Triptych: Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin King!

"Once Upon A Pumpkin" (t-shirt) by Jacob McAlister

"Halloween Town" (t-shirt) by Jack To The Future

"Jack Skellington Kid" by Andy Fairhurst

Triptych: Sirens and Fog

"Some Time To Kill In Silent Hill!" by Dr. Faustus AU

"Welcome To The Other Side" (t-shirt) by kgullholmen

"Pyramid Glyph" (t-shirt) by BazNet

It's been foggy in my neck of the woods lately. Like, really foggy. It's unusual and it's spooky. It makes me want to play Silent Hill again.

DuckTales: Remastered HD

Apocalypse POW! is still technically in a holding pattern, but in the meantime, I wanted to post a handful of things I've been sitting on lately, starting with this. Announced last week, here is the teaser trailer for the upcoming high-definition remake of the classic NES game DuckTales, out sometime this summer. The remastered edition will be available through the Wii U eShop, XBLA and PSN, with a very good chance it'll be coming to Steam at some point as well.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this. There were a lot of games that I loved as a kid, but DuckTales was - for a while at least - my absolute favorite. It was pretty tough, I'll give it that, but that just made it all the more satisfying when I beat it.

I guess I was about eleven when DuckTales first aired, and the Nintendo game came out a year later. Even at that young age, I was well aware that videogame tie-ins to established properties were generally not good, but for some reason Disney's Nintendo games, probably thanks to Capcom's involvement, were always top-notch. I played the hell out of DuckTales and despite the occasionally wonky controls, it was my go-to game for at least a year.

It seems like remastering and re-releasing games is a thing lately: Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix and Final Fantasy X \ X-2 HD Remaster are both in the pipeline for the PS3 and are due to be released the near future, and I'm sure there are other games due for HD treatment as well. Which makes it all the more awesome that Capcom is digging into the vaults for a gem like DuckTales to polish up and release.

I'm gonna get my nostalgia on SO HARD when this finally hits.

Triptych: Shake It Up

"Rough Wreck-It Ralph" by M. Dzulfeqar Nasir

"Wreck-It Ralph" by Brendan Corris

"Sugar Rush Showdown" by David DePasquale

Triptych: Ralph And The Glitch

"Wreck-It Ralph Minimal Poster #1" by MadWoodsy

"Epiphany Barrel" by Dave Arseneau

"Ralphie The Wreckiter" (t-shirt) by April Hoera

Triptych: Sugar Rush

"Official Wreck-It Ralph Pixelated Plush" (11") from The Disney Store

"I'm Gonna Wreck It!" by "Dapper" Dan Schoening

"Famicom Art Project: Ruin" (90° rotation) by Marc Short

Guys, Wreck-It Ralph is out! I haven't had a chance to go see it yet but apparently I am in the minority because it's currently the #1 movie at the U.S. box office. Excellent! Good job, everybody! Cigars all around!

Triptych: Turnip Head and Calcifer

"Howl's Castle" (t-shirt) by Mephias

"Howl (Alternate)" by Ashley Hey

"May All Your Bacon Burn" by Emily Hull

Triptych: The Happiest Place Left On Earth

"The Happiest Place Left On Earth" (t-shirt) by MicusFicus

"Flesh Wound" by Loco Robo

"Fallout Minimalist Poster" by Christopher Bowden

Wreck-It Ralph Trailer

I've posted about Wreck-It Ralph before, but now a trailer's out and it would behoove you all to watch it. There are a lot of movies coming out before the end of the year that I'm looking forward to - The Dark Knight Rises in July, Looper in September, The Hobbit in December - but Wreck-It Ralph comes in near the top of the list, in large part because it seems to be aimed directly at me. Honestly, a movie about classic video games featuring tons of cameos? I'm sold.

Wreck-It Ralph is out November 2nd, 2012.

Triptych: Minimalist Pixar Posters

"Wall-E" by Lópezgrafico

"Monsters Inc." by Justin Van Genderen

"The Incredibles" by Pandreaa

Triptych: The Happiest Boss Fight On Earth

"Metroid Disney" by Drew Wise ¹

"Donald Duck Hunt" (t-shirt) by PapaPrime ²

"Disney Steampunk: Pinocchio" by Mecanique Fairy ³

¹ Walt Disney's frozen head would make a great final boss.
² Part of Threadless' Donald Duck T-Shirt Design Challenge. So, not technically a t-shirt yet, but one can always hope.
³ I have very mixed feelings on the whole steampunk thing, and I'm not sure this really qualifies as 'steampunk' anyway, despite the artist's best intentions. Rather, with the mechanical body parts and the hologram of Jiminy Cricket, I'd be inclined to label this as transhumanist - Or at least, I would, if Pinocchio was made out of flesh and blood rather than wood. Either way, steampunk leanings aside, I think Mecanique Fairy's Steampunk Disney series is quite well done.

Disney's Wreck-It Ralph

I love Disney. And, as some of you may have figured out by now, I also love videogames, particularly of the pixelated, 1980s-era variety. So I was extremely pumped to learn about Disney's upcoming animated feature "Wreck-It Ralph", which debuted at the recent D23 Expo and is slated for release a little under a year from now, on November 2nd, 2012.

The film stars John C. Reilly as the titular character, a Donkey-Kong-like videogame villain from the game "Fix-It Felix", who tires of being forever relegated to bad-guy status and dreams of being the hero for once. Jack McBrayer (also known as hilarious NBC peon Kenneth from 30 Rock) voices Felix, while Jane Lynch, Sarah Silverman, Dave Foley and David Hyde Pierce all make vocal appearances as well. It's being directed by Rich Moore, who was a supervising director on The Simpsons and Futurama, so I can only assume he knows his way around the funny.

Sick of being a bad guy, Ralph leaves his game and sets off for one that he can be the hero of. He traipses through racing games and first-person shooters (presumably amongst others) in his search for a new home, along the way joining Bad-Anon, a support group for villains populated by the likes of Pac-Man ghosts and zombies. In the end, I'm wagering that he learns a little something about himself and the world in which he lives, and manages to pull off a coup and successfully navigate the videogame world's first bad-guy-to-good-guy role transition.

I think what interests me the most about "Wreck-It Ralph" is that it is very clearly a "Toy Story" for the videogame generation. Like those films, I'm sure "Wreck-It Ralph" will be jam-packed with pop-culture references and clever dialogue, but more importantly, it's going to explore a specific continent of nostalgia and delve into not just what we remember fondly, but why we do.

I'm also really impressed that as part of the early promotion for the movie, Disney actually put together a "Wreck-It Ralph" upright arcade cabinet, complete with fully playable game. That's some thematically-consistent marketing there, Disney. I LIKE IT.

Triptych: The Magic Kingdom

"The Happiest Place In Middle Earth" (t-shirt) by famousafterdeath

"Wizneyland" (t-shirt) by warbucks360

"The Monster Kingdom" by ninjaink

Showcase: Caldwell Tanner's TV Show Mashups

"Walter's Laboratory" (Breaking Bad vs. Dexter's Laboratory)


"My Game of Thronies" (Game of Thrones vs. My Little Ponies)


"BattleDuck Gaquacktica" (Battlestar Galactica vs. DuckTales)

[Caldwell Tanner]

Sora in Naboombu.

Since there’s been no major Epic Mickey news in a while, I thought I’d move on to my other Mouse-House gaming obsession today: Kingdom Hearts (not that there’s been any notable developments on the third installment of that series either, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make wild, random speculations in the meantime.)

Rob Bricken, my fine feathered friend over at Topless Robot, has compiled a list of ten hitherto-unvisited Disney worlds he’d like to see in upcoming Kingdom Hearts games – amongst them, the Horned King’s Castle from The Black Cauldron, Romney Marsh from Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, and Notre Dame from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  It’s really quite an insightful list and probably at least partially prophetic, since I can’t imagine The Princess & The Frog’s New Orleans or the Isle of Naboombu from Bedknobs & Broomsticks not being touched on at some point in the future by Square Enix.

Inspired by that list, here are a few suggestions of my own:

5. Sleepy Hollow, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

More than any other Disney movie, Legend of Sleepy Hollow scared the bejeebus out of me as a kid.  It was aired every Halloween, and was just part of the spooky tradition for me – trick or treat, come home and gorge on candy while watching Ichabod Crane try to hold onto his head, and then have Headless Horsemen nightmares.  Sleepy Hollow would fit in well with KH’s naming traditions (Hollow Bastion, Twilight Town, Castle Oblivion) and would almost certainly feel more natural than the awkward Port Royal\Pirates of the Caribbean levels in Kingdom Hearts II.

4. Bald Mountain, Fantasia

Fantasia deserves to be mined even further in the KH universe.  It’s been touched on briefly (with the presence of Yen Sid amongst other shout-outs to the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” bit) so there’s some precedence there, and Bald Mountain in particular would make a fantastic end level.  I mean, think about it: ghosts, skeletons and goblins would be scary enough, but HEARTLESS ghosts, skeletons and goblins?  That’s like two orders of badassery in one.

3. The Jungle, Jungle Book

In my mind, Shere Khan is one of the greatest underappreciated villains of the Disney pantheon.  He seemed far more complex and malevolent than the power-hungry Scar from Lion King, because unlike the latter, Khan is motivated purely by animal instinct. Given the predilection for wilderness levels in Kingdom Hearts (the Jungle from Tarzan and the Pride Lands from Lion King) a nod to Jungle Book seems like it would be entirely appropriate.

2. Andy’s Room, Toy Story

I’m assuming the reason why the Pixar\Disney films never made it into any of the Kingdom Hearts games was due to convoluted copyright situations, but… Considering the presence of both Halloween Town and Port Royal, I can’t see why I should be so quick to assume anything Pixar-related will never crop up.  Anything from Wall-E to The Incredibles would make for excellent KH fodder, but Toy Story takes the gold, in my mind: imagine articulated, toy-jointed, miniature versions of Sora, Donald and Goofy running around in a gigantic house fighting toy-Endless alongside Woody and Buzz Lightyear and try to tell me this isn’t the best idea you’ve heard all day.

1. Green Town, Something Wicked This Way Comes

I’m not sure I can justify this, because Something Wicked is more tone than action and it may be too grim even for Kingdom Hearts, but I would sell my left kidney to see it happen.  Mr. Dark, Mr. Cooger, The Dust Witch, and all manner of sideshow freaks and carnival folk are cartoonishly overwrought antagonists, and while the film doesn’t offer an iconic central hero the way, say, TRON does, Green Town is a perfectly self-contained small-town environment that actually bears a lot of similarity to Hollow Bastion and some of the other non-Disney worlds in the games.  Given Square-Enix’ tendency to dip into the occasional obscure reference, I’d like to believe this could actually work.  A guy can dream, can’t he?

One-Line Wonders: B:AA, SH:H, Cogs, KH:358/2D

Today marks the debut of what I hope to be an ongoing column. One-Line Wonders is my attempt to cut back on my usual word-salad approach to blogging and review a handful of games in a single sentence (or equivalent.)

So without further ado, here are your One-Line Wonders for Tuesday, January 26th, 2010.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC, 360, PS3)

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Design: 9/10
Batarangs: ∞
dB of vocalised alarm expressed upon the unanticipated appearance of Killer Croc when attempting to open an entirely mundane, though mercifully locked, door: 77

I never realised until THIS MOMENT just how utterly devoid of meaning my life was without the ability to hang upside down from a gargoyle, silently pick off an escaped convict, and then observe from afar as his cohorts discover him and absolutely lose their shit in unbridled terror.

One quickly learns that the goal of Batman: Arkham Asylum is not survival, but how best to screw with otherwise calm and collected individuals

Silent Hill: Homecoming (PC, 360, PS3)

Graphics: 6.5/10
Sound: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Design: 7/10
Pyramid Heads: 1 (to date)
Duration between end of intro cinematic and start of gameplay to realise you are indescribably fucked: 10 seconds

It may be a rehash of every entry in the franchise to date, but if nothing else, Silent Hill: Homecoming has the dubious distinction of making me lose control of my bowels more quickly than any other game I've ever encountered (critical moment of bowel-loosening: Pyramid Head, in shadow, dismembering someone on the other side of a locked door before you've even managed to extricate yourself from they gurney you were strapped to during the intro.)

Silent Hill's legendary toilet stalls return in full force

Cogs (PC)

Graphics: 4/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Design: 8/10
Steampunk appeal: 9.5/10
Severity of curse-word obscenity prompted by the first dozen puzzles: Impolite even within sea-faring company

Why is this game so hard, goddammit?

I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (DS)

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Design: 7/10
Days that are actually playable: less than 358
Bars of sea-salt ice cream eaten by Roxas: 8 million

The foundation is there for this to be a watershed entry in the Kingdom Hearts series, but recycled music, enemies, characters, worlds and weapons, along with a bland and uninspired storyline, trite, tedious cutscenes, and the game's tendency to abruptly skip over weeks of unplayable days at a time makes it feel like a hugely wasted opportunity - and maybe just a phoned-in contractual obligation on Square Enix's part while they invested the bulk of their efforts into the far-superior Birth By Sleep.

Ah, the Rocky Expanse, from Disney's classic nature film The Suicidal World of Lemmings... My childhood nostalgia has been fulfilled

Epic Mickey - Slowly Becoming Reality

I've been fighting off illness for the last week and today it finally developed into a full-blown (swine? maybe!) flu. My weekend has been spent sitting on the couch listening to The Cash\Dylan Sessions (the aural equivalent of chicken noodle soup), re-watching Twin Peaks, and trying to keep down greasy take-out, but I couldn't resist posting this update on what is starting to look like my most anticipated upcoming game of 2010: Epic Mickey.

Until now, precious little information had been released on Epic Mickey other than some intriguing concept art (which you can see below the cut). That's starting to change, however, with Game Informer's leak of their November issue wrap-around cover.

Game Informer also promises a month of regularly-posted updates on the game at their Epic Mickey Portal, which you can be sure I'll be keeping a close eye on.

What has been revealed about Epic Mickey thus far:

· It's being developed by Junction Point Studios and produced by Warren Spector, the man behind Wing Commander, Ultima, System Shock, and the brilliant Thief and Deus Ex games (fun fact: he also designed the pen-and-paper RPG Toon for Steve Jackson Games with the legendary gaming god Greg Costikyan, whose blog is required reading for anyone interested in gaming culture).
· It will be released on the Wii with a projected date of third quarter 2010.
· "Epic Mickey" is most likely a working title and not final.
· It will be a platformer and has been described as "steampunk" (coincidentally, before I started coughing up chunks of lung and downing Nyquil like Kool-Aid, I was working on a post on steampunk-themed games, so watch for that once I return to my typical fine fetter).
· It will blow your mind.

I've long held the conviction that Disney is a lot more subversive than the watered-down, family-friendly image it's known for. That, or it's such a massive superstructure that internal subversion goes overlooked. If you still have your doubts, check out their 1995 short "Runaway Brain" below:

Anyway, on to the Epic Mickey gallery:

By Fred Gambino:

By Gary Glover: