To Infinity and...

Beyond... way beyond. I'll confess, I was on the fence with Disney Infinity. I wasn't quite sure what to expect outside of a money sink. And while there is certainly that aspect of it, I will say this, I am in love with Disney Infinity.

I will say as a disclaimer, I admit I am a bit of a Disney wonk. It's not like I write for Orlando Attractions magazine exactly, but I have three sets of Mickey ears (regular plastic, Sorcerer''s Apprentice, and groom set). I love going to Downton Disney to head to the pin trading hut. I have the Oswald the Rabbit DVD collection.

So, of course, Disney Infinity seemed like an obvious choice. That said, I can't say how much I've been impressed by this game, specifically, the Toy Box. So, of course, there will be immediate comparisons to Skylanders -- collectible toys placed on a portal. That's not untrue. Others will say we're dealing with Minecraft lite. The popular analogy goes "Minecraft is to Legos as Infinity is to Duplos." Though I haven't spent a lot of time in Minecraft, I don't believe that to be an untrue statement either.

I actually held off on the launch release purchase because it seemed a bit too much. $75 for a starter pack. Restrictions on multiplayer (must use like-themed character for the playsets, i.e., to play Pirates of the Carribbean in co-op, you must have Jack Sparrow with the starter set and either Davy Jones or Barbarossa). Power discs only purchased through blind packs. Missions reserved for particular characters. Two additional playsets ($35 each) for Cars and Lone Ranger. My wife actually wanted to surprise me when I suggested the purchase and so she went ahead and ordered through Amazon. Except it never came.

After a week or so of waiting, I was champing at the bit. I'd read all the reviews (74 on Metacritic), started visiting the forums. But still, the game was stuck in constant "shipping" status, and not "shipped." In fact, I ended up purchasing not only secondary characters for co-op missions to play with the wife, but I was convinced by the Best Buy saleperson that in doing price match, I coud get the two additional playsets for buy one, get the other 50% off. Who was I to say "no?" Already, I had some $90 invested in the game and I had yet to actually get the $75 starter pack. At least I hadn't purchased any power discs... yet.

After realizing the delay on our Amazon order was because of the Infinity portion, I got the green light to go ahead and purchase the game in-store and I jumped at the chance. What can I say? The characters were gorgeous.

The craziest thing is -- between Pirates, Monsters University, and The Incredibles, these aren't even the Disney movies that I love. While I appreciate what Pixar has done, these titles are no Lion King or Aladdin or Little Mermaid, let alone Cinderella, Dumbo, or Snow White.

The first big test came when my wife and I fired up Infinity for the first time and played as Mr. and Mrs. Incredible. While the game is listed as 6+, in terms of age, I guess that doesn't necessarily take into consideration the dual analog stick noob. Not that my wife hasn't played video games, but she didn't quite get the hang of using RS to control the camera. Even still, we had an enjoyable time running through a bit of the Incredibles playset though things were certainly a bit hectic.

After she went to bed that first night, I did spend a little bit of time in the Toy Box, just to get my feet wet. And that is where I realized just how much potential this game had. Prior to actually obtaining the game, I had already discovered Chad Liddell's tumblr site. I had caught a glimpse of all the game could do.

The thing is, the game's playsets are fairly straightforward, non-challenging runs through already created worlds. I have seen descriptions of Incredibles (Crackdown lite), Lone Ranger (Red Dead Redemption lite), etc. The comparison, I think fair and accurate, had the playsets as Lego game difficulty equivalents. Easy, perhaps, but what you got was the fun without the frustration. The Toy Box, however, is where the game, in theory, could and should shine.

As a prelude, the game does offer essentially mini-games under the "Adventures" label. They are games that showcase just what all one can do in the Toy Box and it really is pretty amazing. Toy Box offers creation tools for any number of gametypes. While I can't say I have experience let alone expertise with all that it has to offer, the gametypes range from very competent kart racers to arena battlers/horde type modes to platformers. Today, for example, I ran through not only the kart races but also a forced top-view "off-road" gametype, a la Ivan Ironman Stewart's Super Off Road.

I know some have complained about what you can and can't do straight away, and certainly I do see some bit of frustration with not being able to have all of the tools at one's immediate disposal. In fact, it was nearly a week before I finally "unlocked" the start/finish line to create my own races.

That said, it really is not too difficult to run through and be able to secure the items needed to let your imagination run wild. I've probably played less than a couple hours worth of the actual playsets, run through the "Mastery Adventures" (the in-game tutorials to give an idea about the Toy Box potential), and earned gold or silver medals for the "Adventures."

The thing is, what you can create is more than competent within each gametype. I have spent the most time in various race modes and they all seem to handle extremely well. The games offer straight-up races or "battle races" with weapons, pre-race and in-race boosts, and even drifting.

Toy Box allows one to tie objects together, to use "logic" where one action begets another. In the shot above, I had not only the start/finish line, but also a race gate. I was able to connect the gate such that upon crossing, I was able to shoot fireworks from the containers on the right, get the crowd to cheer and move in the stands. And it all took fairly minimal effort.

The Toy Box offers no less than the following "Creativi-Toys:" stopwatch, replayer, enemy creator, vehicle weapons creator, skychanger, respawner, checkpoints, teleporter, activation areas, triggers, cannons, turrets, tripwires, spikes, automatic doors. Probably the biggest tell-tale of potential the Toy Box is the capability to create a logic gate.

It can be as easy or complicated I guess as you want. I was chatting with my sister-in-law last week and her three daughters have spent some time with Infinity. Creating things was not quite intuitive -- probably made even more difficult with the Wii.

The thing is, the walking about the Toy Box world itself can be pretty magical. I've unlocked some "set pieces" to populate my Toy Box including Cinderella's Castle, Spaceship Earth, Pride Rock, the Haunted Mansion, the Matterhorn, and the Cave of Wonders to name a few. With the power discs, I've unlocked the Sugar Rush theme, Rapunzel's birthday sky, Abu as an elephant mount, and the Nemo seascape sky. How could I not love this game?

Posted with Blogsy