Epic Mickey - Blowout Preview

It's fair to say that the days of cartoon shorts - between the horse racing and Songs of Praise on a Sunday afternoon for example - are now long gone. Whether it was a Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera, or Disney short, these cartoons were once used as filler by broadcasters that had either run over or short of their regular programming, resulting in impromptu sessions of classic cartoons to level out the schedule again. It was how we were first exposed to the likes of Tom & Jerry, Wile E. Coyote, and of course Mickey Mouse (we're showing our age a bit here to the younger TVG audience), so we've got to say that the disappearance of these shorts from our TV screens breaks our hearts just a little bit (and these are some cold, dead TVG hearts that we're talking about here).

This vanishing act of impromptu shorts isn't just because broadcasters have become better at scheduling. It's fair to say that the appeal of characters like Donald Duck, Marvin the Martian, and Droopy just don't hold the weight against whatever it is kids are watching these days. During the 90s, this drop in appeal resulted in rebooted cartoons based around classic characters, which ranged in quality from the mildly entertaining Goof Troop to the downright apocryphal Tom & Jerry Kids. But the lack of even these kinds of reboots on our TV screens today is a worrying sign indeed - perhaps kids are just too busy these days playing their Nintendo PlayStations and watching anime that gives them epileptic fits thanks to animation that's got more in common with a strobe light than a cartoon.

Maybe it's fitting, then, that Disney Interactive has used the medium of Nintendo's Wii to reintroduce kids to the most classic of all classic cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse (now with added 'Epic', by the way). Game industry legend, Warren Spector and his Junction Point Studios have been hand-picked by Disney to pull Mickey away from the piles of vomit at Disney Land and back into mainstream public consciousness, and what better way to do that than a game that satirises the rise and fall of cartoon characters? It's a decidedly postmodern concept actually - in literary terms at least, for its "ironic self-reference and absurdity" (that's a Merriam-Webster definition by the way) - but before we get all hoity-toity on you, we'd better flesh out some of the game's basic concepts.

Epic Mickey starts with the famous mouse sleeping calmly at home in his idealised cartoon world when the Phantom Blot (one of the game's villains) rips him from his slumber and transports Mickey to a cartoon wasteland. It's a surreal, abstract, and at times eerie game world where forgotten cartoon characters dwell in obscurity and loneliness; one of these characters being Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald was originally created by Walt Disney when he worked at Universal in the 1920s-30s and has long since vanished into obscurity, while Disney's Mickey Mouse consequently went on to become one of the most recognisable icons of the 20th century.

In fact, when Disney Interactive first came up with the concept for Epic Mickey, it didn't own the intellectual property rights for Oswald and had to prise them from Universal's possession. We can just imagine how that conversation went: "So, why do you want this cartoon character IP of ours that nobody's heard of for 80 years?" says the Universal bloke.

"Just for posterity, you know?" replies a Disney executive.

"Sure! Knock yourself out," remarks the Universal big cheese, unbeknownst to the devilish plan that Disney has in store.

But I digress. Oswald resents Mickey for his time in the spotlight while he festered in this cartoon wasteland, and is present in the game's opening scenes when the Phantom Blot pins Mickey to a dissection table and tries to cut him up with an oversized Swiss army knife-type contraption (as well as having multiple extensions such as a corkscrew, the knife also has a weird extendable eye like the one in Flight of the Navigator - we told you it was surreal). Anyway, Mickey escapes and soon realises two things: 1) that he is inadvertently responsible (at least partly) for the cartoon wasteland's existence, and 2) that he must work together with Oswald to fight the Phantom Blot. If Mickey helps Oswald, then Oswald will eventually come around to helping him (the rabbit's not so bad after all).

This world of lost cartoon characters has been crafted by a fellow called Yen Sid, which is a name that's derived from Disney's animated feature, Fantasia. Disney animators dubbed the sorcerer from Mickey's famous 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' scene "Yen Sid" (it spells Disney backwards) even though the character itself never had an onscreen name. More gaming related trivia reveals that Yen Sid actually appeared in the much loved (and probably only other good game featuring Disney characters) Kingdom Hearts II, and he'll now join an all-star cast of classic Disney characters in Epic Mickey. These will include, but are not limited to, the likes of Black Pete, The Mad Doctor, classic Disney Gremlins, and some newcomers to the stage such as robotic Bettleworx mini-bosses, and what Warren Spector is referring to as his "Popcorn" character class (i.e. minions or foot soldiers), the Spatters. You can find images of these characters embedded in this preview, in the order listed above, from the top to bottom of the article.

Interactions with these characters appear to have had enough variation applied to them to keep things interesting. For example, Mickey can either befriend the Spatter characters, distract them, or chose to erase them altogether. Similarly, these Spatters don't get on particularly well with the many bunnies that populate the game world (they're apparently the spawn of Oswald, who was probably understandably bored in the cartoon wasteland and we know what rabbits get up to when that happens). However, these bunnies then interact with the Spatters when they come into contact. Our demo showed a looped animation of the process that revealed a tiny bunny opening wide to eat the Spatter whole, which was a tad surprising.

How Mickey interacts with these characters is really the key to the gameplay. In classic Spector style, it's not so much that you can interact with these characters, as much as whether you choose to interact with them and what path you choose to take when you do. Our demonstration showed a cut-scene where Donald Duck's animatronic head (shown right) explains that the rest of his body parts have been strewn across the game world. It becomes apparent that The Mad Doctor has been fiddling with these classic Disney characters and scattering them everywhere, while Oswald has been attempting to put them back together out of loneliness. One of the choices that Mickey can eventually make is whether he wants to put Donald (and, presumably, the likes of Goofy and Pluto as well etc.) back together.

Similar choices crop up with the game's Gremlins and our demonstration presented many opportunities to save these little critters that often culminated in a reward when you did (i.e. the Gremlin leading you onto a new area of the game). In turn, these sorts of choices with the game's characters then ties into Epic Mickey's most basic of gameplay dynamics: the choice of 'Painting' or 'Thinning'. 'Painting' is used as a creative force in the game world, allowing Mickey to apply his brush to areas of a level that have been erased and restore them. An example of this would be restoring a partly erased bridge so that Mickey can move across it with ease rather than having to negotiate it with some traditional platforming skills.

The use of 'Thinner' is then seen as a damaging force, which erases the remnants of this already fading universe (thanks to the destructive forces of the Phantom Blot). While 'Thinning' certain areas of a level can uncover items that will benefit Mickey, using these powers is depicted as a selfish or mischievous act on Mickey's part that might make him more personally powerful but won't help anybody else. 'Painting' is then portrayed as helping those in need (e.g. reconstructing animatronic Donald or helping Gremlins), which in turn opens up more options and points of contact. This is what forms the dividing line between Mickey's various character arcs: 'Scrapper' Mickey will tend to use the 'Thinner' powers at his disposal, while 'Intrepid Hero' Mickey will make more use of the 'Painting' ability.

After all, this is a game that Spector himself describes as a, "Platformer meets RPG Adventure". Both elements of play were immediately evident in our first look, with the RPG elements of Mickey's character choices being juxtaposed with a range of different platforming styles that form the game's basis, from side-on level sections to free roaming areas more typical of modern platform games. Spector clearly indicated that Epic Mickey is a linear experience though - there will be no "open-world" marketing spiel bandied around this title. In terms of character choices, the paths that players decide to go down will affect Mickey's appearance as the game progresses (from a mischievous looking 'Scrapper' Mickey, to the more classic looking happy-go-lucky Mickey as the hero, or simply a mix of the two).

It's important to remember (Spector reminded us) that Mickey didn't always have the squeaky clean image (no pun intended) that we now perceive of him. You only need to look at 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' scene for a perfect example of this 'Scrappiness' that Spector and Disney are alluding to. The gameplay choices don't end here though. In another gameplay style that typifies Spector's designs, it's not only character choices that determine the sort of experience you have, but the way in which you negotiate the environment as well. We were shown a deadly spinning fan in one of the game's early sections, which Spector informed us could be negotiated a total of five different ways (one of which was freeing a Gremlin to stop it). There's even the promise that gamers will be able to sidestep boss battles if they know what they're doing (similarly to how you can complete Deus Ex without killing anyone), so there's certainly no evidence that Spector is letting up on his trademark approach.

Despite all of this choice though, Spector told us that no matter what, Mickey will ultimately end up saving the world. We asked him whether this means there won't be alternate endings:

"There will be alternate endings, but the endings... I've got to be careful what I'm going to say here.  The world will be saved and Oswald will be rebuked to some extent, but who's there with you at the end will be different and how they feel about you is going to be different, and whether you go out the conquering hero or the guy who brings civilization to the wilderness but there's no room for him anymore.

"Are you the lone hero or the beloved saviour? That's the key," Spector continued. "A lot of people get the wrong idea and think it's 'good' and 'evil'. It's not. I don't want Mickey to be evil; I want a Mickey who can go after his own goals and be really focussed on what he needs, or a Mickey who is about helpfulness, friendship and family.  The story is very much about how important our family and friends are, and even the possibility of redemption for all things, not to get too pretentious about it."

Visually, Epic Mickey looks like a very well imagined world. You don't need to take our word for it - simply check out the screens, which are entirely loyal to the demonstrations we've already seen. Everything in this universe is apparently 'Sketched', 'Painted', or 'Inert'. While we're still a little sketchy on the 'Sketched' side of things, we at least managed to get our heads around the 'Painted' and 'Inert' elements, which refer to the more traditionally cartoony areas of the game as 'Painted' and the scarier areas (e.g. the Lonesome Manor seen in Game Informer's cover art for Epic Mickey's reveal) as 'Inert'. It's all a little obscure at the moment but we're sure that more details from the house of Disney will soon arrive to gradually reveal this exciting concept.

Most importantly, Epic Mickey looks like a game that leads the player rather than a game that's led by the player. Too often in RPG adventures, character choices and plot points are painfully evident but what we've seen of Epic Mickey so far suggests that Spector is blurring the lines with subtle gameplay dynamics that typify his style.