Disney Infinity

So a few weeks ago, Disney Infinity hit the shelves. I had a pre-order on the thing, and immediately dropped too much money on it because there were some good sales on its stuff (seriously, the figures and playsets were half off). The expectation of the world was "Disney's Skylanders," but after much playing of the game, I can tell you that it is definitely not Skylanders.

Now, the "buy stuff to play" is totally the Skylanders model that Activision saved its can with a couple years ago, but the game it is attached to is nothing short of genius. I sat down expecting to play a linear, story-driven game that progressed, predictably, through some Disney themed worlds, but instead, I was dropped into an open world where I was free to build and change it however I wished. I dropped on a playset, and while I was initially disappointed that I couldn't bring Sully from Monsters Inc into the Pirates of the Caribbean, I found a very expansive world to play within those playsets.

To clarify the playsets vs. the open world you start with: the base world of Disney Inifinity is whatever you make of it. They have a pre-built world to run around in and collect whatever, but they also have a ton of "toys" to add to it, and you have total control over that initial pre-build as well. Additional toys can be gained by playing the playsets allowing you to add everything that you used or found in the playsets to your overworld (I use the term loosely, since the game actually treats the "toy box" and the "playsets" as mutually exclusive elements that share the "toys").

The playsets that come with the game and that you can purchase are huge. The last two Skylanders games had additional packs with some characters and a special item that gave you an extra level to play. This level usually took about 30 minutes or so to work through, and maybe a little longer if you were really thorough about it. But like most of the Skylanders levels, once you were through it, you were done. The levels are all very linear and story-driven.

Each Disney Infinity playset will take a gamer 4-5 hours to fully complete. They are also open world, meaning that you can freely roam the levels to do side missions for people, play challenges, pick up collectibles that give you more toy box toys to build and play with or work on the storyline. They also had the good sense to package characters with the playset that you can't get individually, so you don't accidentally pick up, say, Lightning McQueen only to find he is also in the playset and end up with two.

The meaning of Infinity, though, comes from that toy box. The princesses got into that and played for hours. Rock girl played on one of the playsets here and there (because it had horses as toys to collect), but primarily played in the toy box just building and creating. I'm pretty much the only one to spend a lot of time in the playsets, though I've had my turn in the toy box as well. In fact, the toy box actually has 4 player support through Xbox Live, and I did play it that way one time.

What did four grown men do one Friday evening on Xbox Live? Why create a row of fans in the toy box and cruise their little cars back and forth to level up after gathering the achievements for playing a 4 player game and stacking four characters on top of each other (it was 4 Jack Sparrows, since you asked). Oh, why did we cruise back and forth over a row of fans? Well, little tip for you, here. Doing car tricks and sticking the landing is worth experience in the game. If you do nothing but tricks over a "bridge" of fans that keep you in the air, you'll gather a ton of experience. Since hitting level 15 with three characters is an achievement, it saves a whole lot of time. The playsets don't give you much in the way of experience for the upper levels. They'll get you to 9 or 10 on a play through, but I played the Monsters University playset for 3 and a half hours with Sully who started and ended on level 13. A few flights back and forth on my fans and ten minutes later, level 15.

My determination on this game? It's incredible. Very fun to play both in the playset and toy box mode, though I would have liked to see a little more freedom to play with any character in the play sets. With a lot of stuff to do in the playsets along with the infinite creative possibilities in the toy box, This game rapidly demonstrated its long-playable value and fun factor in my book. How does it compare to Skylanders? Well, the two only really compare when it comes to the fact that you have to buy the figurines to play the game. Beyond that business model (let's face it; that's what it is), they are very different games to the point of trying to compare Assassin's Creed to Gears of War. They're both third person perspective games, but one is an open world stealth game while the other is a linear, story-driven shooter. That's kind of how Infinity is to Skylanders. One is very open world and encourages free play while the other is very linear and story-driven to get you into the thick of battle ASAP.

What makes a family pick one over the other is where you want to spend all that hard earned cash when it comes to the figures and such since both are very expensive games to play. You can easily spend hundreds to get everything. I suppose it all depends on what you're looking for. I definitely think Infinity will cut into Skylanders' profits this year though, because Infinity isn't just another piece of Disney fluff. It's actually worth playing.