http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/disney-closes-epic-mickey-creator-junction-point-studios/

Well, there goes any chance of any more Epic Mickey games, ever. Or any more appearances of Oswald. What a shame. Still, with a game as unplayable as EM2, you can't really blame Disney. Still, it's disappointing that we'll never get to see Warren Spector's true vision realised (and never find out what the Petes are up to.) I'm going to create a topic on this, too, to spread the word.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/disney-closes-epic-mickey-creator-junction-point-studios/

Well, there goes any chance of any more Epic Mickey games, ever. Or any more appearances of Oswald. What a shame. Still, with a game as unplayable as EM2, you can't really blame Disney. Still, it's disappointing that we'll never get to see Warren Spector's true vision realised (and never find out what the Petes are up to.) I'm going to create a topic on this, too, to spread the word.

Something odd that I found a while back: on Wikipedia, I found a fairly recent revision of the EM2 article, which provided a very different plotline for the game. I'll copy it here:

The game is set some time after the original Epic Mickey. The Mad Doctor, whom Mickey defeated in the first game, mysteriously returns to the Wasteland, despite having been supposedly blown up in the first game. He claims to have realized the error of his ways, and offers to work with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit and the other residents of Wasteland to repair the damage recently caused by earthquakes in order to make amends.[3]

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Oswald agrees. However, not long after accepting the Mad Doctor's help, Wasteland begins to suffer even more damage than before. Becoming suspicious that the Mad Doctor is not keeping his side of the bargain, Gus the Gremlin, Oswald's friend and advisor, and Ortensia, Oswald's girlfriend/wife, decide to contact Mickey Mouse, who saved the Wasteland in the first game, to ask for his help. They do so, and Mickey, climbing through the same mirror that he ventured through in the first game, retrieves his magical paint-and-thinner-spraying paintbrush from Yen Sid's workshop, after having it confiscated at the end of Epic Mickey. With Gus's help, Mickey returns to the Wasteland to assist in uncovering the truth behind the Mad Doctor's supposed reformation, teaming up with Oswald along the way.

The two later discover that the Mad Doctor has been using his offer of help to lure Mickey back into the Wasteland. As Mickey and Oswald confront him in Dark Beauty Castle, the Mad Doctor reveals his plan - to extract the essence of the Phantom Blot that Mickey soaked up upon being transported to Wasteland in Epic Mickey to resurrect the Blot. The Mad Doctor does so, and also removes Mickey's Heart and uses its cartoon energy to restore power to the Blot. The earthquakes under Mean Street were caused by the Mad Doctor's machines at work underground. The Blot reawakens, and, bursting through Mean Street, begins laying waste to the land. Realizing their mistake, Oswald and Mickey decide to make the ultimate sacrifice - destroy Mickey's Heart, and the Blot with it.

The pair take the Moonliner Rocket from Tomorrow City, and, with Ortensia and Gus's help, neutralize Mickey's heart by overloading it with Thinner, thus eradicating the Blot and the Mad Doctor (who had been controlling the reborn Blot from the inside) in the explosion.

Dejected, Mickey comes to terms with the fact that he is now trapped in Wasteland. He heads to the peak of Mickeyjunk Mountain, where Yen Sid, the wizard and creator of Wasteland, touched that he made such a valiant sacrifice to save his friends, grants both him and Oswald a Heart, thus making them true brothers. The game ends with Mickey returning to the cartoon world, knowing that he can return to Wasteland at any time, and that Oswald can now leave if he wishes to. Mickey asks Oswald if he would like to come with him, but Oswald decides to stay, stating that the Wasteland is his home, and that he doesn't want to leave Ortensia behind again. Mickey returns home as all the Wasteland residents bid him farewell.

After the credits, a clip plays detailing the Wasteland's fate depending on how the player played through the game. The clip changes according to the choices that Mickey made throughout the adventure.

The link is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epic_Mickey_2:_The_Power_of_Two&oldid=503133756

What do you think? What's interesting is that not long after this was posted, it was taken down following a complaint from Junction Point (the makers) hinting that this may have been the original plotline that was leaked to this guy, and Disney, not wanting their cheating uncovered, had it removed. They then released the shortened game.

What's your opinion? It wouldn't be there for no reason.

Also, just for fun, a much more recent revision, which actually makes the plot we have make some sense, here:

The game's story is set some time after the original Epic Mickey. On a peaceful day in Wasteland, the world of forgotten and rejected Disney characters, a large earthquake rips the main residential area, Mean Street, apart. As Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Gus the Gremlin attempt to fix up the damages, the Mad Doctor, secondary villain of the first game, surfaces, despite supposedly having been blown up some time ago. He claims to have mended his ways, and that he knows who is responsible for the quake. He offers to work with the forgotten Toons to make amends. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Oswald agrees. However, Ortensia, Oswald's wife, remains suspicious of the Mad Doctor, and has Gus construct a device to send a signal to Mickey Mouse to ask for his help. In the land of current, beloved Toons, Mickey awakens to see an image of Gus in his television. He jumps into it, and it transports him to Yen Sid's Lab. There, he retrieves his magical paint-and-thinner spraying paintbrush, after having it confiscated at the end of the first game. He restores the portal to Wasteland and jumps in, crash-landing in Dark Beauty Castle, where he is greeted by Oswald, Gus and Ortensia. Oswald mentions that the Mad Doctor came to warn them of the Blotworx, a strange half-Beetleworx, half-Blotling species that is on its way to attack Wasteland. Before they can talk further, however, another mysterious earthquake tears the castle to pieces, and the group manages to escape on a train, which takes them to Mean Street.

There, they meet the Mad Doctor, who explains his intentions in song: he will create a new batch of reprogrammed Beetleworx to help with the repairs. He flies off, but Mickey remains suspicious. The group make their way to the other side of the now-decrepit Mean Street through the sewage system, where they meet up with Gremlin Jamface, only to find the projector they intended to take to OsTown broken, along with all the other projector screens. Jamface tells them that the Substation in Rainbow Caverns, which powers the projectors, went down before the quake happened, pointing to the possibility of sabotage. Instead, the pair use the Dahl Engineering Corridors, or D.E.C.s, large underground tunnels made of junk, to reach OsTown, where they run into Gremlin Prescott, who appears to have undergone a significant personality change - he now seems bitter and sarcastic. Mickey and Oswald fix up OsTown and hop into the Rainbow Caverns D.E.C., leaving Prescott to what he calls his 'projects'. In the Caverns, the pair meet Small Pete, who tells them how to fix the Substation, which they do, after receiving a transmission from the Mad Doctor, telling them to come to Disney Gulch. After finding their way out of the Caverns, the group make their way through Disney Gulch, a vast expanse of sand, to the Mad Doctor's lab. There, they are confronted by one of the Mad Doctor's age-old defenses, the Blotworx Dragon. Mickey and Oswald defeat the monster, and come to find the Mad Doctor, whose robotic parts have begun to fall apart. He sings a song about his wish to become a Toon once more, and they all return to Mean Street, where the projectors have returned to normal. Small Pete, however, hails them and shows them a pair of gag teeth he found wedged into the Substation. This evidence points towards Gremlin Prescott being the saboteur, and Gus mentions hearing of Prescott heading to Blot Alley, an area within Bog Easy.

The group head to Bog Easy, only to have an army of Beetleworx turn against them. They receive another message from the Mad Doctor: his Beetleworx have been hacked. Oswald suspects Prescott once more, and the group navigate Bog Easy's thinner pools to reach Blot Alley, where Ghost Ian, the caretaker, welcomes them and tells them that Prescott headed to Club 13, an exclusive, members-only nightclub that he frequents. However, when Mickey and Oswald reach Club 13, Petetronic, the bouncer, tells them that Prescott headed to Fort Wasteland in the Gulch. Immediately, they are once again attacked by rogue Blotworx, which they manage to quickly dispatch. During a brief stop at the Train Tunnel Dioramas, an underground reconstruction of the events of the first game, Abe, the robotic voiceover man, tells them that Prescott left in an attempt to 'go somewhere where he'd be appreciated'. Mickey and Oswald soon find themselves at Fort Wasteland, where they follow Prescott's tracks with the help of Ghost Ian. After a sudden Blotling attack, they finally reach the Floatyard, where they find Prescott working on several suspicious devices. He flees, and the group give chase through the floats, eventually reaching a large arena, where Prescott tells all - he began to feel that the Wastelanders were not appreciating his talents, and to prove them wrong he created a large, robotic replica of his own head. After admitting to sabotaging the projectors, Prescott uses Mickey and Oswald as test subjects for his new creation, attempting to kill them. The pair eventually destroy his device, and Gus comforts Prescott. He admits that there was more to his plan, but before he can reveal any more secrets, Animatronic Daisy, Big Bad Pete and the Mad Doctor arrive. One of the Doctor's Beetleworx sends Prescott into a brainwashed state, which goes apparently unnoticed by the group, and he sings a song about how it was he that caused the earthquakes. Accepting this as fact, Daisy interviews the Mad Doctor, who announces that he intends to build an elaborate attraction on Mean Street to boost morale. Big Bad Pete arrests Prescott.

The group return to Mean Street, where they check on Prescott in jail, who has begun to speak gibberish. Concerned, Gus reveals a map of Ventureland he found in Prescott's office in OsTown's Gag Factory. It reveals the location of a secret construction site in the Jungle Cruise area, which appears to be a 'cover-up for something secret'. The group head to Ventureland, and, after getting past Mr. Smee and Pete Pan, find the hidden 'construction site' that in fact turns out to be an elaborate prop intended to disguise the location of a hidden Projector Screen. On further inspection, Gus notes that it is not connected to the main Wasteland network, and the trio decide to investigate. Entering the projector, they arrive in Autotopia, an area dismissed as lost to the Thinner seas, and as such had not been explored for years. Oswald is startled to see large machines extracting Guardians, ancient spirits which have the power to make an object Toon or inert, from the ground. He demolishes them, and the earthquakes instantly stop. A strange projector appears, which takes Mickey and Oswald through the 'Wonderful World of Evil', a pilot for what seems to be a cartoon of the Mad Doctor's own creation. This takes them to the supposedly abandoned attic of the Mad Doctor in Lonesome Manor, where they are surprised to find several machines still at work, large props for what appears to be a TV show, a replica of the device Gus built to contact Mickey, and a trapped Gremlin Jamface. They free Jamface, who opens a hidden vault in the back of the attic, in which he finds the Mad Doctor's personal diary. Upon reading it, the truth is revealed: the Mad Doctor used his offer of goodwill to lure Wasteland into a false sense of security. He tricked Gremlin Prescott into turning his back on Wasteland and building a large television device, which the Mad Doctor then stole and used to broadcast a TV show, 'Wonderful World of Evil', to the Cartoon World. This new-found fame would have allowed him to leave Wasteland, but he hit a flaw - his Toon parts were interfering with his animatronics, rendering him unable to go anywhere. To rectify this, he set up the Guardian siphons in Autotopia, then pretended to have reformed to gain their trust and have them turn him back into a Toon.

While Oswald is recovering from these revelations, Gus discovers another projector leading back to Mean Street. The group travel through it and are stunned to find Mean Street completely destroyed and turned into a twisted 'attraction' of the Mad Doctor's own creation. The Doctor himself appears and demands the Brush from Mickey to take into the Cartoon World, and use it to become the greatest Disney villain of all time. He warns that if Mickey refuses, he will render Ortensia and the other Toons, who he has held captive, inert. Despite this, Mickey stands his ground, and the trio enter a fierce battle for the Brush against the Mad Doctor. In the end, his machine is destroyed, and all of his Toon parts are removed. Barely alive, Oswald saves his life by having the Guardians restore him to full Toon form, saying in song that 'that's what heroes do". The Mad Doctor is then redeemed and proceeds to, truthfully, help restore Wasteland to its former glory. As this is happening, Mickey looks out over a fireworks display over Dark Beauty Castle, and Yen Sid tells him that while he and Oswald may not know what is to come, together they will be able to conquer it all.

Following the credits, Big Bad Pete snatches Gremlin Prescott and stuffs him into the Ventureland projector. He looks out over the cheering Toons celebrating the Mad Doctor's redemption, before saying "they won't know what hit 'em" and following Prescott, alluding to the next game in the series.

So, everyone, what do you think overall?

I'm standing my ground.

Here's a complete list of subplots that are introduced, then dropped. Can anyone help me out with these, or did the game designers just get lazy?:

1. The earthquakes. It's never made abundantly clear what caused them. They're the main focus of the story. What?

2. The Mad Doctor's 'reformation'. Why did he pretend to be good first? Why not just go all-out evil on them?

3. The Blotworx. The Mad Doctor really bigs them up, and they're portrayed as this 'army'. Where did they come from? What happened to them after the ending? Or are they just there as an excuse for a new enemy?

4. The Mad Doctor 'falling apart'. What's all that about, again?

5. The projectors. We're basically told that Prescott broke them, but we're never told why. Why?

6. All the business about the construction site. Daisy says that it's 'full of secrets', but all I found was a projector. What?

7. The Guardians. They just suddenly, randomly gain a major role towards the end, and there's no buildup to it. But then, of course, the game never really elaborates on their role.

8. Prescott in general. Just a few:

- We're never told what that weird thingy is that he's seen holding in OsTown when we first see him. He throws it away when the gang enters, so it looks important. But, no mention made.

-The projector situation, obviously.

-We're never told explicitly why he went bad. He just suddenly starts saying 'oh, you don't get how clever I am, so I'm going to kill you now.'

-His relationship with the Mad Doctor is never built upon. Ever.

-It says later on that he 'built a TV' for the Mad Doctor. When? We spend half the game chasing him, during which he'd have little chance to build anything.

-The whole hypnosis deal during Cutscene 7 (after the Prescott boss). What's all that about?

-When he starts talking random gibberish in jail. We're never told why.

-The 'secret project' in Ventureland. We see the site, but we're never told what it was.

- And he basically just disappears from the story towards the end. That's confusing.

9. Introducing the 'Mad Doctor TV Show' as a plot point right before the final boss. It's never hinted at. Once. Comes out of nowhere. Seems like a rush-job to get the game out for release.

10. The Mad Doctor's Ride. Never built upon. It just suddenly appears. Seems like it was made up just to be the last boss.

11. The 'World of Evil' level towards the end. I can sum this up easily: WHAT. THE. HECK. IS. THAT? It's THE most random level ever. And why does he say things like'after the break' and 'welcome, boys and girls'?And why is there a giant cardboard cutout of him?This level makes no sense! And what's worse: NO CHARACTER EVER MENTIONS IT AGAIN. EVER. NOT EVEN THE MAD DOCTOR.Explanation please, before my sanity dies out?

Any help with any of these would be appreciated.

http://games.xlnt.info/wii_previews.php

I'll keep it short. Go to the link. Scroll down to the picture of Oswald shocking the tiki mask. Read the text above and below it. The article says, and I quote:

"Half-jokingly, I immediately respond with, "How about both? Can you get through without using paint or thinner?"

"I don't think you can," Spector responds. But he sounds uncertain. It's a crazy idea, when you think about it. Paint and thinner are the yin and yang of Epic Mickey, your two most central tools for reshaping the Wasteland as you see fit. Sure, you can get through the game without using one. But both?

This is exactly when Irvin Chavira chimes in. As a QA tester on Epic Mickey 2, Chavira has to break the game so that it can be fixed. If there's anyone who knows the boundaries of practicality in Epic Mickey 2, it's him.

"You can," Chavira counters, matter-of-factly.

"Are you serious?!" Spector exclaims from across the table, practically spitting out the sandwich he's been working on in between discussions about the game.

"It won't be 100 percent, because if you want to get 100 percent you have to make certain decisions [involving paint and thinner]. But I think you can get through the core path without using either paint or thinner," says Chavira.

"That's the beauty of this stuff!" remarks Specter, beaming from ear to ear. "When games are open-ended enough that the people who work on them don't know if something's possible, that's pretty magical."

Of course, anyone who's played the game knows that this is a blatant, utter lie. LIE. You cannot get through the game without using Paint or Thinner. The bosses, for example, require use of them. Areas such as Yen Sid's Lab, which teach you how to use the Brush, cannot be cleared without it. Heck, the FINAL BOSS OF THE GAME CANNOT BE KILLED WITHOUT PAINT AND THINNER.

And that whole thing about 'game designers not knowing what's in the game' sure explains a lot about EM2....

Thoughts, everyone?

Get this: http://nova100.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c684553ef017d3e0d887a970c-pi

It's an early sketch for the final boss scene. Assuming it's concept art. In the art, the scene looks a lot more fleshed out, and if you look closely, you can see that we'd originally have had another Mad Doctor song here, too. This shows us that the game was to be more fleshed out, but was cut down. As we've been saying for quite a while now.