Disney's Epic Mickey - Not Quite Epic After All

Sometimes a game gets so much pre-release press that it is at least taking a look to see what all the fuss is about.

Many of these games look good in trailers and demos, but as soon as they are released to the public, the hype is over and reality sets in.

Disney's Epic Mickey did just that: huge hype with little real promise.

Read on as we give you our honest opinion of Disney's Epic Mickey and suggest a better alternative to this somewhat disappointing video game.

Set in Wasteland, a new world full of creatures never seen before, Epic Mickey plays like an open-world RPG.

You take control of Mickey, who has two options for interacting with the world: paint and paint thinner.

Using these gives you a way to add and remove parts of the world around you, but these parts are pre-defined and often tend to be a bit on the annoying side.

You are forced to spray paint and thinner all over the world in order to continue on in a particular level, and your only real means of attacking enemies is by using the paint and thinner to control the things around you.

You can attack enemies by using the conventional jumping-on-the-head method, but doing this is usually difficult and requires exact movements that are hard to execute with the Wii controller and nunchuck. Instead, the game recommends that you use your paint and thinner to brainwash these enemies into liking you and attacking others or becoming complacent and sitting still.

The dynamics of the paint and thinner in relation to the world around you is a promising concept, but it is disappointing how it ends up affecting your overall experience.

The storyline has a high replay value if you can appreciate the gameplay for what it is.

By choosing the good or the bad side of playing the game, you unlock different scenarios that play out in different ways.

You can choose to help miscellaneous characters along the way, or you can take the selfish route and have the immediate gratification of being mean and receiving items instead.

There are ways of completely skipping bosses and areas if you are creative, which ends up with multiple different endings depending on how you treat others in the world. You can also help different characters in the game through side quests to improve your goodness rating, or you can help the bad guys to become eviller.

There are many endings to experience, but that's if you decide it is worth the time and effort to play the game another time or two.

Disney's Epic Mickey is hit-or-miss for a lot of gamers. Some people highly enjoy the creativity of the paint system and the dynamics of the good-vs-evil parts, but it is difficult for any hardcore gamers to enjoy the simplistic, yet still somehow complicated, gameplay.

Trying to use the Wii remote and nunchuck to point at the screen while also being expected to navigate the world can be frustrating for anyone, especially casual gamers.

Disney's Epic Mickey comes with a score of 5 out of 10.

While it looked promising with beautiful graphics and a unique concept, it falls flat in playability. Pick up this game only if you really like platformers and can ignore the complicated gameplay and often chaotic camera-angles.

We recommend you look into the follow-up version - Disney's Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. It is a much better game.