel doesn't quite match up to the high expectations set by its concept art. But before all is said and done, the game itself just might.

Preview for Disney's Epic Mickey by 1UP.com
We check out what it's like to waggle your painting rod with Mickey.

By Thierry Nguyen, 06/15/2010


There's a lot of pomp, circumstance, and mystery surrounding Epic Mickey. Previously, we just know it as an ambitious third-person action game involving painting, choice, and the lost history of Disney animation. But it's also being made by a guy whose resume focuses more on first-person RPG (with a dash of shooter) experiences. What the hell kind of platforming game is he going to make?

Well, as it turns out, he's making a pretty standard platformer. I don't mean that in a demeaning, "after all the hullaballoo, he's making Just Another Platformer." I just mean that from my brief play experience, it so far plays like what would happen if Warren Spector made a third-person platformer -- that there are solid mechanics that you'd expect from the genre, but now there's a bit more decision making and choice in the matter.

What's a bit interesting is that even in these little quests, there's an element of choice. Disney doesn't consider Mickey's choices to be ones of good or evil -- instead, they're considered "heroic" versus "mischievous." The heroic deed is to find the item or offer a rose as a gift to Clarabelle; the mischievous deed is to bypass getting the item and simply pay with cash money, or to offer something that Clarabelle dislikes -- thus causing the in-love pirate to get depressed and give you the item anyhow.

The heroic-versus-mischievous dynamic becomes a bit more prominent when, once the ship is assembled, you actually go to the Blot-possessed hideout. There, you have two choices when dealing with the massive machine: either use paint to deactivate it and help turn the converted pirates back into their normal selves, or use thinner to overflow the machine -- which will shut it down, but also prevent the pirates from being "un-blotted."

Running around the island fortress and dealing with the blots gives some pretty elementary examples of Epic Mickey gameplay. Depending on which button you use while waving the Wii Remote around, you'll be using either paint to create objects, or thinner to erase them. Paint is useful in making platforms where there weren't any before, or for stunning enemies or even having them temporarily help you by fighting their former pals. Thinner is used to taking away obstacles in your path -- or for outright elimination of foes.

Besides using Paint and Thinner to manipulate platforming elements and foes, Mickey can also use "sketches," which are your basic one-time use items. The only sketch on display for this demo is the television, which serves as a great distraction. Plop a television down, and you can either walk away from all the enemies who are busy watching it, or you can take them out (it's worth noting that the distraction mechanic effectively makes televisions a tool for stealth-centric players).

There's still a lot to see. Spector refuses to discuss what actually happens when Mickey becomes either a Hero or a Scrapper (the formal term for being overly mischievous). We haven't seen any worlds besides this isolated pirate town and occupied lair. We haven't even seen any boss encounters -- even those will have choices and non-violent resolutions (Spector comments that, "everybody has a want, and if you fulfill that want, you might not need to fight them"). Though, even with my brief (about 10 minutes) playthrough, it's safe to say that Epic Mickey looks like a pretty solid platformer (which is nice, coming from a team that hasn't really made platformers before) with some intriguing hooks that I want to see more of later.

E3 2010: Preview of Disney Epic Mickey by G4TV

by G4TV Staff, 6/16/10




What We Already Know:

When legendary game designer, Warren Spector, sets his sights on creating a video game with the world’s most famous cartoon character on the blockbuster Nintendo Wii, it’s bound to attract some attention. Yep, Mickey Mouse is Wii-bound with his breakthrough title, Epic Mickey, and what we know is very little. Epic Mickey is a platformer with some lite RPG elements, and the core gameplay revolves around painting or thinning the environment. Erase enemies from existence or paint in platforms to reach higher ground, but keep in mind that the player’s actions will play into a morality system as part of the game.

What We’re Seeing Now:

From levels inspired by theme parks to over 40 2D storyboard-style cutscenes starring famous Disney characters, respecting the heritage of Mickey Mouse is always top of mind for developer Junction Point Studios. In our first hands-on time with Epic Mickey, we were presented with three separate levels: a hub zone based on Adventureland, a 2D platforming Steamboat Willie-inspired sequence, and a finale upon Skull Island. The Adventureland hub serves as a transition zone, a place to purchase health upgrades or other powerups, as well as a path to other levels. The hub itself is dull and drab, full of neutral colors that the player is charged with restoring or erasing.

Controlling Mickey is easy enough; the nunchuk handles movement while the Wiimote aims and shoots either paint or thinner. Paint creates environmental elements, such as platforms when trying to climb up to a treehouse, while thinner can remove those platforms or hollow out mountains to locate secrets. Waggling the Wiimote causes Mickey to spin, which is used to break objects or jiggle jars to uncover e-Tickets, the currency within Epic Mickey.

Naturally, the shooting mechanic is also used in combat, where spraying paint on enemies transforms them into allies, while thinning them wipes them out of existence. These actions go hand-in-hand with the morality system in place within Epic Mickey; if you thin the world, you start to head more down the darker path for Mickey. While the full aspects of morality are still unclear, one consequence revolves around the Guardian that accompanies you. A hero Mickey who paints the world will be tailed by a Tint, which will automatically seek out and "friend" an enemy, while the more mischievous Mickey will find his Guardian is a Turp, as in turpentine, which will thin incoming baddies.

As part of our quest in Adventureland, we need to locate three items to move onto Skull Island. One item in particular is with a pirate who wants to know what this girl he has a crush on really likes: ice cream or flowers. She tells us she is lactose intolerant, so ice cream isn’t a good idea, but when presented with a choice, we end up giving it to her anyway. The payback? We now have to buy the item off him, and he doesn’t leave his post, denying us an opportunity to raid a treasure chest he was guarding as well. Not sure what the upside there was, but yes, you can be a naughty Mickey.

Finishing the quest opens up access to Skull Island via a playable side-scrolling sequence set in the world of Steamboat Willie. Skull Island is more of a traditional level with environmental obstacles (a sea full of thinner) and enemies like Sweepers from Fantasia which fling ranged use ranged thinner attacks on you. It’s here where you can deploy props that you’ll discover, like a TV sketch which drops a TV set into the environment, drawing in and hypnotizing enemies. More sketches are to be revealed in the future along with environments inside the game.

Epic Mickey is poised to be the ultimate video game for Disney fans everywhere, so keep your Mickey ears open for more info as we approach its September "Its coming during the holidays" release for the Nintendo Wii.