Joining these two segments of Wasteland society are the Bunnies.  Very little info was dished out as to the Bunnies role other than they are Oswald’s offspring, there are a whole lot of them (they are rabbits after all) and that when a Bunny and a Splatter meet there is always a lot of trouble – whether that’s the good kind of trouble or the bad kind remains to be seen.

Spector described the game as ‘platformer meets RPG/adventure’ – i.e. a platformer in which your abilities improve over time and how you play has an effect on the world around you.  Supposedly, you (as Mickey) always have a choice as to how to go about progressing and completing levels.  For example, the aforementioned Splatters can helped and reasoned with if you can find something that they want, or solve a problem for them. The same kind of thing applies to larger boss battles also, giving you the freedom to play how you want to. 

Yet Spector was keen to stress that you need to be careful about what you decide to do because, according to him, this is a game in which “playstyle matters” and your actions have knock on effects throughout the whole of the game world.  For example if you help one group of the population (let’s say the Splatters, for example) then that can have a negative effect on others that consider them their enemy, leading to a less than warm welcome upon coming into contact with Mickey.  It all sounds rather like Fable 2 in that areas of the world can potentially view you in a different deepening on your actions and that Mickey’s appearance changes as a result of your actions.  Spector referred to the two sides of Mickey’s potential approach to the game as a hero and scrapper, one focused principally on helping the world and the other helping himself.  Again, it’s impossible to form a worthwhile opinion on the system after such a brief look but, on paper at least, it sounds interesting and surprisingly in=depth for a title exclusive to the Wii.

The other key gameplay mechanic is known as ‘paint and thinner’, giving you the power to create and erase items within the Wasteland.  Both painting and thinning gives you access to new, otherwise unreachable, areas of levels.  For example, you have the ability to paint a ramp up the side of a high wall or to cut out a hole in said wall, all in the name of exploration.  Objects in the game fall into one of three categories, inert, sketch and painted.  Only objects that fall under the painted banner can be fully manipulated and utilised, in terms of moving, jumping to and from and being used as a weight for a button, for example.

It’s up to you how you paint (or erase) the world, however a system that limits the amount of time you can spend doing so was hinted at, forcing you to think carefully about your actions.  As with the game’s potential enemies, the way in which you paint and erase the world changes how its inhabitant view you – erase a shelf full of valuable books in order to access a secret room behind it and the locals won’t take too kindly to you, but leave it in place and they’ll appreciate your selfishness and view you as a friend. 

The few glimpses we got of the game has resulted only in generating even more questions then we had going in.  no matter how the game turns out, hats must go off to Spector and the team for even attempting to create a game with the aim of rejuvenating and reinventing one of the world’s most famous characters for a modern audience.  It’s a huge task trying to create something that will resonate as strongly with an audience today as those characters did when first unleashed all those years ago.  Whether or not the effort has been worthwhile won’t become clear for some time, but, for better or worse, Mickey Mouse has returned to the building and his sights are set, once again, on the very top.

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