Did you say Mickey? Really, Mickey?

Okay, so this looks awesome. It's a new Wii game on the horizon called Epic Mickey. Yes, that Mickey.

First of all, this game looks great. Visually it has a hyper-impressionistic style with a very dark tone. Screenshots posted so far are early builds without proper lighting and they still look awesome. (That's concept art up at the top of the post and screenshots below.) This is another game that shows that you can do a lot with the Wii. Looks like Dali was very much of an inspiration of the look of the world.



Secondly, this game is being designed by Warren Spector, one of my all-time Game Design heroes. (Yes, that Warren Spector.) His breakthrough game, System Shock, was one of the best gaming experiences of my life and that was back in the mid-90's! He has also worked on the Ultima games and helped create Thief, another great series. Oh, and his company created a little phenomenon called Deus Ex, up there with Half-Life and Quake as some of best computer game series ever created.

To think about Mr. Spector making the jump to the Wii (much like I did recently) is exciting enough. But the game he's creating looks to have all the right ingredients to be one of the finest games on the system.

The story is extremely interesting. The original progenitor for Mickey, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, rules a kingdom called Cartoon Wasteland, a sort of graveyard and garbage dump of relics from Disney's past. Micky is forced into the world and has to save it from Oswald's evil reign and return home to The Clubhouse (I guess).


Those who know me know I love a good re-telling and this has some incredible potential for storytelling. The freedom to dive into Disney's long long history and find the rejects and make them into badguys sounds so inspirational. And the team seems to have taken inspiration from a lot of various theme park rides at Disney World, an extremely rich reservoir of the weird and freaky.

One of the main game components seems to be a paintbrush where you can create or destroy various items in the gameworld. That sounds very similar to the Magic Paintbrush in Okami, a classic on the Wii. Which is great! The Wii's unique gameplay mechanics lend themselves to these types of uses. Add RPG-style game dynamics and a really quirky visual style and this looks to be a winner.

Thanks to the always informative IGN for all the info.