Warren Spector 'Kind Of Jazzed' About Epic Mickey's Polarized Reviews

Industry icon and Junction Point Studios founder Warren Spector isn't beating himself up over the mixed reviews of his latest game, Disney Epic Mickey. The Wii-exclusive title launched November 30 and is garnering a 76 on Metacritic, with the highest score reaching 90, and the lowest 40. "I've never worked on a game that's polarized people like this," he said in a recent interview with MTV's Clutch blog. "Literally, we've got a half dozen perfect scores and I've also gotten the lowest scores I've ever gotten on any game I've ever worked on. In a weird sort of way, I think that's kind of cool." Spector said he'd obviously like everyone to believe he and his team at Disney-owned Junction Point made the "best game ever," but he added, "if we were trending at something like an 8 out of 10? I'd probably have to kill myself." "It's kind of cool to polarize people in that way and have people feeling really passionate about it and talking a lot about it, I'm kind of jazzed about that," he stated. Spector is well-known in the games industry for his work on cyberpunk-themed games including Deus Ex and System Shock. So it was a surprise in 2009 when Spector and Austin-based Junction Point, founded in 2005, were at work on a licensed property starring the kid-friendly mouse. But Spector still wanted to infuse Epic Mickey with game design elements he has become known for, particularly a story that bends to reflect a player's choices. The designer also addressed specific criticism about the game's camera, which some reviewers found unwieldy. "I will go to my grave, imperfect as it is, proud as hell of my camera team. If reviewers want to give us a hard time about it because they're misunderstanding the game we made, it's not for me to tell them that they're wrong, absolutely not. But I wish people would get it out of their head that we made a Mario competitor, because we didn't."