The Future of Star Wars Games

There's been a lot of talk bandied about since Disney bought the rights to Star Wars in 2012. Jokes abounded of Leia joining the Princess line up and pictures of Yoda or Darth Vader wearing Mickey ears were plastered across Facebook and Tumblr. After Disney shut down LucasArts, the publishers of the Star Wars video game titles, there were rumors of no new games at all. It seems all that worrying was for naught now that Electronic Arts has signed a multi-year contract with the Mouse, giving EA sole rights to publish and develop Star Wars console titles. That's just console, though, Disney will still use their own company to produce mobile (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.), social (Facebook) and online titles.

So is this good or bad news for Star Wars gamers? That depends on what you've been waiting for. The long awaited Star Wars 1313 title that had been initially designed by LucasArts could very well have been scrapped, at the worst. Best case scenario, however, might have the game eventually released by EA, albeit with a completely different story, appearance and system. For those excited about everything they'd heard or seen so far concerning 1313, this could be disappointing news.

Will EA do a good job with Star Wars? Personally, I'm hoping so but I'm not holding my breath. Electronic Arts has been responsible for publishing really good games, like Alice: Madness Returns and the Mass Effect series, but its also responsible for some mediocre and repetitive titles such as every SIMS game ever and all the Rock Band variations known to man. I have some hope given my own experiences with EA titles that Star Wars' future could be a bright one.

Disney Junior Games Online Review

I'm sure it's evident at this point that I am not a child. I am a Disney kid at heart, but I'm nearing thirty years old. However, the purpose of this blog is to review and preview all Disney games and gaming gear. That includes the stuff designed specifically for the under ten years old demographic. I do have an Epic Mickey review in the works but while I'm replaying it for a refresher I thought I'd take a look at the Disney Junior website.

Disney Junior is a block of child friendly programs found on the Disney channel designed with children aged from toddler to pre-teen in mind. It plays on the Disney network every morning from six in the morning to two in the afternoon. Those wanting more of the kid friendly programs can switch their televisions over to the Disney Junior channel and watch things like the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins and Chuggington all day long. Advertisements during the Disney Junior block, or on the Disney Junior channel, make mention of the various games that can be found online at the website and for download at the App Store for iPads and Kindles.

So what sorts of games are available at the Disney Junior Games website? Due to the age range of the intended audience, none of these games are particularly difficult. Players will find a multitude of educational games, teaching math and colors, as well as numerous puzzles, memory matchers and music makers. I decided to play around with an action game and a math game.

Action - Pooh Sticks - How anyone can call Pooh Sticks an "action game" is beyond me. For those unfamiliar with the game, the premise is to drop a stick in a river and watch it move from where it was dropped to a specified spot in the river that serves as a finish line. This is generally played with a number of people; the winner is the one with the stick that gets to the finish line first. The online version requires moving the stick, the cursor, up and down the screen to avoid obstacles such as rocks, logs and lilypads. There are no power ups, no prizes, just a timer and it really doesn't matter how fast or slow you play. Piglet will always hope you will play again.

The graphics are bright and well drawn, the music is annoying but the animation runs smoothly. Pooh Sticks is visually appealing but that's all it has going for it.

Without a second player, this is an incredibly boring "action" game.

Math - Manny's Pinata Birthday Bash - Handy Manny is an engineer with a toolbox full of sentient tools, most of which speak Spanish. The purpose of this game is to create a pinata for Manny's birthday party. There is a mix and match aspect where the player can customize their pinata using three different shapes, three patterns and two different colors. After the pinata is constructed, it needs to be filled with toys which  involves a short memory game, if you can call it that. A list is provided, featuring three different objects that must be selected to continue. The list provides both the English terms for the items and the Spanish terms. Getting passed that, we finally get to the math part of the game, where players must solve very basic math problems (all addition from my few playthroughs) to hit and break open the pinata.

For some reason a score is kept yet I have no idea how the points are figured out or even what the purpose of scoring is. There isn't a different ending, no consequences, so it seems pointless to keep score.

As expected, neither game offered any sort of challenge, though both were brightly colored with cheery repetitive music. I suppose if a parent or babysitter had no qualms about letting their tiny tots play with the internet for a while, the games on the Disney Junior website could entertain.

Rating: 
Demographic: 2 - 5 year olds, boys and girls.
System(s): PC
Players: 1

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

Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell Review

Disney used to have just one mascot, Mickey Mouse, but things changed somewhere along the animation mogul's timeline and other characters began to be included in some sort of exclusive mascot club. The perk to being one of these Disney mascots is being slapped on almost every kind of merchandise known to man. I'm sure it can be agreed that one of the most popular characters used to represent Disney nowadays is Tinker Bell, the temperamental little pixie from the Peter Pan film. She's so popular now that she spurred an entire line of books, movies and video games devoted to her life in Pixie Hollow, the home of Never-Fae. There's even a massive multiplayer online game called Pixie Hollow available at the Disney website where pixie enthusiasts can create their own pixie, or Sparrow Man if they want to play as a male, and fly around Pixie Hollow. That's a review for another time, however; today's review is over the first of Tink's Nintendo DS titles.

3+ years my foot, Disney.

Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell debuted in 2008, created by Disney Interactive Studios and Genius Sonority, made solely for the Nintendo DS system. The player controls the new Tinker of Pixie Hollow, Tinker Bell herself. The entire plot of the game revolves around Tink's role as a Tinker fairy, a fairy whose job encapsulates fixing, inventing and polishing items for the rest of the Hollow. There's little else to this game, actually. The player will spend most of his or her time picking up lists of things to fetch for the four Ministers of the seasons, invariably always involving something or things to repair. Yeah, sometimes you'll have to find ingredients like fruit, flowers, string or gemstones, but the constant is having to fix or polish something. Even the repair jobs are limited; generally the only items to fix are cups and teapots, occasionally interspersed with ladles. I'm sure there's a sexist kitchen joke in there somewhere.

Rubbing stains off is not repairing anything, Disney. It just makes this cup not dirty. Remember, if it's not Baroque, don't fix it.

Besides tinkering, Tinker Bell can perform fetch quests for other fairies other than the Ministers. Other major players from the films make cameos in the game, though are unplayable: Rosetta, Fawn, Iridessa, Silvermist, Terence, Clank and Bobble as well as Fairy Mary. Actually, the only reason any of them are there is so Tink can play mini games, such as collecting silk from worms with Fawn, water droplets from dewy leaves with Silvermist and painting ladybugs with Rosetta. What's the point of the mini games? Collecting ingredients, either to check off needed supplies for fetch quests or for Tinker Bell to use in the construction of new clothes and jewelry, which she can then either wear herself or sell to other fairies from her workshop for "fairy medals", this game's version of gold. The fact that there is a currency system for pixies is probably the most unbelievable aspect of the entire game.

Performing the endless fetch quests will eventually reward the player with friendship points with the various pixies scattered about the Hollow. Get a high enough friendship rating and the fairies will spout off a special numerical code, which can then be input into a book that Queen Clarion keeps at the Pixie Dust Tree. These codes may not be worth the trouble in the end, however, as they merely provide Tink with more ingredients. Harder to find alternate colored versions, sure, but in the end they're still just flowers and berries, and really only used to make more clothes.

All those leaf dresses are just different colored variations of Tink's normal dress. So much clothing.

I suppose one fun aspect of this game would be the rewards for booting up on certain holidays. Around Halloween in the real world, powering up the game can reward the player with a special orange or purple witchy costume for Tink. Christmas offers a red or white holiday outfit, and there's a special surprise for showing up on your birthday.

One thing I really have to bring up is the age rating on this game. Disney decided 3+ made sense, but I dare anyone to hand this game to a three year old and see what happens. The kid might get excited over seeing familiar characters but I'm not sure anyone that young could play this on their own. The only sounds in this game come from background music and effects such as flying or touching objects, the characters don't have voice actors. It's all text based dialogue. That is a lot of reading for a child that young. Not to mention the only way to get rewards worth playing the mini games involves playing them at the normal or difficult settings; easy would be better suited to a three year old's mental capabilities, as well as speed of motor functions, but the easy level offers virtually nothing worthwhile.

How many three year olds know the words 'decorum' and 'maintained', let alone 'Minister'?

I can't really comment on the replayability of Tinker Bell as this game literally has no ending. Completing a season by acquiring everything a Minister asks for never heralds an end, rather it moves the game into the next season. Tink is in a never-ending cycle of Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter until the player decides they've had enough of the same job, day in and day out, getting nothing out of it besides maybe some new clothes and a bit of cash, just to do it again the next season.

Rating: 
Demographic: 6+ years, girls.
System(s): Nintendo DS
Players: 1

Disney Universe Review

Very seldom am I tempted to play a game that is multiplayer. I'm more of a lone wolf, so to speak; I enjoy testing myself with puzzles and challenges rather than having to wait for others to try and catch up. This probably stems from a childhood of school group projects where I did everything and my teammates sat on my laurels. Enough of the griping, though, because this particular Disney title actually made multiplayer fun.

Disney Universe is an action packed puzzle solving game published by Disney Interactive Studios that came out in 2011. It was released for the Playstation 3, Wii and Xbox 360, as well as for Microsoft Windows, though I haven't had a chance to play the PS3 or Windows version. My experience with this game was on the XBox, which was new for me as I'd never used the console before. Getting used to the unfamiliar controller took me a bit and even with this game being primarily a button masher type, I still had to remember how to knock bad guys back, pick up items and run around all at the same time.

Unlike most Disney games that I'm familiar with, Disney Universe doesn't appear to have any sort of plot. The player, or players if you're playing co-op, is represented by an oddly colored, big headed creature that enjoys dressing up as various Disney characters. Gender apparently doesn't matter to these blue, green, purple and yellow beings as your character can jump around as Donald Duck, Tinker Bell, Stitch or Rapunzel without any noticeable differences to the player avatar. The game starts with a set of fifteen various Disney characters for players to dress up as and more character costumes are unlocked when creatures wearing the new costumes are rescued from world stages. The new unlocked costumes have to be purchased with in-game currency, though I doubt anyone ever had to worry about not being able to afford the character they wanted. The gold needed is generously dispersed when solving puzzles, winning mini games and defeating enemies, as well as being sprinkled about levels.

Where gameplay is concerned, as I've previously mentioned, there's little more to do than button mash. Bad guys come out during various stages, you mash buttons to beat them up and collect coins, and occasionally the player will need to figure out how to progress through the various stages by solving simple puzzles. Every stage offers additional mini games that offer more coins as prizes. These became incredibly repetitive after the first five or so as there only seem to be about three different kinds of mini games; defeat something, collect more gold than the other players or run amok and try to avoid getting hit with projectiles.

Donald and Pumbaa in the Lion King stage.
Screencap taken from a playthrough by CoinOpTV on YouTube.

When I played, I had other people on my team and therefore cases where one player needed to stand on a platform while another character turned a lever were easily handled. I remember a few times when I wondered how on earth anyone playing single player could possibly solve puzzles like that without the assistance of a team mate. After checking out videos of single player gameplay, I am disappointed to report that the puzzles aren't any different at all, they just require more speed. Instead of having someone hold the lever, a short timer starts ticking and you have a few seconds to turn it yourself and then get up on that platform. Failure requires running back to the lever to try again. Honestly, the entire game seems to lose a bit of fun if played solo.

My group played for maybe two hours and we finished four out of the five default available worlds. I'm sure with another half hour we could have easily defeated the game. That makes buying Disney Universe seem like a bad idea, given that the game takes virtually no time at all to breeze through. I'm assuming that's why DLC, or downloadable content, was made available. Through the online shops on the Wii, Xbox or Playstation, players can purchase "packs" of content, offering more costumes and stages to play with. Personally, I'm not a fan of the necessity to buy more content to keep a game interesting.

Rating:
Demographic: 8+ years, boys and girls.
System(s): Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC.
Players: 1 - 4

Where's My Water Review

Unlike a lot of people these days, I do not live on my cellphone. Like any other normal adult, I live on my computer. That can make finding and playing certain games difficult, particularly when they're released exclusively for handheld devices like iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones. Thankfully Disney made sure to release a free version, though far shorter, of their surprisingly popular Where's My Water? title for desktop web browsers as well.

Released in 2011, Where's My Water? is a simple puzzle game featuring cartoon alligators. One particular gator, Swampy, lives in a rather dirty sewer city and wants nothing more than a bath. Unfortunately for him, he has neighbors that prefer chewing on the water pipes to more hygienic activities, which prevents our soiled hero from getting clean. Our job is to redirect water from either pools of standing water or from leaking pipes to Swampy's broken shower pipe so that he may bathe. The trick is that we don't actually get to touch the water, we can only clear a path by touching dirt obstructing the way. Sound easy? It would be if it weren't for those pesky laws of physics the game developers remembered. Water won't always flow in the direction the player might want, so figuring out how to bounce it off walls or movable platforms will be necessary. Points are awarded for speed, collecting rubber ducks and for providing more than the minimum amount of water needed for Swampy to get clean.

I don't see how washing with stagnant water is going to make Swampy feel clean, but this is about an alligator with an obsessive need to bathe. Realism isn't that important.

Though this game appears to be directed towards young kids, the graphics and very repetitive soundtrack are a sure sign this was meant for someone easily entertained, I have to admit that the puzzles aren't entirely easy. The first few levels aren't a problem at all, as it goes with most games, but then a few curve balls get thrown in for good measure. Eventually we have to deal with bombs in the sewers, which can be used to the player's advantage if detonated at the right time or place. For those young achievement hunters out there, accomplishing certain tasks during the levels also unlocks achievements, which can unlock special prizes like bonus stages and extra points.

The game I played wasn't the paid version of the game, and it's obvious that online players uninterested in paying get a much shorter gaming experience. The full game offers chapters to play through, each chapter offering twenty stages of increasingly difficult levels of gameplay. Online players choosing to try the free game only get ten stages of the first chapter, though if you collect enough rubber duckies you can unlock a bonus eleventh stage.

Play Now: Where's My Water?

Rating: 
Demographic: 8+ years, boys and girls.
System(s): iOS, Blackberry, Android and PC.
Players: 1

Disney's The Haunted Mansion Review

The Haunted Mansion ride at the Disney parks has amassed quite the cult following. There are many fans of various ages that enjoy the numerous incarnations, from Disneyland's original to Phantom Manor over in Paris. Though the ride is touted as a 'haunted' attraction, there's very little that's frightening in Disneyland's original. Analyzing the symbolism inside the manor down to the bones may unearth some creepy speculations but face value presents just another attraction with some goofy characters and a safe ride home, despite the narrator's ominous suggestion of taking his way out. It would be safe to say that a video game based on the attraction would be just as fun, just as pleasant. The Haunted Mansion game offers what the ride never did; some real scary stuff.

Being a fan of the Haunted Mansion and all of it's many different stories myself, I had to get a copy of this game. It was released in 2003 by High Voltage Software, a company that has worked with Disney once previously and once again since this game was distributed. There are three difficulty settings to choose from before starting the game: Easy, Normal and Nightmare and three different consoles to play on. I chose the Playstation 2 version, though it is also available for the XBox and Nintendo GameCube.

I'm not sure this cover conveys how creepy this game really is.

Right from the get go the player is thrown into the story with the main character, Ezekiel Halloway (better known as Zeke), coming to the decrepit Louisiana mansion in search of employment as assistant caretaker. The characters speak without the option of having a subtitled accompaniment at the bottom of the screen, which some players might appreciate while others might not. The beginning of this game is one long cut scene, not too badly animated given the year it came out, but it does seem a bit too long when all I wanted was to get started.

The controls aren't hard to figure out, but the camera can be a headache. Left analog stick is for moving Zeke, the right analog is for moving the camera. Instead of mashing x or ◻ for attacking, R1 is used to shoot beams of light from the Beacon of Souls at enemies. ◻ in this game is actually used to interact with light switches and moving objects, which indicate the presence of good souls waiting to be sucked up into the Beacon. L1 can be used to 'lock on' to enemies, but I actually didn't bother using this feature at all since turning to face them ended up being easier. The ○ button is used to collect souls to power the Beacon, your one and only weapon, and I'm pretty sure I never once used the Δ button the entire time I was playing.

For those more familiar with Mansion Lore, and I'm talking really familiar, the name Zeke should ring a bell. The old, white haired caretaker in the graveyard scene with the skinny dog is reputedly named Zeke, and the game alludes to the main character eventually becoming this only living human to be shown in the ride. He's one of many characters from the attraction that made it into the game. We also get to meet Madame Leota, though her speech is less Lady Tremaine and more Southern Belle, and certain famous ghosts like the opera singer, the headless knight, one of the duelists and even the organist from the ballroom. Sorry, no Hatbox Ghost in the attic.

Do you see any resemblance between these two?

One major surprise when playing this game came with the unveiling of the plot. None of the traditional mansion stories are in use for this game. Instead we find ourselves in the middle of a war between good ghosts and the evil undead, led by a man named Atticus Thorn. Thorn is in search of the Beacon of Souls so he may suck out the life force of all living creatures in order to conquer the Land of the Living. Those opposing him and his Order of Shadows are the Brotherhood of Souls, a group comprised of friendly spirits intent on helping Zeke defeat Atticus. The Brotherhood is made up of all those familiar ethereal characters mentioned earlier, six in total, whom will award Zeke with the necessary Soul Gems used to strengthen the power of the Beacon, giving Zeke more powerful energy blasts to use against enemies.

As intriguing as the story was, and as easy as the controls are to work with, this game proved to be nothing but frustrating and even terrifying for me. When enemies come out to attack they come in droves, driving poor Zeke to drink bottles of what appears to be whiskey in order to regain health. Taking a stroll through the hallways attracts the attention of zombies trapped behind boarded doors, getting touched by them invariably makes Zeke take more damage. Little spiders skitter about and bite at your feet while their much larger bright orange counterparts shoot lassos of webbing to snatch Zeke and drag him in for a chomping. Frustrations come in many flavors here, including aggravating puzzle solving challenges, collecting of tarot cards for extra lives and really bad camera angles. During an early "boss fight" when I found myself running around a gigantic pool table, trying to lure the phantom player into hitting the right ball at the right time while fending off a constant stream of enemies, I wondered what in the world this had to do with the Haunted Mansion while swearing profusely at the giant invisible pool player.

All in all, The Haunted Mansion isn't a bad game, I just don't have the patience for it. Even on the Easy setting, I had trouble fighting off hordes of ghosts and stomping on spiders while trying to problem solve. Despite game play issues, particularly passing the Ballroom stage which will never happen for me, the frights are good and creepy and the music fits the mood. A pre-owned copy for the Playstation 2 might cost five bucks and any Disney gamer looking for a bit of fun could do a lot worse than this.

Rating: 
Demographic: 12+ years, boys and girls.
System(s): Playstation 2, XBox and Nintendo GameCube.
Players: 1