Disney Sing It: Family Hits

Gather the family around the TV for some Disney karaoke fun! The new game Disney Sing It: Family Hits for PlayStation 3 and Wii is sure to bring your family together for hours of entertainment. The game features your favorite songs from 20 of your favorite Disney films. You'll even get singing tips from Anika Noni Rose from Disney's Princess and the Frog.

Songs for Disney Sing It: Family Hits will come from old classic films and new favorites. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Toy Story, Cars, The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and The Princess and the Frog to name a few. The karaoke is easy to follow with full screen HD videos featuring montages and footage from various Disney movies.

Craig Relyea, senior vice president of global marketing for Disney Interactive Studios says, "The Disney Sing It franchise has produced a passionate fan base, and they’ve expressed a big demand for songs from Disney’s timeless movies. Now, music fans of all ages will be able to enjoy Disney Sing It: Family Hits, both as an engaging karaoke performance game as well as perfect entertainment for family fun.”

The game features a pitch bar that will help players hit the right notes. You can sing a solo, or a duet, compete against your family and friends, or play the exciting Family Mode, which has you passing the microphone to up to eight different players. Sing It Encore Mode let's you play back your performance and add special effects and customize your songs.

Want to improve your performance or unlock awards and Disney themes? Actress and singer Anika Noni Rose (she voiced Tiana in The Princess and the Frog) will help you by providing vocal exercises and techniques, basic voice instructions, game tutorials, and singing games that will help you become a better singer. You'll learn proper microphone technique, how to hit high and low, long and short, and fast and slow notes, and other valuable tips!

The game is rated E for Everyone and is scheduled to be released this summer.

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Disney's Guilty Party for Wii

Disney's Guilty Party is a new, upcoming mystery game for Wii. The family-friendly game is being created by Wideload Games, Disney Interactive Studios’ Chicago development studio and is set to be released later this year.

The game tells the tale of the Dickens Detective Agency and a master criminal named Mr. Valentine. Up to four players can play. Each player will pick a member of the Dickens family/detective to play and travel around the world to various locations to attempt to solve a crime. Players will work together to look for clues and when they think they have a suspect, attempt to solve the crime.

Tom Kang, studio head and general manager of Wideload Games says everyone loves a good mystery. "Mysteries are one of the world's most beloved forms of storytelling, and Guilty Party brings mysteries to Wii in a way that the whole family can play together," he said in a press release about the game.

Players will gather clues by interrogating suspects, exploring crime scenes and playing mini-games. Your Wii remote will transform into a number of detective tools, including a magnifying glass, flashlight, lock-pick, and fingerprint kit. Once you've found some clues, you'll piece together the clues from your detective notebooks to decide who is the culprit. You'll also track Mr. Valentine across the world, from a high-speed train to a leaky aquarium and everything in between, using your quick wit and reflexes.

Patrick Curry, the game director for Wideload Games says, the game plays like a board game. It will be great for family night. The game was inspired by classic detective stories and infused with Wideload's distinctive art and humor style. It's the first game being created for the company for Disney Interactive Studios.

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More on The Dark Side of Disney's Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is the symbol of Disney’s happy-go-lucky, dream-filled company. The Mickey that we have known has been helpful, funny, and happy, but this is not always how the beloved mouse has behaved. Back in 1928 when Mickey was introduced to the world, he was not a very well behaved mouse. Today, one of the most well known video game designers would like to hone in on that darker side of Disney’s ever popular character.

The Deus Ex franchise is currently developing a new game called Disney’s Epic Mickey that will explore a side of Mickey that many of us have never seen. Warren Spector, the game’s designer is excited with the chance to “re-imagine” Mickey Mouse.

The expected release date for Disney’s Epic Mickey is fall 2010. The adventure-platform game will be created exclusively for Nintendo’s Wii. The story of the game will focus on a world created by the sorcerer from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and contain a series of forgotten Disney creations and characters. Oswald, who was one of the earliest character created by Walt Disney, is one of these lost characters. In the game, Oswald becomes jealous of Mickey’s exploding success, so Mickey demolishes Oswald’s comfort zone within the cartoon wasteland. After his outburst, Mickey is forced to face the consequences of what he has done.

Although this may seem rather dark for our favorite cartoon mouse, we are still reminded throughout the game that our hero Mickey is a mouse who solves problems by changing the world around him and positively interacting with the people and places he comes into contact with.

Spector started up his company, Junction Point, in 2005. Disney quickly bought the company and commissioned Spector to start on the Mickey Mouse game. He was thrilled to work with Disney because he has been a fan of them all his life and admits to being an animation freak. When Disney first approached Spector with the idea of a Mickey Mouse game, he immediately told them that he wasn’t into designing games for kids. Disney was quick to explain that they were going for a whole new kind of Mickey that would appeal to a different kind of gaming crowd. On hearing this, Spector was in.

Spector says that he hopes that this game will reinvent people’s perception of the much-loved mouse. He hopes that he will now not only be a cuddly adorable character that children around the world love, but also a hero that teens and adults can appreciate. Mickey will now be able to go back to his more mischievous side with this new game but while still learning from any mistakes that he might make. After saying this, Spector makes sure to clarify that they are not making Mickey evil by sticking a sword or gun in his hand. He is simply able to make mistakes.

I personally am very intrigued by this new idea that Disney is developing. The thought of a new kind of Mickey Mouse is something that certainly has caught my attention. I can’t wait to hear more about this game and eventually give it a try. Epic Mickey definitely sounds like a game that will be worth looking more into.

Epic Mickey Bringing Disney's Dark Side

This month's issue of Game Informer magazine has got gamers and Disney enthusiasts in a tizzy. The magazine features an exclusive cover story and they have even set up a website where they will make exclusive announcements over the course of this month about what is rumored to be a single-player, Wii-only game (though recent reports say the game will also be available for Play Station 3 and Xbox 360). According to the website, they will be posting stories, videos, images and details exploring the process behind the design and creation of the project.

October 5th's announcements brought news that Warren Spector will be developing the game. Who is Warren Spector? Just one of the biggest role-playing game designers of all time, of course. He's probably best known for Deus Ex and its sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War. In 2007, Disney Interactive acquired his Junction Point Studios and Epic Mickey has been rumored to be his first Disney project. While gamers may know Spector's name, they probably don't know that he is slightly obsessed with Disney. An interview with Game Informer Magazine reveals that Spector owns a second home filled with rare Disney memorabilia. Who better to work on this game?

The game probably won't be released until the fall of 2010, meaning players will have to wait an entire year, but that hasn't stopped rumors and internet chatter. The game promises to be dark - not your average Disney - and some say it will take place in a dark world of forgotten Disney characters ran by Oswald the Rabbit - Disney's original character creation before Mickey Mouse. Oswald is supposedly jealous of Mickey's fame an has called on The Phantom Blot to help get his revenge. The Blot covers the world with sticky black ink and it is up to Mickey Mouse to restore order and return things to normal by painting, mending and clearing obstacles.

Check out this month's Game Informer Magazine for more details.