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

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