Disney Infinity Preview

What's this? A preview? Yeah, I just can't get this new title out of my head and I figured now would be as good a time as any to write my first preview: basically my take on the game and what I think people might be able to expect from it.

So, what is Disney Infinity? It's a little hard to categorize a game that covers so many genres. It's got action, adventure, sports, racing, world building, and puzzle solving, to name just a few things the trailer touts. There's a lot to do, if you take the trailers at face value. Personally, from what I have seen, it appears to be what Disney Universe had intended to be but fell short. Instead of generic block-headed characters wearing costumes to make themselves look like Disney characters, we actually have Disney characters to play as. Similarly to Universe, Infinity only offers limited character sets as part of the starter pack (The Incredibles, Monsters University and Pirates of the Caribbean), everyone else like Wreck it Ralph, Lightning McQueen or Perry the Platypus come in different packs that must be purchased separately. I can't seem to tell from the website alone but it also seems that even with the starter worlds from the starter pack, only one character from each will be available with the game. Captain Jack, Barbossa and Davy Jones are all said to be a part of the Pirates pack but the Disney Infinity website states that both Barbossa and Jones are characters that are sold separately. I've said it once and I'll say it again, I'm not fond of having to buy more content after buying a game just to keep it interesting.

Is there a plot to Disney Infinity? I can tell you that I am almost completely certain that, no, there is no plot to this game. Videos up on the Infinity website show that the developers of the game wanted it to be expansive, without boundaries; one of the early taglines for the game was 'There Are No Rules'. The initial design was to build what they called the Toy Box, a virtual island where players could play with and combine various toys from the Toy Story films. When kids were given the beta to play and absolutely loved it, the Disney/Pixar team decided to up the ante and add characters from other Disney titles. So the in game world is gigantic and there are plenty of characters to play as (as long as you purchase the play sets and individual characters later on), but there's no driving force behind anything you do. Sure, you can run amok and smack characters around with oversized green sticky hands, but there's no reason for doing any of it. It appears that the sports games, the fighting games, the racing games, they're all mini games to entertain the player when he or she gets bored of world building.

Oh, great, another Rainbow Road for a racing game.

What comes off as purely a marketing strategy to make some extra cash, players have the option to purchase what are called Powers Discs. The starter pack that comes with the Disney Infinity game includes three miniature figurines and three power discs. The figures are of the playable characters, the discs offer power ups, abilities, new gadgets or things used to personalize the player's individual toy box. I can't tell how these are supposed to work but I assume combining them offers the new features wirelessly to the various consoles - still trying to figure out how they plan on pulling this off for the 3DS.

I guess the figures are cool looking, but my gaming space is a mess and these babies would just get lost. 

In August of this year, Disney Infinity will be available for the XBox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo 3DS and both the Nintendo Wii and WiiU.

More Info Here: Disney Infinity Website