The most famous mouse is coming back, in a fairly unexpected way. I talked about this almost one year ago, and it has come a long way since then!

Epic Mickey is a Wii exclusive video game featuring the Disney character. In this game, Mickey is back to his 1920's form, and...he's no more the "perfect model", bland character that we've known since more than 20 years.
Well, I'll just let you watch the opening scene so that you get the picture :



As you can see, it features a lot of Disney "forgotten" elements and characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (Walt's first character), The Phantom Blot, Yen Sid and probably a lot more.

The game is a mix between many genres (RPG, adventure, platforms, etc...), in which the choices that the player will make will lead to different paths.

One example : during the game, a shopkeeper named Tiki Sam (who is a rejected Goofy drawing) asks Mickey to find 3 tiki masks for him. From then, you can of course go through the level to find all three, which is probably what most people will do.

But you can also just get one, give it to the shopkeeper which will carefully put in the back of his hut. Then go outside, use your "thinner" brush to destroy the back wall, get it back and give it again to him!!! "Oh great Mickey, you found another ^^ " Of course, if you chooses to do that, you've got to be careful because he might get suspicious... :)
And the best thing is that there is no indication in the game that you can do that, so it's really up to the player to THINK about how he wants to solve the problems. Great replayability there.

Here's a gameplay video :



The game is being made by Warren Spector (the man talking in the previous video), who was the lead director on famous PC games like Deus Ex, Ultima Underworld, Thief, System Shock. (which are, you'll admit, as far as the Disney universe can be)
But Warren is a huge fan of Disney, and I can say the game is in good hands with him. In fact, Warren has COME on Animation Source! I had contacted him a few months ago, asking about the Ducktales game he wants to make and if he would add some Disney Afternoon characters in it, and here was his answer :

"I can't talk about what might or might not be in the game, but it’s good to hear from a fan. I have to admit, I never watched TaleSpin (though after bopping over to your website, I think I’ll check it out), but I’m a big Ducktales fan. Actually, I’m a big Carl Barks fan, the comic book artist and writer who created a lot of the material that inspired the Ducktales series. If you haven’t turned your readers onto Barks – or if you haven’t experienced the joys of his work yourself – go do so! You won’t regret it."

Can't agree more with him, having read most of Barks and Don Rosa's books when I was younger.

Anyway, I surely hope (and think) that this game will become a new successful series a-la "Kingdom Hearts"! Disney is at least gearing towards that, considering all the efforts they are putting : the game has a staff of almost 300 people, which is as big as the staff behind "Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2" (most sold game last year)!

This is probably the most anticipated third-party game ever to be released on Wii. The release date has officially been announced , it's coming out on November 19th (USA) and November 25th (Europe)!
 

Talking about Kingdom Hearts, don't forget the new "Kingdom Hearts : Birth By Sleep" coming out on PSP on September 7th (USA) and September 10th (Europe)! And judging from the reviews, it's very, very good. If you have a PSP, that's a must buy.

Now on my shopping list :
- Buy a Wii
- Buy Epic Mickey
- Buy KH BBS

Ok, so no gift to anyone this christmas :)