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 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