Lots of fun to be had, but you'll need to pay to get to it.
The game is made up of three major parts: The Toys – Representing the characters you can play in the game.
The Toy Box – a level/game editor, in which you can build anything you'd like
The Play Sets – 4-7 hour long games focused on one of Disney's Franchises. I'll tackle them one at a time….
And in the interests of disclosure, the only items I don't currently have are the Cars figures.
The Toys:
The toys are really awesome. Like… really, really awesome. They look and feel great. I was sceptical of their price point at first (they cost about 20% more than Skylanders across the board), but that cost is totally worth it for the figure. Not so much for the in-game effect you get from the figure though…
Unlike the Skylanders toys, it doesn't seem like much of anything is saved on the toys. They have character levels (which don't do anything), but there are no individual gold hodes, items or skill sets (in the game at all, let alone saved to the figure) – and as a result the toys feel much less interesting in the game.
The Skylanders toys feel like the toys themselves are the characters and you put the characters on the portal to use them in the game. Conversely, the Disney characters feel like they're keys you're obliged to use to unlock enjoyment. It's a subtle difference, but you soon find that putting your own Jack Sparrow on the portal is identical to putting ANY Jack Sparrow on the portal, and then some of that fun and wonder of your toy coming to life quietly slips away.
This is disconnect is accentuated by the opening of the game, in which you see (and briefly even play as) some of the characters you don't have figures for. You see them… you play as them. And that just intensifies the nagging annoyance in the back of your mind, that reminder that the other character is in there, and you just don't have the right $25 key. So while the physical toys are impressive; the lack of any special ability tree or customisation really detracts from the appeal of 'Toys in the Game'. While there are differences between characters from different franchises (for example, the Lone Ranger and Mike from Monsters Inc), there is little difference between characters from within a single franchise. The Incredibles dodge this bullet (as their abilities as based on their superpowers), but apart from them, the monsters all share the same abilities, the Pirates all share the same abilities, etc.
And to add insult to injury, the special unique powers that characters can get are in the form of physical disks. For those not in the know, power disks are small disks that unlock power-ups or items when placed on the portal. That you have to buy separately. In blind packs of two. For $8 a pop.
The toys aren't so much 'in the game' as they are a not-particularly-subtitle paywall, blocking you from doing what you want to do in the game… which brings me to…
The Toy Box:
So the core of the game is a Toy Box, which people compare to Minecraft – but that comparison only holds up if you're comparing it to Minecraft with a super-flat world, stuck in creative mode. In reality it's closer to the Halo Forge or, an even better comparison, a 3rd person Little Big Planet. And much like LBP, you can make almost anything you can dream up. The controls are simple, but a tad fiddly and I fear younger children might have a hard time. Nevertheless, older kids will be able to whip up all manner of amazing environments, while adult world builders will be able to make highly interactive mini-games via the multitude of programmable items. I've already see neat pinball games and a Donkey Kong clone made inside the tool-set, and the thing has only been out 48 hours.
There are hundreds of items that you can use, but you only get a handful to start out with. You have to unlock more by playing the play sets (the 'campaign' part of the game), doing challenges, levelling up and generally farting about – which is cool. Except the items you unlock are random.
When you explore the world or do challenges you get 'spins'. You spend these at a shop where you play a small slot-machine game that grants you a random piece (or pieces) to build with. Annoying, but it's not quite as bad as it seems – when you start, the spinner shows you a table of 12 pieces and you can reset that series of 12 as many times as you like, until there are a few bits you need. Then you spend your spins and get one of those 12 randomly. So you can control the randomness to some extent, but the way it works means your dreams of building a castle may well be dashed as the curser passes over the bit you want, again and again and again… normally in favour of sidewalks or hand rails.
So, spinner game aside, the Toy Box sounds pretty solid, and it is, but unlike Little Big Planet you can't unlock all the pieces just by playing around and using spins. Oh, no.
Many of the best and most interesting pieces are hidden away inside of the Play Sets, only three of which come with the game – so if you're not planning on getting all the play sets, some of the best items will be forever denied to you. And even if you DO have all the Play Sets, many of the most significant items are hidden inside a vault inside the play set. And that vault requires every figure related to that play set to open. Each Play Set also has smaller locked boxes that can only be opened by a specific character – and that's fair enough. It's a nice bonus for having that figure. But the stuff in the vault is so vital, that the restriction comes across as punitive rather than a reward, and it furthers that nagging feeling that the toys are just keys.
Want to make a level themed after Monsters Inc or The Incredibles? I hope you have all the toys, or you'll be missing vital pieces. And as if that wasn't bad enough, other items require a specific physical 'power disk'. Yep, those blind-buy packs again. So if I want to make a level themed around Wreak-it-Ralph (and I do), I'll need to buy blind packs of disks until I can find the little disk that unlocks the Wreak-it-Ralph items in the toy box, and the disk that unlocks the Wreak-it-Ralph sky-box in the toy box. If you want to make Nemo's reef or Alice's Wonderland, you had better start buying up those packs and hope the right disk falls out. Oh, and if you like TRON, tough luck – those building block/skydome were random draws in rare EB Exclusive packs.
And unlike Skylanders, in which you can use an add-on level once and unlock it forever (meaning you can borrow one from a friend and then give it back once the content is unlocked), the Disney Infinity power-disk has to stay on the platform the whole time. Lose the tiny disk and you lose the ability to make worlds with those items.
Building is fun, but it's just so aggravating how many pay walls you're constantly bumping into… and even the stuff that isn't pay-walled is handed out so inconstantly. If you're trying to build one specific thing, you're likely to get frustrated when you can't get that one vital piece.
The Play Sets:
The Play Sets are the most conventional part of the game. Each Play Set is a self-contained 3-7 hour game that focuses on one franchise and features an adventure in that world (along with the chance to unlock items from that world for your toy box). The game comes with three play sets (Monsters Inc, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles); there are two available in stores (Lone Ranger and Cars) and a Toy Story play-set is coming before the end of the year.
I like that each Play set is quite different. Monsters Inc is basic stealth, Lone Range is My First Red Dead and Pirates is My First Assassins Creed 4. That is the end of my list of good points… on with the slamming….
I'll start with the most publicised problem first – only characters from the featured franchise can play in the play set, so you can't have the Lone Ranger running about Monster University or Mr Incredible running about a Pirate Ship in the Caribbean. Those paying attention will quickly spot that the starter pack comes with three play sets, and only one character for each of those play sets, so those wanting to play co-op need to pay for an additional $50 pack of three characters in order to play co-op. After paying $120 for the base game, that stings more than a little.
It also raises an interesting question around characters coming out later this year. We'll be seeing characters from Nightmare Before Christmas and Wreak-it Ralph, but without related play sets – which would suggest that there is no 'normal' game for those characters to play in. So they're basically re-skins of characters we have already, just nerfed so that you can't use them in the 'game' bit of Infinity.
If only that was the only problem with the play sets – but, alas, it's not. It's really, really not.
I've praised Skylanders for cleverly creating a game that is fun for people (of all ages) while still being simple enough for children (like my niece, who is only three) to play as well. Infinity has managed to do the total opposite of that, bravely forging forward with a campaign that will frustrate children while boring adults. A lot of this comes down to two simple factors that Skylanders didn't allow – jumping and manual camera control. Complain about that lack thereof in Skylanders all you like, but that fact is that TFB did plenty of focus testing, and they got to watch kids playing their game fail simple jumps and fall to their deaths over and over and over again. This is a lesson that Infinity didn't choose to learn. More than once Infinity presents the player with an unwieldy camera and/or jumping puzzles. In fact, users are asked to make percussion jumps and double jumps at various points.
The controls are also more complicated – using all four face buttons, both sticks, both triggers, the right-bumper and the directional pad. That is too much for most younger kids (hell, even I occasionally ended up mashing the wrong buttons thanks to their inexplicable decision to map your primary attack to the top button).
So that explains why young kids might have trouble, but that extra complexity means the game will be more entertaining for adults, right? Wrong. While the more complicated navigation will lock out younger players, older players will still be boarded to death by a game that offers exactly zero additional challenge. You have a health bar, but it's meaningless, as the only penalty for death is a 2 second animation as you respawn in exactly the same place. You don't lose money, you don't get sent back a short way, you don't have any downside at all.
Now, I don't have the Cars play set, but I assume it's full of car racing - and so perhaps a 2 second delay while you pull yourself together is meaningful in that instance. However in every other set I've played, the lack of real death means that combat is robbed of any impact at all… just pull on the trigger until the baddies are gone – don't bother dodging, there's no point. The lack of combat means that the play sets feel like a mind-numbing ,and repetitive, chore as you gad about doing fetch quests.
But the biggest crime of all is that the play sets just feel soulless. They don't have the same vibe as the source material; they feel slapped together for the sake of having a 'single player experience'. As gamers we all know that feeling – it's the feeling you get when you play a rushed movie tie-in… the sort you stop half way through, because you just can't be arsed finishing it.
If they'd nailed the right vibe, the above stuff wouldn't matter so much. People would play it for the experience of playing a fun Pirates or Monsters game, but it doesn't – and that puts the focus back on the tedium of non-combat and the simple, repetitive quests.
I can't put my finger on what it is that makes it feel so… empty. It might be that the areas suffer from a 'Little Big Planet' sense of level construction where you can see the seams where it was stitched together - but unlike LBP where that was charming, here it makes it feel… plastic. Or it might be where things are clearly out of place, like the civilians in The Incredibles play set all being odd little toy Russia- doll people instead of 'normal' NPCs. Or most the NPCs in the Lone Ranger being human-shaped sign-posts.
Whatever it is, it makes the play sets something you have to endure to get pieces for the Toy Box mode, rather than something you'd set out to intentionally play for enjoyment.
Infinity does have co-op for up four players via PSN/XBLA. That is awesome, and it's something that Skylanders needs to pick up. Like… soon.
Meanwhile you can obviously also share and download other people's levels, which promises LBP levels of fun – although seeing other people use pieces I can't will build within me a white-hot rage, I'm sure.
Bottom line: Infinity might be a fun construction set. Perhaps. I can't tell for sure, as it's hidden under layers of physical DLC, the necessary to play through dreadful single player campaigns and a unlock system that doesn't give you the items you need.
I can't stress enough how awful the DLC/toy-unlock system for this game is. Skylanders got a lot of flak for its "physical DLC" model, but the fact is you can see and explore the whole game with just the characters in the starter set, and if you want to explore all the hidden areas you're only looking at five extra figures. In Infinity you need every toy if you want to experience the whole game - every figure, play set and blind-buy disk is required. It makes Skylanders look positively thrifty. I have a real problem with rating Infinity, because what are you actually rating?
Do I score the Disney Infinity experience I am personally having (after spending roughly $180usd) with several character packs and an additional play set?
Or are you rating the experience that a family will have with just the core pack – no way to co-op the campaign content and with no way to access many of the key building blocks? Because a family with just the core pack will lack the content specifically locked away by the figures/disks they don't have, but they will also have less chances to earn 'spins', thus locking them out of many of the key 'normal' pieces too.
And even if you can decide on which physical package you're rating – what part of it are you rating?
The campaigns are bland, but the core of the game is the toy box.
The toy box is awesome, but requires you to play the campaigns.
The game over all, which is (in my opinion) a solid 7 or 8 – or the game you have access to when you start, which I'd give 3 or 4.
I feel like this is a product that will offer a lot of people a lot of fun… but you can't score it based on that, because not everyone has access to that same experience after buying the game.
I'll be buying the Wreak-it-Ralph figures that come out around Christmas, but I can't imagine getting anything beyond that. To quote a friend, I just don't have affinity for Infinity.