Epic+Mickey+2

=Entertainment Review: Epic Mickey 2=

Description
// Epic Mickey 2 // is an adventure game/platform game set in "Wasteland," which is peopled by old school Disney characters, including "Oswald," a bunny that was originally created by Walt Disney for Universal Studies before he created Mickey Mouse ( []). The basic premise is that things are going bad in Wasteland (again, it's a sequel), and Mickey and Oswald need to save the day. There are earthquakes destroying parts of town, and the evil doctor from the first game has returned, but is at least //pretending// to be helping this time around (I'm guessing he's not). Mickey runs around with two weapons at his disposal, a paintbrush for painting things into existence, and paint thinner for getting rid of things.

This video will probably do a better job of setting things up:

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I played the game for 2 hours (and, spoiler alert, that was enough).

Things to Learn

 * Backstory
 * Controls
 * Concept of "painting" and "thinning"
 * Spatial movement around the game

First, you had to learn the backstory of the game and understand the current crises (earthquakes, evil doctor, etc.). Then you were told to find the "magic paintbrush" and learned basic movements ("A" jumps; press "A" again in midair and jump again). Once you had the magic paintbrush in hand, you had to learn the concepts of painting things into existence and paint-thinning things out of existence, and the controls to do these things. If something needs to be painted, it is represented by an outline and a very light blue color. The game also hints that you have a choice as Mickey to paint things into existence or destroy things with your paint thinner. As you move further through the game, you learn how to deal with different bad guys (some of them give you a choice: paint them into friends, or thin them out of existence), and a few more movements (using "A" to grasp things). You have to learn how to navigate around the world, which has sort of a "base" world and then a way to transport to other areas. Much of the rest of the learning is learning whatever task is directly ahead of you, and what (if any) smaller tasks you have to complete in order to achieve the larger task.

How it taught

 * Active, Critical Learning, Achievement, Practice, Regime of Competence, Probing, Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time **

The games started out with two "introductory" learning scenes, low consequence-type of settings that make it really clear to you to paint certain things or how to break open treasure chests, etc., giving you the information you need right when you need to practice it. For instance, walk up to a treasure chest in these first few scenes and the picture of a Wii remote shaking back and forth is shown. There's also some probing and exploring, since it doesn't always tell you exactly what to do, but does make it relatively obvious in the beginning stage. Later on, you are given a lot more opportunity to probe around and check out shops, talk to other characters, etc.

The game also uses a character, called "Gus," to explicitly tell you what to do through these first few scenes. Even if you got stuck, Gus would pipe in and explain what you were supposed to be doing. This part of the game was very well designed, and with Gus' affirmation, I quickly succeeded at a few basic tasks (including turning a few enemies into friends with my magic paintbrush), I felt confident moving forward.

The "paintbrush," with its painting and paint-thnning ability, was a major part of the game and the learning. First, it promised the player the option of choosing their identity: either a Mickey who paints things into existence or a Mickey who erases things. Still, having played enough RPGs, where I get to choose being a character somewhere between a prude and a nihilist, this level of identity formation seemed very superficial. In the first 2 hours, I did not see a difference between choosing to paint my enemies into friends or thinning them from existence.
 * Identity, Amplification of Input, Multiple Routes, Situated Meaning, Intuitive Knowledge **

The paintbrush also was a great example of amplification of input. By simply pointing and spraying uncolored areas in the game, things got fixed or built, like a bridge or a machine. For just pointing and holding down a button, it was kind of impressive to see a lot of "output."

The game offered a lot of multiple routes through side quests that you could choose to complete or not. For example, you are given a camera and asked to take pictures throughout the game where you see the camera icon (not an essential task). Also, in the last section I played, I could choose between completing the task Goofy's way or the more "dangerous" way another character was suggesting, and would have been rewarded by Goofy had I chosen his way.

The whole "paintbrush/thinner" as a weapon concept was definitely a situated meaning in the game. I had never before considered paint thinner as a way to wipe someone from existence (but, then, I've never been a cartoon before).

Finally, after showing you how to use the paint thinner and paint brush, the game expected you to use your intuition to know when to use them again. Things that needed painting showed up as outlined light blue areas, but you had to look hard for them and know when to look for them. When I got stuck against a brick wall, my daughter, who was watching me play, suggested I use the paint thinner to get past it, which, of course, was the right answer.


 * Discover Principle (VIOLATED!), Practice Principle underused **

After the first few initial scenes that really guided you through the game, the game seemed to switch tactics at times and, instead of giving information at the very moment you needed it, would front load you with information via text/verbal instruction and expect you to remember that going forward. In one scene, Gus actually goes in front of a chalkboard to explain how to do something. After the chalkboard learning experience, I went into the scene and promptly forgot everything I was supposed to do beyond the first few steps (this was actually the part where I stopped playing). There was no practicing the skill at all. For the most part, after the first few initial scenes (and even some in them) the game simply //told// me what to do and sometimes showed me a visualization of where I was supposed to go.

Also, annoyingly, sometimes the game would pause the screen and present a text-box explaining what I was to do. You had to press "A" to make the box go away. Twice, I was in the midst of jumping when the box appeared and inadvertently closed the text box before I read it.

Games that deploy a "training session" type of learning, like many adventure role playing games or first person shooters, where you have to complete the training session before moving on, use a much better situated type of learning environment than Epic Mickey 2 used after the initial opening scenes, which did not cover all of the controls/concepts needed to master the game.

Online Community
Not a whole lot going on here. The majority of forum posts talk about major glitches in the game; apparently, there's one near the end that puts you in a loop (the game autosaves itself) where you have to restart the game. There's also a lot of talk about the game being rushed in the end and a lot of the story not actually being flushed out. The walk-throughs were very basic; I checked up on a point that I was stuck at when I hit 2 hours of gameplay and turned it off, and the walkthrough did not help me at all. There were a few people who enjoyed the game, but the majority of comments that I found were pretty derisive, especially about the glitches, unfinished story strands, and the //need// to have a second player play Oswald (a playable character), since the AI had him act less than intelligent.

Overall Reflections
I'm not a huge fan of platform-style games (this sort of was), and I wasn't a huge fan of this one. Some of the biggest problems were the camera, which did not adjust itself nicely behind the character as you moved around. Also, the view was manually was moved by the control pad, not the joystick on the nunchuk like many games, so this made it much more difficult to see the direction you wanted to see, and it took me a while to even figure this control out. Also, the instructions on how to do things sometimes flashed on the screen and disappeared, even if they were 3-5 sentences long. In the end, the game was a frustrating experience, mainly because it did not do a very good job of explaining several key items, the controls (viewing) were difficult, and the story was as flat as the characters. Compared to the last game I really sat down and played before this, Zelda: Skyward Sword, this did a really poor job of engaging the player. I find myself much more frustrated when I'm not trying to solve a puzzle but trying to figure out how I'm supposed to do something in terms of the controller.

I also discovered that I'm really, really impatient with poorly made (even sort of poorly made) games. The Zelda game I reference is a highly regarded game, winner of many awards, etc. Playing a mediocre game like this and really, really not enjoying it shows that I'm probably much more tolerant of mediocre movies or books then I am of mediocre video games.