Review of Epic Mickey

Epic Mickey takes one of the world's most beloved mascots and places him in a strange decayed and ruined world he help destroy and create. Mickey travels around a magical kingdom of forgotten and lost characters and hopes to right his wrongs and escape the ruined world. With the magical paint brush Mickey is able to create and destroy with paint and thinner. All of that sounds wonderful on paper.. but the final product is far from wonderful. The game is directed by Warren Spector, the man behind Deus Ex, and a few Ultima games. While I have yet to experience them I don't know much about his previous works, but it one can see that this is his first platformer he's worked on. While the world of the Wasteland is quite interesting with places like Mickeyjunk Mountain standing out, you feel that the team didn't know how to approach the platforming sections of the game. There's 2D and 3D sections to the game. The short 2D sections prove to be tedious, repeative and uninspired platforming while the 3D sections get screwed by a horrible camera which fails to follow you properly and won't shift. I fell plenty of times because of the faulty camera. The music feels full and orchestral but there's no stand out tracks ,besides the warped 2D section music. The game promises a moral choice system, you can be evil and erase the baddies and not help people or help people and convert the baddies to goodies. Overall.. it doesn't matter the main ending is still the same. I was kind of expecting Mickey to merge with the big bad of the game and become the evil menace to the Wastleland and rule it with an iron fist., or something a bit darker then the same happy ending that happens. Overall, Epic Mickey is an interesting adventure full of neat little tidbits from Disney's past. But .. it is held back by a poor camera and poor level design