Disney Guilty Party First Impression

Nintendo announced today at its media summit that an original IP from Disney, Disney Guilty Party, will be coming to the Nintendo Wii later this year. In this family-friendly mystery game that lets you play with up to four players, you take control of the members of the Dickens family to solve the crimes that have been set into motion by the criminal mastermind Mr. Valentine. The game features two modes, Story mode and Party mode, so when you want to take a break from tracking down the elusive criminal, you can enter Party mode, which gives you access to an unlimited number of mysteries to solve.

The setup for Guilty Party is very much like a board game--Clue comes to mind. You take turns investigating various locations, looking for clues and interrogating key witnesses. Each time you make a move, you play a brief minigame that will bring you one step closer to uncovering the truth. For example, you can use the remote to dust away the grime that is hiding a vital piece of evidence or use the pointer to have a stare-down with a witness. Once the minigame is complete, you'll be presented with a clue that is automatically stored in your notebook. The goal is to find the identity of the criminal, so you'll need to track down information regarding hair, gender, height, and size.

The prologue served as a tutorial section where we were able to learn the basic mechanics of the game. The commodore wanted us to find out who ate his pudding, so by interrogating the members of the household, we were able to determine that it was the commodore himself who was guilty. You can play alone or with up to four people and take turns to see who can gather enough clues to make an accusation. Once you do, you need the evidence to back it up, so you can't go randomly accusing everyone you run into.

We didn't get to see the Party mode, but we were told that the clues and identities of the criminals are randomized, so it's always a new mystery. Animated cutscenes are thrown in during the Story mode to bring the wacky characters to life, and the funny dialogue also does a good job of holding your attention. Look for Disney Guilty Party when it's released in the second half of this year.