David Houghton is one of my favorite videomgame journalists; he's got an great analytical eye, and he knows how to express his excitement without coming off as insincere. It figures that he would be the one to make me interested in Epic Mickey.
Honestly, up until now the game was getting on my nerves. Making stuff "dark" just to try to keep up with the tastes of "mature" gamers is one of my big pet-peeves. Worse, making a game based on classic 2D cartoons with low-res, 3D character models is a big no-no in my book. I mean, they could have at least cel-shaded the thing, right? Even relatively low budget Wii games like de Blob look more like a Disney cartoon that Epic Mickey does.
Or at least, that's what I thought. Combine Houghton's knowledge-fueled enthusiasm and many new details about the game (the 2D platforming levels, its student game developer origins) and I'm inching back towards the hype train.
Video of the game in action really sealed the deal. So far, Epic Mickey actually looks like a classic Disney cartoon in videogame form, and by "classic" I mean 1940's era stuff, not the uninspired, sequel-itis crap the company's been putting out lately.
So am I alone on this, or do you too have some hope for Epic Mickey?
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I love Warren Spector as much as any heterosexual man can, but this is just a mildly interesting demo of animation tech. The real problem is that Mickey has been a cultural irrelevance for such a long time - he's the cartoon equivalent of Paris Hilton. He's effectively famous for well, being famous. Most of my gen, or my kid's gen won't know what the heck he ever stood for or why he was ever popular - a game like this is unlikley to ever do more than provide some kind of obscure fan service (see Kingdom Hearts)
I lost all hope when the game looked nothing like the concept art. If they could have recreated that dark and dreary I would have been hyped and ready to buy, but the screenshots had none of that same artistic flare to them. Complete failure of execution.
The ANIMATION! That looks ridiculously good. I hope that being on the Wii was a right decision. not graphically (cause what they showed there looked amazingly like a classic cartoon in 2D) but demographically. I want it to sell well.
but moral system is a bit meh, no game has really gotten it right yet and looks like this game will be the same ULTIMATE GOOD or ULTIMATE EVIL style (a.k.a. not at all realistic and worth it considering all you have is two endings). The only game that has really gotten a 'choice' system right (from what I have played, e.g. Bioshock, Fallout 3, and more) is Chrono Trigger (which is just an amazing system, when you think you making meaningless actions you are actually changing the game, even though it is static a bit, e.g. I plead guilty in the court to ALL charges, so in that way it is a bit of a 'did you do bad, yes or no?' type of game but at the same time it makes you choice actually MEAN lots to a game)... not even current day MMORPGs do choice correctly/at all (and you'd think a genre that is based on people playing together would have that down, e.g. new WoW xpack, community doesn't choose to see the world destroyed like they chose the timing/resources of AQ back in the day, or like how UO was affected by community).
anyway, so ends my rant on player choice systems and how bad 99.9% of them are
The animation tests look great. Hopefully they'll be able to incorporate that in to the actual game play seamlessly. Is it me, or does he look cell shaded in those though?
Where did you here that there would be 2D platforming levels?
More importantly, do you editors know anything about how gameplay works? Can you give me a concrete example of the paint brush in action?
The fact that I have no idea what Epic Mickey is like is making it hard for me to become excited, as my experience shows that a lack of coverage of the content usually equals a lack of worthwhile content. Anything that can show me that I will have fun playing this game would be helpful (unfortunately, concept art, screen shots, and examples of Mickey's animations don't tell me if the game is fun. information concerning the genre, the mechanics, and in-game footage is the only thing that can cut it).
I've had high hopes for this game since it was announced, and this video confirmed at least some of them. Even though it's only the one character model, it looks amazing in motion.
Maybe it's because I've read all the interviews and watched all the video's Game Informer put up this month, or maybe it's the fact I'm an animation student and I've read a bunch of books on animation and it's history, but I've got full faith in this project. I'm kinda surprised that you of all people Jonathan were so skeptical, I saw this headline on my RSS feed and assumed it was from Jim or Brad.
@ Arash: "a game like this is unlikely to ever do more than provide some kind of obscure fan service (see Kingdom Hearts)"
I'm confused. Is your comparison to Kingdom Hearts a bad thing or a good thing? I seem to recall Kingdom Hearts being a good game, even WITH the Disney characters.
Skepticism is a good thing. Full faith in a project led me to buying GTA IV, and frankly I wouldn't have bought it if I knew I would grow bored of it before completing it.
No more faith in a franchise, a developer, or concept art. I want to know what Epic Mickey is, and what I've heard so far is a jumble of confusing, deliberately ambiguous messages that make it impossible to tell if Epic Mickey is a Drawn to Life clone or an Okami clone.
Right now I'm inclined to believe it's lisenced shovelware because the sceen shots, the only available presentation of in-game art, look very primitive. And when a 3rd party wii game ignores the last five years of graphical upgrades, my experience has been the controls tend to match the quality of the graphics. I can't understand how anyone can be excited for a project without any evidence of quality.
If they fix the "Let's shove every color in the rainbow on the screen at once, no matter how ugly it looks!" mentality shown in the screenshots, I might be interested again. As it is now, it looks like crap visually.
Wow, that animation looks incredible! I've actually been hyped since first reading about this in Game Informer, but this article further built my hype!
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Contest:
3:30 AM on 10.30.2009
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but moral system is a bit meh, no game has really gotten it right yet and looks like this game will be the same ULTIMATE GOOD or ULTIMATE EVIL style (a.k.a. not at all realistic and worth it considering all you have is two endings). The only game that has really gotten a 'choice' system right (from what I have played, e.g. Bioshock, Fallout 3, and more) is Chrono Trigger (which is just an amazing system, when you think you making meaningless actions you are actually changing the game, even though it is static a bit, e.g. I plead guilty in the court to ALL charges, so in that way it is a bit of a 'did you do bad, yes or no?' type of game but at the same time it makes you choice actually MEAN lots to a game)... not even current day MMORPGs do choice correctly/at all (and you'd think a genre that is based on people playing together would have that down, e.g. new WoW xpack, community doesn't choose to see the world destroyed like they chose the timing/resources of AQ back in the day, or like how UO was affected by community).
anyway, so ends my rant on player choice systems and how bad 99.9% of them are
More importantly, do you editors know anything about how gameplay works? Can you give me a concrete example of the paint brush in action?
The fact that I have no idea what Epic Mickey is like is making it hard for me to become excited, as my experience shows that a lack of coverage of the content usually equals a lack of worthwhile content. Anything that can show me that I will have fun playing this game would be helpful (unfortunately, concept art, screen shots, and examples of Mickey's animations don't tell me if the game is fun. information concerning the genre, the mechanics, and in-game footage is the only thing that can cut it).
WHA?! Morality in my Disneys?! I'm interested.
Also, seeing the videos has effectively counteracted those amateur-shiny models from the Game Informer spread.
I'm confused. Is your comparison to Kingdom Hearts a bad thing or a good thing? I seem to recall Kingdom Hearts being a good game, even WITH the Disney characters.
Skepticism is a good thing. Full faith in a project led me to buying GTA IV, and frankly I wouldn't have bought it if I knew I would grow bored of it before completing it.
No more faith in a franchise, a developer, or concept art. I want to know what Epic Mickey is, and what I've heard so far is a jumble of confusing, deliberately ambiguous messages that make it impossible to tell if Epic Mickey is a Drawn to Life clone or an Okami clone.
Right now I'm inclined to believe it's lisenced shovelware because the sceen shots, the only available presentation of in-game art, look very primitive. And when a 3rd party wii game ignores the last five years of graphical upgrades, my experience has been the controls tend to match the quality of the graphics. I can't understand how anyone can be excited for a project without any evidence of quality.