Intro:
Well it looks like Universal Studios: Theme Park
has found it’s match for the worst game on the Gamecube,
or even more. When I was looking into Mickey’s
Magical Mirror, it looked like it could have been a
really fun platform game where you jump around (“jump
around, jump jump, jump around, jump jump“) and
collect different power-ups and other cool little items.
Usually platform games don’t have to have an incredible
story to be fun, so even though it was Mickey Mouse, I
still expected it to be fun. But c’mon, you’re never too
old for Mickey Mouse right? I’m proud to say that I love
going to Disney Land, because I’ve had the most fun
there than I have ever had in my life, and plus it
doesn’t matter WHAT age you are, there’s always a kid in
somebody. Anyway after I rid my nose of snot from that
tender moment just a moment ago(*sniff* *sniff*), I
popped the game in and started playing, and I must say I
was VERY disappointed, read on...
Plot/Story:
I believe this will be the shortest paragraph I have
ever written. Ok so you’ve got Mickey sleeping in his
crib, catchin’ some Z’s. All is going down well until
ole’ Mickster sees a ghost staring back at him from
inside his bedroom mirror. So Mickey goes to the mirror,
and is hesitant to enter at first (you know, his first
time in a mirror, first time jitters), however the ghost
beckons him more and more to come into the mirror, and
so he steps in. But, Mickey is still asleep, so this is
a dream. Once “dream Mickey” steps into the mirror, he’s
transported into a twisted mansion inside the mirror,
and the ghost has broken the entrance back to the real
world into little pieces, so now Mickey must put his
best foot (or claw? since he’s a mouse you know) forward
and find the mirror pieces so he can return home to the
real world.
Gameplay:
Ok so after the small little introductory scene, I’m
waiting for it to stop so I can start to control Mickey.
But there was a small problem, when I came into control
of the game on-screen, I was controlling a hand pointer
thingy. So I was like, ok maybe this is just for this
little area and it wasn’t part of the actual game so I’d
actually get to control Mickey if I go into one of these
doors. I open a door, what do I control? The pointer
still, and that my friends, is how you control Mickey
during the whole game. As you explore the game, you’ll
have to point where you want Mickey to go.
Now the whole point of the game is to find the scattered
mirror pieces, so you’ll explore this mansion which has
different rooms (doesn’t this seem familiar?), and find
keys to unlock doors that lead to more puzzles to solve.
Oh wait, I didn’t mention it yet, this game is one giant
puzzle, you’ll go to the different rooms, point the
cursor on different items and cabinets and stuff like
that to pick stuff up. When you point your cursor over
different items, the pointer will change into different
cursors to let you know that you can do something. If
the pointer is white, that means you can click it once
and Mickey will walk to wherever you clicked the
pointer, and to make Mickey move his little ass you can
click it twice to make Mickey hustle over to the spot
where you want him. So for instance if there’s an item layin’ somewhere that you can take a closer look at, the
pointer will change into a magnifying glass so you can
take a closer look at things, which can discover new
passageways or allow you to pick items up.
When you move the cursor over to a door, the cursor will
change into a door which lets you know you can go into
another room. Of course some doors will be locked (NOW is
this starting to resemble something?), so you’ll have to
find keys which are usually found after completing an
easy little puzzle to open the door, and now you’ll
enter the next room, with more puzzles to complete,
which leads to opening more doors, which leads to
finding keys to open those doors, which then again leads
to more puzzles, which will then lead to another repeat
of what you just got done doing 20 minutes ago, only now
for another 20 minutes. That’s ALL you do in this game,
and aside from two or three mini-games, this is the most boring game I have ever played in my entire life,
even over Universal Studios: Theme Park which
unless you’ve been living in a cave with Bin Laden
somewhere, you would know how horrible THAT game is. For
those who didn’t catch on to what game this had a strong
resemblance too, it was Resident Evil, only
Resident Evil was fun and this game is a piece of
trash. So this is what my buddy and I don’t understand,
and that’s how they can take a game in the year 2002(now
for those who don’t pay attention to our society), and
turn the gameplay in it into a game from 1992, which is
what the point and click part is about.
So anyway, when you come to a place where you can use an
item that you’ve collected, an item bag will replace the
pointer and that will let you pick the item to use on
what you’re pointing too. For example, early on in the
game you’ll find a piggy bank with some type of gear in
it, but you can’t get it out. So as you explore more,
you’ll find a coin. If your brain ticks right, something
should have clicked about what to do, and you go back to
the piggy bank and see the item bag appear over the
bank, so you click on it and choose the coin, throw it
in there, but that’s not enough. So you have to find
more coins to fill up the Piggy Bank in order to get the
item out of it. Most of the puzzles consist of this kind
of stuff, and it gets SOOOOOOO boring. The only slight
innovation to the game, is the trick points. Your trick
points are in the upper left corner, and you have to
find blue Star Holder’s to increase how many Trick
Points you have. You use trick points when the cursor
turns into a star, and most of the time this’ll appear
when there seems to be nothing going on, however if you
have enough trick points which is specified inside the
star pointer, you’ll do some weird thing and the screen
will turn weird colors. Ok so maybe it’s not really
innovation, how about this game is horrible. Mickey is
almost impossible to control and it takes forever just
to look at an item.
There could have been one thing that could have saved
this game, and that would have been if they ditched the
stupid click and go process, and went with a platform
style game where you actually control Mickey and can
jump, and collect items, and do everything you do in the
game now, only without the stupid point and click.
Mickey’s Magical Mirror could have been a surprise
platform hit a lot along the lines of how Pac-Man
World 2 turned out to be an awesome platform game. I
mean, I know it’s Disney and this game is intended for
the little kids, but it’s not that much harder to
control Mickey himself.
Graphics:
Are you kidding? You call these graphics? Well for a
little child, then they’re going to be top dollar to
them and they’re going to have fun no matter what, but
for me this is WAY to colorful to me and it actually
started to hurt my eyes. But that’s not it, the game
just looked like a big Saturday morning cartoon minus
the coolness and everything. In fact, the cartoons look
BETTER than this game, as the visuals in this game are
very bland. Plus there’s nothing complicated, they have
the basic square, circle, and other geometric shapes
that make up the foundation of the game.
I mean, there’s nothing really to say here, the graphics
are very cartoon like, although they’re extremely lame
and plain. But then again, you’re not going to see a 16
or 17 year old guy playing this or anything, most
likely, so the kids really aren’t going to care because
they’re so wrapped up in telling their favorite cartoon
character where to go.
Sound:
The sound in this game is EXTREMELY annoying, and if you
haven’t muted your TV within a minute or so of playing,
you must be extremely deaf. This is a time where I’d
like to be deaf, however I must have been cause I didn’t
mute until I had gotten pretty far in the game, but in
that time there were a couple 2 minute scenes where some
really cool classical songs were played. Like when
you’re in the kitchen and you inspect a cabinet to find
the silverware pop out and start marching as Mickey
orchestrates like in Fantasia to one of my favorite
classical songs of all time. But other than that, all
the sound there was, was little squeaks and beeps and
Mickey’s annoying “All Right!” in that high voice
EVERYTIME he got something, even a stupid key. It’s like
a child who spazzes out when he gets “what he always
wanted” for Christmas.
Rock’s Thoughts: Mickey’s Magical Mirror has my vote for THE
WORST GAME EVER and I’m sure anyone else who
plays it will agree with me. This even has Universal
Studios: Theme Park beat, only because of how
horrible the controls are, especially the 1992 “point
and click” type of gaming. Point and click belongs to
PCs where you’ve got a mouse, not on a controller on a
next generation console in 2002.
3.2
