Review: Disney Epic Mickey (Wii)

Disney Epic Mickey is a game that has very lofty goals, but fails to achieve any of them. It was an ambitious project that aimed to take the Wii’s strength — family friendly cartoon games — and merge that with a bonefied quest-oriented game that appealed to more mature gamers. Unfortunately, instead of defining a new genre or carving it’s own niche, the game fails to deliver much of anything.

As the game starts, Mickey finds himself sucked through a magic mirror that transports him into a mysterious hallway. Peeking through a doorway, he watches as a man in wizard dress puts some final touches on what seems like a model town. Happy with his work, the man sets down the brush and heads to bed. Mickey then decides he is going to be a complete jerk and paint over the man’s hard work. In his fervor to vandalize this stranger’s model, Mickey accidentally knocks over the paint and thinner vials which unleashes all sorts of holy hell upon the work.

Does Mickey run to find the stranger, so he can right his wrong? Hell no! Mickey turns tail and runs back through the magic mirror. Like any good sociopath, Mickey doesn’t seem to care one iota about what he has done. However, karma is a bitch. So one night as Mickey is sleeping (and presumably dreaming about defacing the Mona Lisa) one of the dark blobby whatevers he unleashed reaches out from the mirror and pulls Mickey back  into the world he set into turmoil.

nJoystic Afternoon Edition (01.11.2011)

More Artwork Unveiled for Midway’s Hero – Siliconera brings us some more stunning paintings from Midway artist Tae Young Choi, showing off the concepts behind their game Hero. This would be much more exciting if Midway wasn’t closed and the game canceled, but at least we’re left with some really cool art to look at. That’s as good as having a really cool game to play, right? Check them out here.

Battlefield 3 to be Unveiled at GDC – Electronic Arts has confirmed that they will reveal Battlefield 3 to the media at the Game Developer’s Conference on March 1st, reports IGN.com (here.) They also list that a number of other games will have big announcements and/or hands-on time at the event, including Alice: Madness Returns, Shadows of the Damned, and Crysis 2.

Bulletstorm System Requirements Revealed – Epic games has revealed the system requirements for the PC edition of their upcoming shooter Bulletstorm. The post can be found on their forums (here), the requirements are as follows:

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:
Operating System Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), or Windows 7
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon X2, or equivalent, running at 1.6 GHz or greater
Memory (RAM) 1.5 GB
HDD Space 9 GB available
Video Card DirectX 9.0c compatible, 256 MB of VRAM; NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS, ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro 256 MB, or greater
Soundcard DirectX 9.0c compatible, 16-bit
Disc Drive 16X CD/DVD Drive
Network Internet (TCP/IP) connection

RECOMMENDED:
Operating System Windows Vista (SP2), or Windows 7
Processor QuadCore 2.0 GHz
Memory (RAM) 2 GB
HDD Space 9 GB available
Video Card DirectX 9.0c compatible, 512MB of VRAM; NVIDIA GeForce GTX260, or ATI Radeon 4870
Soundcard DirectX 9.0c compatible, 16-bit
Disc Drive 16X CD/DVD Drive
Network Broadband Internet (TCP/IP) connection

Konami Enters Social Gaming Market – It’s official; Konami has gone to the dark side. Sure they’ve dabbled before. A ‘Frogger’ game on Facebook. A Castlevania: Lord of Shadows gamelette to tie in with the commercial title. That time they used the mind trick to take home that cute girl in Mos Eisley. But their conversion from video game icon to evil overlord is in full swing, now that they are set to release their first full social game; Mallville!–err, sorry–Viva! Mall. Be ready to block all those damn status updates about Bethany needing help manning the shore-store, or pleas for you to “click here to help John-from-accounting clean up an emergency slushy spill in the food court.”

For the real news, feel free to check out Edge magazine’s online article here, though I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Ubisoft Announces 5 Million+ Sales for ‘Just Dance 2′ – Ubisoft’s SVP of sales and marketing, Tony Key, announces that their Wiimote-waggling dance title, Just Dance 2, has sold more than 5 million units worldwide . . . in just 10 weeks. My hope for humanity and our brilliant future is now officially crushed. (Source: Gamasutra)

Happy 1.11.11! Things haven’t been this one’ish around here since . . . 1.1.11. I can’t give an outright congratulations to an SEC team, so instead I’ll say, “Good job of barely squeaking by, Auburn.” Hey, that’s still the high-road, I could have said something like, “Hmm. I guess a BCS championship game only costs about $200k.”