Getting My Game On: World of Cars, Split/Second, Epic Mickey and More

FULL DISCLOSURE:  A few weeks ago, I attended a "Bloggers' Night" reception in Hollywood hosted by the good people at the Disney Interactive Media Group.  They plied my friends and I with free food and beverages and allowed us to play some of their new and upcoming video game releases.  This article has in no way been influenced by the extraordinary hospitality and generous gifts we received that night.  So far as you know.

I'll be the first to admit my video game playing experience is somewhat limited, so when you get invited to a video game event, it's always good to bring an 11-year old with you.  My friend's son Shawn knows his stuff.  He speaks fluent Xbox, PS3 and Wii and recently had a Nintendo DS surgically attached to his hands.  Not that I was able to consult with Shawn at the party.  Once he hit the games, we pretty much lost him for the night.  How far he got sucked down the rabbit hole, though, was helpful in assessing some of the games.  So thanks, Shawn, for being my unwitting accomplice.

Here's some of what we got our hands on:

Club Penguin

"Club Penguin" was started by a Canadian company in 2005 as an online community where kids could play and interact in a safe, moderated, ad-free environment.  Disney acquired it in 2007 and the site has continued to grow since.  Players take on penguin personae in a perpetual winter wonderland full of games and activities.  You can join snowball fights and ice hockey games, act in penguin plays, make pizzas and even decorate your own custom igloo.

The official Disney PR plays up how "Club Penguin" encourages kids to use their imagination and improve their reading and math skills.  Blah blah blah.  I just think the game's friggin' cute.  I want an igloo . . . and a puffle . . . and coins, lots of coins.

Apparently Shawn's kinda familiar with "Club Penguin."  He spent the first half hour of the evening on it, showing the game host how to play.  Don't think for a moment she was showing him anything.

Basic "Club Penguin" game play is free at www.clubpenguin.com.  Full membership, with access to more games, activities and stuff, costs $5.95/month.

Disney Sing It: Family Hits

After making a splash with the "Hannah Montana"/"High School Musical" crowd, Disney is finally releasing a version of their popular karaoke game "Sing It" for the rest of us.  "Sing It: Family Hits" features 30 songs from Disney's vast motion picture music library for the Wii and PS3.  It'll be available in early August.

I have one belief when it comes to karaoke.  If you can't sing well, sing loud.  I sing loud.  Especially on a night like this when I'm fighting a cold and my voice sounds something like Bea Arthur's.  It didn't make me shy away from the mike, though.  I took on "Cruella De Vil" (if my singing doesn't scare you, no evil thing will) and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (I was confident enough in my Disney geekery to sing Mary Poppins' part).  For my finale, I absolutely tore up "Under the Sea."  That's how I roll.

The game scores you higher for timing the lyrics right and being on key.  Anika Noni Rose ("The Princess and the Frog") is even there in-game to give you singing tips.  This all seemed pretty irrelevant to me.  If I could sing well, I'd be on "American Idol."  At home or at a party with my fellow Disney friends, I just want to belt out songs and have fun.  It won't score me any extra points, but, hey, you can't put a value on style.

Guilty Party

We lost Shawn on this one for a lonnnnggg time, so, for that alone I'm giving it a thumbs-up.  "Guilty Party" is a family-friendly whodunnit game that looks and feels a lot like a video version of "Clue."  Players are enlisted as detectives for the Dickens Detective Agency to track down the elusive criminal mastermind Mr. Valentine.  Working together, you search crime scenes, interrogate suspects and unlock clues to solve the mystery.  To help you, your game controller can be used as a magnifying glass, a flashlight, a lock pick and other tools of the trade.  And once the mystery is solved, you can start over again, because the game never plays the same way twice.

"Guilty Party" will be available for the Wii at the end of August.

Split/Second

I'll get to the point.  In "Split/Second," you drive ultra-cool cars really fast and blow stuff up.  The first time I played it, I mercilessly beat a nine-year old into oblivion.  Yeah, I like this game.

"Split/Second" is available now for the Xbox, PS3 and PC.  It features impressive graphics, fast driving action and lots of explosions as you race through a "made-for-TV city built for destruction" (the back story, apparently, is that you're part of a reality show).  As good as the console versions are, though, it doesn't work as well as a mobile app.  I've been playing it on my iPhone the last few days, and despite looking great with decent game play, it lags terribly at times and crashes for no reason.  The game has potential, but Disney needs to work the bugs out before it's a top-notch iPhone app.

World of Cars Online

The cutest little town in Carburetor County comes alive in Disney's newest virtual community, the "World of Cars Online."  In open beta testing right now (which means it's not quite finished, but you can kinda-sorta play it), the game lets you create your own car-toon character and navigate the streets of Radiator Springs made famous in Pixar's "Cars."  You can race and chat with other players, build and customize your own personal garage home, play games, and go on adventures with resident characters like Lightning McQueen, Mater, Fillmore and Sarge.

Navigating your car on and off road takes some getting used to, as I struggled to using both a computer mouse and arrow keys to steer.  I actually found it easier to use the touch pad on my laptop--I've even won a few races that way.

The side games are fun.  My favorite is "Lightning Storm," an old-school shooter that feels like "Galaga Meets Defender Meets Mr. Goodwrench."  It's also a hoot (well, a honk, actually) to head out to Fillmore's Fields for some playful tractor tipping.  Moooooo!

During beta testing, the "World of Cars Online" is free to play at www.worldofcars.com.  When it's ready to officially launch later this year, you can continue to play a scaled down version of the game for free, or purchase a "sponsorship" for $5.95/month and get full access to all the bells and whistles including exclusive customizations for your vehicle and the opportunity to race online in the Piston Cup Series.

Epic News

At Bloggers' Night, Disney didn't have a word to say about the hugely-anticipated "Epic Mickey" coming out at the end of the year for the Wii. It seems they were saving the news for this week's E3 Expo in Los Angeles:

"Epic Mickey" looks like the coolest thing Mickey Mouse has done in decades.  It's already on my Christmas list.

That's about it for now.  Am I forgetting anything?

Oh yeah, has anyone seen Shawn?

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Disneyland Hotel Getting a Nostalgic New Look

I'll admit it.  I've never really gotten over so much of the original Disneyland Hotel being torn out and replaced by Downtown Disney.  Nostalgic memories of youth can be cruel that way.  I miss the Olympic pool, the coffee shop, the garden rooms, the Monorail Bar--heck, I miss a Monorail station that was actually attached to the hotel.  I even miss the ugly freight elevator in the breezeway that connected the front parking lot to the hotel grounds.

The Disneyland Hotel Monorail Station, 1963.  Photo courtesy Robert J. Boser. 

As new renovations have been going on at the hotel the last year or so, I'm missing the original marquee sign at the top of the Sierra (never the Dreams) Tower--not to mention the balconies, the glass elevator and the Top of the Park.  I don't think I like the blue windows that make up the hotel's new facade.  The jury's still out on that.

The Sierra Tower, 1990

Yes, I know it's important for the aging DLH to stay up to date, and that the rooms themselves need some serious makeovers, but it's long sinced stopped being the DLH of my youth, one that I meticulously explored from the Travelport to the marina (who remembers the pedal boats?) to the Dancing Waters stage.

Pedal boats on the Disneyland Hotel marina, 1990.

Still, the sentimentalist in me was encouraged by Disney's announcement of even more enhancements to the hotel.  Check out the new pool area set to open in 2011:

Yes, those are two scale replicas of the Mark I Monorail that stand at the head of two giant water slides.  Atop the structure will be a sign reminiscent of the original Disneyland sign on Harbor Boulevard.  The pool will be built adjacent to Hook's Pointe restaurant (adios shops and Lost Bar) and the Hook's building will be renovated in a Tahitian Terrace dining theme.  There will also be an adventurous Jungle Cruise-type bar.  

The existing Never Land Pool area will be spruced up and remodeled in time for a summer 2012 reopening.

The Sierra/Dreams hotel tower near the new dining area will be renamed the Adventure Tower and will be completed before the end of the year.  The Wonder/Bonita Tower will be the next one redone when it becomes the Frontier Tower in 2011.  Finally, the Marina/Magic Tower, which  houses the registration lobby, will get its makeover and turn into the Fantasy Tower in 2012.  Are you noticing a trend here?  

These are changes the kid in me approves of.  I can't complain one bit about the DLH looking to the future by giving a nod to its (and my) past.

Now, if they could just install an ugly freight elevator.

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Disney's Augmented Reality: Seeing is Believing

You're out of town on business and looking for a good place to eat, so you point your smartphone at the neighborhood in front of you.  Not only do you see the camera's view of the streets and buildings on screen, but the buildings within view are highlighted and you can even see what tonight's specials are.

You're at a concert enjoying your favorite music by your favorite band.  Glance up at the Jumbotron and not only do you see a large shot of the crowd, you also see what everyone's posting to Facebook and Twitter.

You're at Epcot, exploring World Showcase with your kids and having an adventure.  Carrying specially programmed cell phones, you receive clues and instructions from Disney characters guiding you on a tour around the lagoon--and helping you solve mysteries and foil bad guys.

Welcome to the world of augmented reality (AR), the place where virtual stories and information integrate with real life in real time.

The term "augmented reality" may be an unfamiliar to you, but the concept certainly isn't.  You most likely see a version of it every day.  It's the news feed banner that scrolls across the bottom of your TV screen when you watch CNN.  If you're a football fan, it's the ubiquitous yellow first down marker that's on your TV, but is completely unseen by the live crowd in the stands.  These AR images aren't real...but we've grown so used to seeing them, they kinda sorta are.

Superimposed TV images are the most basic types of AR, but there are plenty of others types that are much more complex.  Video games are a form of augmented reality--your real life actions affect what happens in an imaginary world--and the Nintendo Wii is probably the best modern day example of it.  With the Wii, you don't just push buttons and flick joysticks, you move your game controller to emulate what's happening on screen. You swing your arm, for instance, in the same manner you would if you were really gripping a tennis racquet or rolling a bowling ball.  Suddenly, your not just controlling the game, you're part of it.

Creative people at numerous technology and entertainment companies are ramping up and pushing the limits of AR.  Joe Garlington, Vice President of Interactive Projects at Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), is one of them.  He spoke recently during a panel discussion on AR at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.  Garlington worked at WDI in the 1980s, only to leave a few years later to start his own design and production company.  He returned in 1990 and has since racked up numerous theme park credits including Turtle Talk with Crush, the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor and Toy Story Mania, all of which require real time human interaction with a virtual world.  It's a step beyond passively riding in boats past audio-animatronic dolls and pirates, and it's becoming a style of entertainment more park guests are coming to expect.

"Historically," says Garlington, "our audience was families in which the older parts of the audience were technophobes--not very comfortable with games.  (They) wanted to sit on the bench and be entertained.  But, as our audience is now changing to families where even the adults have grown up their entire lives with game machines in their homes, all of the sudden they expect to be able to participate in these games and activities."

One such game at Epcot is Disney's Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure.  Using special cell phone "Kimmunicators," players of all ages receive clues to solve mysteries within seven different World Showcase pavilions and help Disney's animated super agent save the world.  The pavilions are real, the Kimmunicator clues are virtual, and the objects sought within World Showcase go largely unnoticed except by those playing the game--a perfect example of augmented reality in action.

"Within the constraints of certain story structures," says Garlington, "we can create games that feel like you're interacting in a real way with the live character."

That works in theater experiences too.  Turtle Talk with Crush is Disney's interactive show where audience members talk live with the way-cool reptile from "Finding Nemo."  Using AR technology, Crush is fully animated on-screen, moving and responding to audience questions in real time.  He's operated backstage by a cast member with the help of carefully placed cameras and microphones, but there's never any hint that what's happening in the theater isn't 100% real.

It's a neat trick, but will there ever be a Turtle Talk that doesn't require a CM to assist?  Is there a Crush out there somewhere with the potential for artificial intelligence?  Maybe, thinks Garlington, but not for a while.  "There's both an art and a science to it," he says.  "The science part of AI is a long way away and there's a lot of real smart people who have worked a long time to get that figured out."

Still, even in the short term, there's unlimited potential for AR in the Disney theme parks.  Information kiosks, virtual park tours, more interactive rides and attractions.  So, Joe, what are you working on right now?

With a smile, he says, "We're interested in all those things."

Apparently, augmented reality will never take the place of real-time secrecy.

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