Warren Spector is one of a select group of game designers - Will Wright, Peter Molyneux, Hideo Kojima, John Carmack, and Shigeru Miyamoto being others - who have reached the status of household name in the gaming community, and are associated with a signature design style. Spector's latest project, Epic Mickey, combines his signature emphasis on player choice with his love for all things Disney.
Gaming Union recently sat down with Warren Spector to blow the lid off Epic Mickey. He shares what it's like to work with Disney and how the project came about, sets the record straight on a few internet rumors, and discloses how player choice is implemented in Epic Mickey.
Despite Walt Disney's mixed history with video games, these games embody the magic of Disney the best.
When you think of Disney and video games, the first image that comes to your head could be a variety of things. Perhaps it's Kingdom Hearts, which remains one of the best Square Enix games due in little part to Disney’s influence.
Otherwise, it could be a classic game, since Disney has been mostly absent from the gaming world lately, save for some mobile ventures. Whether it be a nostalgic adventure with classic characters or a movie tie-in that makes an impression, let’s dust off Disney’s videogame legacy and find those quality standouts.
listen .. Donald Duck in Maui Mallard
and World of illusion are the best disney games.
Before games inspired by movies and TV shows became blatant cash grabs, there was a time when players actually had some solid titles inspired by various IPs, and Disney made some of the best
Quackshot for me, simply because I think there’s a lot of potential for improving on the original and I would love a great platformer starring Donald in a world-traveling Ducktales-style adventure.
Has Disney done more harm than good to Star Wars when it comes to gaming?
Thats not a question that even needs to be asked. Anybody that is a fan of Star Wars and video games knows EA could fuck up a 1500lb steel BB in the middle of a cotton field barefooted. It truly is a travesty that EA is one of the most profitable game companies. Any company that would have made as many missteps with franchises as they did would have folded under and had all of its licenses pulled. Because of MT that litter their games, EA is artificially kept relevant in the industry. They are able to hold on to these licenses with the billions they milk out of gamers every year. So hell yeah Disney underachieved. But we all knew that was going to happen the minute news broke they were partnering with EA.
It's the refusal to do what it takes to get an actual creative project off the ground. Instead Disney and co. pushed out minimal viable products for the majority of its gaming life cycle.
Its especially sad that Disney obtained Lucasart Games in the buy out, but chose to close the studio and outsource its game development. Just look at the list of games Lucasart was a part of creating. What exec looked at this list and thought "No, we would be better off letting EA handle things".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
Yeah but in reality Lucasarts was dead a long time before Disney bought it out and officially closed it down. They were already outsourcing other developers to make their games, and had long since killed off their legendary in-house original IP studios in favour of making the big bucks with the star wars IP
By the time Disney came around Lucasarts Games was already in disarray. Be it Star Wars Kinect or Star Wars 1313 that was in development hell before the buyout I can see why Disney wanted them shutdown. There are other missteps as well. Long story short Lucasarts would of went under eventually at the rate they were going.
Very interesting read, gotta love it when devs shoot down rumours.
Really good interview. :)
Interesting read.
Very exciting stuff to read about, always been a fan of his games and his designs and it's good to know he has a personal attachment to disney more then most to be making this game
Eric Clapton's long lost brother...
But a good read indeed!