Disney Infinity (Release: Augaust 2013)

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One day left until its out in the UK and I'm getting it lol. Might to a video overview type thing of it if anyone here would be interested in seeing some of the figures, other than that I'll be sure to post about any TLK stuff I find in the game.

It's looking pretty good though, I'm strangely excited, not just for the game but to start collecting ALL the things!

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Okay after having the game for about a month now, I can say it's "alright". The game itself is quite nicely made, graphics look good enough and the way each character is stylized to fit the Infinity theme is pretty well done. Figures are really quite detailed and fairly sturdy and the sound effects and music are actually taken from the real things (even some of the WDW theme park music plays, where appropriate. I.E if you use the Dumbo the Elephant ride power disc which lets you fly around in that then it plays the actual music from the ride itself which is a neat little touch).

The game itself is split into two main modes - Play Set. These are these strange clear crystal pieces that you put on a base to play in a World based on that IP. So if you put the Piston Cup on there, you can play in the Cars play set.
These are fairly big open world areas based on that IP. You can explore them, level up characters by doing missions and getting XP, earn money for spins in the ToyBox vault and they generally vary in how fun they are.
Pirates one is pretty fun, you can customize your own ship and you actually do get to sail it to other parts of the PotC World and do battle with other ships etc, it's pretty neat. All the play sets let you customize the World to some degree, but Pirates does it in the best way that actually makes sense.
Additional play sets can be bought for I believe it is about £30 (it's a lot cheaper in the USA though I think), they come with two characters from the IP as well.
Which when you consider the single figures are £15, you pay for two of them and get that play set for "free"... Either that or it's a complete rip off, whichever floats your boat.

Then we have the Toy Box Mode and for a mode that was supposed to be the heart and soul of the game it's been handled surprisingly bad.
So, in terms of what you can actually create. That bit is actually really good, there are a LOT of things you can use to build levels with and each can be customized. I built a race track that goes through parts of Cinderella's Castle, it was pretty cool. You can add enemy behavior, spawn points, timers, you can sculpt the terrain, pretty much anything you want to make can actually probably be made, so that's good.
It's like Minecraft in that you build a World not a game, but then mixed in with LittleBigPlanet, it's actually pretty easy to use as well.
On top of that levels can be created cooperatively with a friend via splitscreen or through the game's online connectivity.

What is NOT so good is that A) Although there is a lot of stuff to use, a lot of it also has to be unlocked. And as you unlock stuff for Toy Box by playing through the play sets, you don't know what you need to do in order to unlock a certain piece you might want for your level and even if you do, you still might not get that piece because you need to earn "spins" which can be used to unlock the bigger objects like the Cave Of Wonders head thing from Aladdin, but they unlock at random. And this indeed is how you get Pride Rock, I had to unlock about 20 things I didn't want to even have a CHANCE of getting it. It really is a meaningless middle man, why create such a decent level editor and then limit it like so?

The worst part of the game (and the only other real flaw other than loading times and horrendous frame rate which probably ill be fine when the PC version comes) is the power discs. This is where the game's true milking the cash cow nature shows IMO.
There are two shapes of power discs, round ones which actually have an effect on your character that are placed under him / her. You can have two of these active at a time and you can stack two of the same for double effect or mix them for some interesting alchemy. I.E Putting the Pieces of Eight coin down which gives you more coins, along with Bolt's super strength coin can give you coins for landing hits on an enemy, that's quite nice.

The hexagonal ones though, there are two types of them orange ones are toys, purple ones change either the textures / terrain or the sky to match that Disney IP. Again, this means that some of the customization for the game's great Toy Box mode is locked away. The orange hex pieces give you weapons or toys to mess around and fly about it.
And THEN the are special rare discs with are bright red and have a lenticular picture (y'know like a shiny pokemon card where you move it slightly and the image moves a bit). And retailer exclusive ones

The problem is that these discs are all bought in blind packs of two, meaning you can easily but the exact same power disc multiple times. Unless you go on to Ebay and pay profiteers obscene money to get the last ones you need. But unlike the round discs which can be stacked, the hex ones can't which means if you DO get duplicates (you will, if you buy them the way nature intends) then they're pretty much useless.

You can't share Toy Boxes you made with friends, only upload them to Disney who will feature the best ones to be available for download. This means that you could create a decent level but only you will ever see it, which makes it kind of pointless and is a real shame when LBP nailed the share concept so flawlessly.
Also some of the £15 characters that don't have play sets based on their Disney IP (example, Rapunzel is a purchasable character but there is not Tangled play set) these characters can only be used in the Toy Box and since all you can do in Toy Box is make levels no one will see and play through a select few featured ones, characters like that are kind of useless as well. But it DOES tell you on the packaging for the character whether they have play sets or not, so if you buy them then it's really for collection purposes otherwise you only have yourself to blame.



In closing, the game itself is good fun and aside from a hiccups which is mostly down to the game running on eight year old hardware, it works well.
The problems arise when you see past the smoke and mirrors and the game's true nature of forcing you to spend unnecessary time and money is revealed.
And while I don't think it's really that bad, it's just too much to ignore.

They say a fool and his money are easily parted, they should edit the quote to read "A Disney fanatic and their money are easily parted." and this game is the embodiment of that quote. If you can look past that or get the stuff cheaper somewhere, it's probably worth it. Otherwise your money really is better off being saved, just go buy GTAV or whatever.