As many await the newest entry in the “Kingdom Hearts” series that might be coming out this year, I decided to do some sneaking around in the Square Enix offices. Lo and behold, I found an advanced copy of the next entry in the series: “Kingdom Hearts 4.”

Since development of “Kingdom Hearts 3” was taking so long, Square Enix decided to give the job to developers of the legendary game “Cory in the House” for Nintendo DS, which is sitting at a 9.6 metacritic score. Square Enix kept this in secret to surprise waiting fans excited for the third installment.

This iteration of the series makes some drastic changes and goes in a new direction with the characters we all love. Sora, Donald and Goofy now have guns, and the storyline takes place in Middle Eastern Disney World. King Mickey is the captain of your squad, and it’s a surprisingly violent third-person shooter with team squad mechanics; think “Halo” meets the “Mickey Mouse Club.”

You command your squad around the battlefield as you move from cover to cover shooting heartless nobodies. Goofy, as always, uses his shield and now has a new shotgun he can use to devastate enemies. Donald works as your medic, and just like any other “Kingdom Hearts” game, he will still never heal you when you are in danger.

Even with the shooter mechanics, the game still keeps the elements that “Kingdom Hearts” is known for, even when it has changed genres from a hack-and-slash to a shooter game. You still get to travel to other Disney worlds and now have the option to visit all-new DreamWorks worlds where you get to team up with everyone’s favorite action heroes: Will Smith Fish, Po, Barry Bee Benson, The Croods and, most importantly, Shrek.

Shrek is one of my favorite characters in the game. One of his signature moves is him busting out of his outhouse while “All Star” by Smash Mouth starts, inducing “a lotta damage” to enemies in the area.

Unfortunately, my problem with the game is that out of all the characters in these worlds, the developers didn’t include Knack from the “Knack” games! It’s odd that he was missing from this entry when even Drake and Josh were included.

“Kingdom Hearts 4” was so great from what I played of it and was one of the best games I’ve played since “Superman 64.” Instead of waiting for “Kingdom Hearts 3,” look forward to “4,” because it blew my mind so much that it’s worth the wait when it comes out in the year 3000.

Not much will change, but we’ll probably be living underwater by then.