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Nintendo: Wii Previews

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Preview

Epic Mickey

Format: Nintendo Wii

Developer: Junction Studios

Publisher: Disney Interactive

Genre: Unknown

2-Jan-2010 Can Mickey give Mario a run for his money?

43 Comments

The famous story goes that during the 1990s, Mario was more recognisable to American children than Mickey Mouse. At the time, it was considered a shocking little factoid. Right now, it's no surprise at all.

Times have changed. Once the most famous character on the planet, Mickey hasn't been the star of a successful movie, videogame or TV series for a long, long time. Instead, he's been subjected to starring in utterly anonymous straight-to-video features and giving his name to variety shows that have spawned far bigger stars - the likes of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. With the likes of Hannah Montana and The Jonas Brothers currently hogging the limelight at the House of Mouse, ol' Mickey has taken something of a back seat.

But no more, says Junction Point boss and legendary game developer Warren Spector. As you'll see over the next few pages, he's supremely confident that Epic Mickey will reverse the much-loved mouse's waning fortunes and make him a global superstar once more.

Learning From The Best
It's a mammoth task. But it's one that Spector is approaching with great enthusiasm, taking his experience in working on ground-breaking games like Deus Ex and mixing it with elements from two of gaming's greatest series - the Mario and Zelda games.

"My very favourite games to play have always been Nintendo games," he tells ONM. "I'm a Zelda freak. I'm not really a blank slate kind of designer. I don't look at a blank screen and think 'what brand new thing can I do that no-one's even thought about before?'."

Talking A Good Game
"I enter it kind of out of frustration from the games I'm playing and a desire to take things that don't belong together and mash them together to see what happens. Much of what's driven this project is that as much as I'm enjoying the Zelda and Mario games, from a design standpoint they really haven't moved very far in the last 20 years. They're much prettier now, and that's kind of it. The other games that were most inspirational - and they're not Nintendo games unfortunately - are the Ratchet & Clank games. They really float my boat. They're interesting combinations of story, exploration, action, platforming and all that kind of stuff.

"So I started thinking 'what would happen if I took the exploration and tool use of a Zelda game, and the platforming of a Mario game and brought in some of the character customisation and story and role playing elements of, say, a Deus Ex, and mashed them all together?"

Epic Mickey is hopefully the answer. Following in the footsteps of legendary series' like Mario and Zelda is all well and good, but it hardly sounds ground-breaking. What's perhaps most interesting about Spector's pet project is how he describes the use of Mickey's paintbrush to change the game world, and the wide range of gameplay choices which stem from that.

So, that paintbrush... it sounds a bit like Okami to us. "Okami is an obvious one to look at, and there are other influences, but fundamentally I wanted to do something different," argues Spector. "In Okami they stopped the game for their painting stuff, and I don't want to do that. There's only so far you can take the Okami comparison. With the painting mechanic, I wanted to keep that as part of the action, not separate. I want players thinking about modifying their environment dynamically in real time."

In action, the paintbrush is a really impressive feature. Almost everything on screen can be manipulated by either using paint or thinner. So in a way every stage exists in the space between these two states - thinned-out and painted in. From what we've seen so far, for example, certain platforms wouldn't move into action until you painted them in. The same platform could also be thinned out to make it disappear entirely, or reveal something hidden underneath. But there's much more to it than just painting in or thinning out scenery, says Spector. You can add on top of that a strong character interaction element which offers up further gameplay alternatives and twists.

"There will be an action-adventure feel to this game, but depending on how you choose to interact with the world and the characters, as well as how you choose to solve the game's problems, you really can make it feel more like Mario than Zelda. Or you can play it in a way that it'll feel more like Zelda than Mario. What per cent of your game has exploration or what per cent has puzzle solving or platforming? I can't answer questions like that. I want it to be up to the player."

A Real Genre Bender
So in the broadest possible terms, Epic Mickey is a free-form, platform/adventure/role playing game. But we're struggling with how it'll keep players interested without a defined structure or story. Spector explains: "In terms of what missions everyone does and problems we ask the player to solve, that is going to be pretty linear. The thing that isn't linear is how you go about solving those problems."

So enough about the ideas behind the game - what do you actually do in the first hour of the game? "Well, a lot of it is up to the player," offers Spector, predictably. "So in the first hour, your goal is going to be to find a particular character somewhere in this world. You can seek out other characters that can help you find the character you're looking for, or you can rescue characters in need that will then help you, or you can bully your way through and try and do it all on your own."

It can't be that open to player choice, surely? Spector stands his ground. "I mean, forget about the first hour - in the first room, there are two completely optional little side quests, and if you ignore them there's a character who won't be very happy with you. They will give you less help or even no help depending on how you react to him after that. There are also other characters whose responses will change based on whether you help his friends out or not."

It's certainly an ambitious approach. Giving players the level of freedom that Spector is talking about sounds near-impossible, but if you look back at his career he's done it before, most notably in what some regard the best PC game ever made, Deus Ex. But we're not in an amoral dystopian future here. This is a Disney production. We won't be able to mould Mickey into a heartless murderer - that just wouldn't be right, says Spector.

"The idea of choice isn't really how bad you can make Mickey, because he's always going to be a hero. It's all about whether you choose to be a very powerful loner hero, like the heroes of old western films, or the guy who comes in and solves problems, or you're the guy that helps and is friendly and ends up with lots of friends and you choose to progress that way."

Another, more immediate way in which Epic Mickey breaks the mould is in the game's looks and atmosphere. Mickey's adventure takes place away from the cosy, brightly coloured cartoon world we're used to with Disney and, frankly, places our iconic hero in a world that's much, much more interesting.

Half The World Away
The game begins with a very impressive six minute CGI scene-setter, which shows Mickey getting sucked into this gloomy world and introduces the villain of the piece, forgotten character Oswald The Rabbit. He's none too pleased about Mickey's success, and he's a character which must be won over if Mickey is going to restore The Wasteland to the happy-clappy Disney world we're more accustomed to.

As you can see from the artwork, there are plenty of other cameos too, from other famous and not-so-famous Disney characters. But the overall aim for the project is that who your friends are by the end of the game and what that means for The Wasteland will be different for everyone.

"I want every player to get to the end of the game and describe an experience that is unique. The arc of the story belongs to me and I think we're going to tell a great story, but how you get to the end of that story, who's there with you and who likes you and who doesn't, that's all up to you."

It's clear by now that Spector's a convincing evangelist for his game, and he's not shy about his ambitions for Epic Mickey either. "We want to make the best game in the world and that's our goal. The opportunity to mess around with one of the most recognisable icons on the planet doesn't come along every day, so you gotta embrace and honour it."

Lucky for Spector, then, that bold claims like these don't appear to be too foolhardy. Right now, Epic Mickey is among the most ambitious and intriguing new games being developed for the Wii, and that includes Nintendo's own first class output. It is also, Spector confirms, the happy recipient of massive financial backing. "This is by far the biggest budgeted game that I've ever worked on," he adds. And while of course chucking money at a game doesn't make it an instant classic, it is clear that Disney isn't taking the reinvention of its most famous son lightly.

The stars are aligning for Spector. He's been given the dream ticket if you're a game developer - a well-loved universe, an iconic hero and a Scrooge McDuck-style pile of cash. But what really shines is the raw ambition that is driving this game's creation. Mickey doesn't just want his cartoon crown back, he wants the adoration of a whole new generation of gamers. It's an epic task.

Neil Long