Concept Artwork For "Epic Mickey" from Warren Spector

[Crisis]

I think how much you like Chaotix basically stems down to how enamoured you become to the elastic ring gimmick. If you really like it, then it's easy to overlook the poor level design as you career around the beautifully drawn stages to some of the series' greatest tunes. Personally, I thought it was fun for about an afternoon.

I really didn't like the special stages, though. I thought they were ugly, confusing and disorienting. Then again, I only did the first one before deciding never to do them again in disgust. With hindsight, perhaps my 14 year-old self was a bit too quick to judge, although after watching it on YouTube I'm still not convinced.

[friend2chaos]

It was fun once you got into it, and I loved the universe. I would rather have Espio, Mighty, and Vector than Blaze, Silver and Cream. (You can keep Charmy no one likes Charmy) For me I had to like Chaotix because it was the only thing released on that horrible bar of Genesis soap for like a zillion months.

Oh wait I forgot about Virtua Fighter with it's arcade-pefect green sky because the 32X would never sit in the slot correctly. Kolibri disturbed me to the point of nightmares, I can't tell you why, it just..did. :(

[G.Silver]

Around 96 or 97 or whenever the 32x still went for $150, I met some new neighbors, and their kids had a 32x. "Oh cool, a 32x!" I said, and after we both agreed that the 32x was pretty great (of course, we didn't actually play it!), I mentioned that I had a SegaCD. "Hah!" the kid said, "I bet you regret buying that!"

[friend2chaos]

Around 96 or 97 or whenever the 32x still went for $150, I met some new neighbors, and their kids had a 32x. "Oh cool, a 32x!" I said, and after we both agreed that the 32x was pretty great (of course, we didn't actually play it!), I mentioned that I had a SegaCD. "Hah!" the kid said, "I bet you regret buying that!"

Did you? The SEGA CD was great in comparison to the 32X, but it was rather shifty on it's own merits, save for Snatcher.

[G.Silver]

No, I played the heck out of it. The 32x I used to play Chaotix and then threw in the closet (my import adapter didn't get along with it so it couldn't stay attached).

[(No Imagination)]

Chaotix is like one of those damn indie games where the developer focused more on art and gimmick rather than on actual playability. It's like..."okay, so we got this totally rad and awesome ground-breaking innovation of magical elastic rubber bands concept, now we need to build a game around it." "Yay! Level design! Time to drop acid and fire up the random level generator!"

...level art is totally overstyling it as well, it's like, "look at how many colors 32x is capable of drawing! Nono, you don't get it yet. You.Will.LOOK AT IT! EVERYWHERE!!" ...well, it's not really bad, just cluttered - it gives me a claustrophobia every time. The levels themselves play three general gimmicks - run forward, solve a button/door puzzle, ladder up to the higher level, repeat in opposite direction. The running forward sections are usually corridors, while the button puzzles are set in rooms. An open space that doesn't play as one of these is usually just a bigger room with a single option to go - which may prove cumbersome to reach due to the elastic rubber gimmick - an option explored here is the good old classic of having any phailed player fall through a pit and land on an earlier part of the level; in Chaotix' case this means landing amidst a clusterfuck of pretty pixel art with no way of telling which way to go. I'm looking at you, Amazing Arena.

Chaotix just gets old so fast. I really wanted to like it....I played it and cleared level after level, but then realized I wasn't having any fun. Maybe it would work with larger levels built on a higher scale, full of open skies to elastic-rubberband through at extreme speeds, though.

[friend2chaos]

No, I played the heck out of it. The 32x I used to play Chaotix and then threw in the closet (my import adapter didn't get along with it so it couldn't stay attached).

Quite the logical reason, too bad it didn't work though, you could have bought DarXide.

Time to drop acid

Your user name is very apt because "dropping acid" is a cliched, tired, and above all unimaginative euphanism to describe something very colorful. Snarky Game Reviewer 101 kinda stuff. It's wise not to say that because it makes you seem like Oprah trying to be "down and hip with the kids", though she seems to be more interested in X.

Also you spelled fail with ph. No one does that. NO. ONE. Points for using "clusterfuck", though. That needs to come back in a big way.

The rest of your post seems sound, if not a little tl;dr/cool story bro.

[P.P.A.]

No, I played the heck out of it. The 32x I used to play Chaotix and then threw in the closet (my import adapter didn't get along with it so it couldn't stay attached).

Quite the logical reason, too bad it didn't work though, you could have bought DarXide.

Time to drop acid

Your user name is very apt because "dropping acid" is a cliched, tired, and above all unimaginative euphanism to describe something very colorful. Snarky Game Reviewer 101 kinda stuff. It's wise not to say that because it makes you seem like Oprah trying to be "down and hip with the kids", though she seems to be more interested in X.

Also you spelled fail with ph. No one does that. NO. ONE. Points for using "clusterfuck", though. That needs to come back in a big way.

The rest of your post seems sound, if not a little tl;dr/cool story bro.

cool story bro indeed

[(No Imagination)]

Also you spelled fail with ph. No one does that. NO. ONE. Points for using "clusterfuck", though. That needs to come back in a big way.

The rest of your post seems sound, if not a little tl;dr/cool story bro.

aww, you really think it's cool? Like, really, really? It would mean so much to me, because being popular is what this internets thing is all about!

[Kogen]

So it looks like shite:

[Segaholic2]

My first impression from the few screenshots released so far.

The art style is very inconsistent.
Lighting is terrible; I'm assuming they're going to fix it at some point.
It looks like every generic platformer from the N64 and GameCube eras.
It should have been made on not the Wii.

[Kogen]

It was a 360/PS3/PC game, but got pushed down to Wii. :)

[Senbei]

At least it still looks scary. Reminds me of the couple of times I played Mickey Mania as a kid -- the game over screen where Mickey would collapse into a grotesque grinning corpse haunts me to this day.

That said, the World of Warcraft color scheme is really bugging me.

[friend2chaos]

aww, you really think it's cool? Like, really, really? It would mean so much to me, because being popular is what this internets thing is all about!

Sarcasm fail, feel free to never try again.

So it looks like shite

It's a Wii game.


BTW the buttons on his pants are textures, not part of the model. Now that's just LAZY.

[(No Imagination)]

Is it just me olde eyes or does Mickey not have any shadow? I'm hoping it's due to an early beta stage in development etc. etc., because it's gonna be hell to play otherwise.

Sarcasm fail, feel free to never try again.

Great halls of Fire, being patronised on teh Internet burns so much! I am melting.

[Kogen]

Apparently the reason for going to Wii is due to the controls, so maybe it will get a remake on good consoles later (Natal and PS Dildo).

[Wombatwarlord777]

At least it still looks scary.

The most disappointing thing is that I recognize that this game is supposed to be scary ("dark hues... twisted, angular structures... Frankenstein-like enemies... Yeah, that's scary"), but I definitely don't feel scared. It's kind of like comparing the effect of Luigi's Mansion to that of Dead Space.

The concept art for this game conjured up a much more authentic sense of awe and apprehension.

[(No Imagination)]

Maybe Disney gave them a green light in making an edgier Mickey Mouse game, but it's still Wii they're making it for; the same "games for the whole family" Wii. I guess someone thought the hard-edged steampunk Mickey Mouse game from the concept art just wouldn't sell well enough, so they're ending up with a more spaced version of SA2's dark chao garden instead...general garden variety spooky stuff instead of something really morbid. I can live with that if it plays well, tho'. And I dunno - the storyline could still end up sick and twisted and whatever, even with third grade graphics.

What's up with that life/status icon in the upper left though? That looks seriously lazy. It better be animated or something...

[Esrever]

Here are some more screenshots!

[(No Imagination)]

...mistaking (?) it for Rayman brings up a nice point of this game looking 5 years old.

[Blount]

On that note, Rayman 2 is exactly 10 years-old as of today. And it still looks better than this game!

[Syntheticgerbil]

Fffffffffffffffuck I love Rayman 2!

Dreamcast version was the best!

[Zeta]

I hated Rayman 2 because it ditched all of the craziness and originality and just general carefree surreal settings of Rayman 1 in favor of generic alien invaders. And I thought that light ball move looked moronic.

[Zeta]

In addition to replacing stages like band land and art land with "swamp", "volcano", "beach", etc. - they got rid of the silent and inoffensive supporting cast of Rayman 1 and swapped them out for the ugliest, most annoying cast of characters ever. Stupid misshapen catgirl, ugly frog freak, and the world's most annoying large-mouthed fairy. Also, the whole thing about Rayman being a living atom with supporting characters like electoons and negatoons was replaced with lots and lots of frogs and fairies and gameplay that felt like a mediocre Super Mario 64 with a crappy tacked-on shooting and strafing in combat using glowing baseballs and the art design going from brightly surreal and friendly to warped, dark, and ugly and Rayman's design doesn't mesh well with the other characters or setting and looks just as out of place as Mickey above. Just a huge disappointment to me all around.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I wonder how big of a role Spector has in the development of this game beyond the visual concepts. He could be more ambitious than the rest of the staff. That wall-climbing skeletal elephant of his in particular strikes me as extremely difficult to render, especially on the Wii.