Epic Mickey Impressions

If there's one cartoony character that's more recognizable than Nintendo's Mario, it's Disney's Mickey. But while the Italian plumber has starred in countless amazing video games through the years, the white-gloved mouse hasn't had nearly as much virtual success. Warren Spector, creator of games such as Deus Ex and System Shock, is looking to change Mickey's luck this holiday season by putting a twist on the expected colorful atmosphere. We got a first look at this game during Nintendo's E3 press conference today.

Epic Mickey looks to combine elements from role-playing games, platformers, and adventure games, where the choices you make impact the world and the characters that populate it. Mickey is equipped with a magic paintbrush that allows him to create walls, characters, and other environmental objects. However, if you decide that destruction is more to your liking, you can use paint thinner instead and erase those very same characters and objects from the gameworld. This choice impacts how the world looks and how other characters react to you, giving you the freedom to craft a Mickey in your own image to change Disney's storied history.

Although the story looks to be the main tool to suck players into this epic adventure, the gameplay looked a bit more typical. In the 3D world, in which you talk to characters and pick up main and optional quests, navigation looks like a standard 3D platformer. Mickey jumped and backflipped on trees and sprayed his magic creation tools on characters and the environment. The characters you meet are pulled from popular Disney movies, but because the wasteland this game takes place in is in trouble, their appearances and personalities have undergone some changes. In the demonstration, Smee from Peter Pan was talking to Mickey, but he wasn't quite as jolly as usual.

Later in the demo, Mickey entered a travel zone, which is a 2D platformer that takes place within a scene from Mickey's past. This particular level was based on Steamboat Willie. The black and white imagery is certainly unique for a video game, but the art work was immediately recognizable. Mickey leaped across cows hanging high above the air by sadistic pulley systems and collected glowing gems like the best platform stars are wont to do.

Clearly, there is a lot going on in Epic Mickey, so it's hard to get a feel for how these different pieces will fit together in the final project. But it does look intriguing now, and we'll be sure to update GameSpot as soon as we get a chance to try it out for ourselves.