A steampunk Disney game? PS3 Slim announcement at GamesCom? Halo 4 from the Borderlands team? Adam Standing brings another edition of the rumor reality-check known as Rumor Killers.

Spector bringing out Epic Mickey?

If you haven’t heard of Warren Spector, then you should have. His CV is littered with touchstone titles; Deus Ex, System Shock and Thief: Deadly Shadows are some of the best PC games ever made. So when his development studio Junction Point Studios was swallowed up by Disney in 2007, an entire race of gamers cried out, fearing that this well-respected developer would be forced to churn out games like Daffy Duck’s Birthday Partyz – for Wii & DS.

Spector remained tight-lipped on any speculation regards his next game since the takeover, although he’s dropped hints that it would involve some Disney characters. The first sign of any details came last year, when a Gamasutra article revealed the codename for Spector’s next project as “Epic Mickey”. It also described, in detail, several images of concept art, and it now seems that those images have surfaced on the website of concept artist Fred Gambino – labeled as part of a game project called, you guessed it, “Epic Mickey”.

Thanks to some digging by a NeoGAF forumite, another artist’s site has been found, displaying more concept art with the same steampunk vibe of the art described in the Gamasutra article and on Gambino’s site. Steampunk is certainly the word for forlorn backdrops and heavy industry, especially when it’s full of familiar Disney characters but given those twisted, industrialized looks. The art looks downright awesome, and disturbing in equal measure. Two images stand out in particular: a one armed mechanical Goofy looking like he’s been patched together by the apocalypse itself, and a version of Mickey Mouse that looks more like a machine built to kill than the friendly mascot of a giant corporation.

Joystiq also reported that another concept artist, Tony Pulham, had worked on the game, describing it as a “Wii Video Game” in his online resume. After checking this out, it appears that this particular citation has been deleted, so whether or not this project is an exclusive Wii title remains a mystery. What swings me towards believing that is an older news report from early 2008; EGM columnist Quartermann wrote “word is that Spector’s new Disney project will be a platformer looking to compete with a certain pesky plumber. And who’s big enough to take on Nintendo’s star? Only the mouse himself!” – Mickey Mouse platformer confirmed? Maybe, and if it’s going up against Mario then it makes sense for “Epic Mickey” to be a Wii exclusive.

Much as I dislike most of its products, seeing this alternative, disturbed view of the Disney world has piqued my interest tremendously. What’s more, this could be that mature title for the Wii that doesn’t have to resort to the gratuitous blood and guts of MadWorld or House of the Dead: Overkill. Disney platformers aren’t a new thing either – remember how good DuckTales was? – so not only do I think this rumor’s true, but that this could well be the third-party Wii game that finally kicks (Mickey’s) ass.

TGR says: True