Author Topic: Disney Infinity 3.0 Hands-On Preview  (Read 2412 times)

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Offline Dangerface

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Disney Infinity 3.0 Hands-On Preview
« on: June 17, 2015, 07:23:00 PM »

Star Wars, Inside Out and bunches of improvements!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/40534/disney-infinity-30-hands-on-preview

If you think Disney Infinity 3.0 is just a Star Wars expansion, then you’d be wrong. Yes, there are several Star Wars Play Sets headlining the new game, but Disney has taken this chance to make tweaks and improvements on the game as a whole as well as throwing a lot of new content at us. I had a chance to demo three new Play Sets on the floor (two Star Wars and the one for Pixar’s Inside Out) and get an inside look at the additions to the Toy Box. I’m happy to say that Disney Infinity truly keeps getting better and better.

Disney has three definite Star Wars themed Play Sets: Rise Against the Empire, Twilight of the Republic and The Force Awakens. Twilight of the Republic will come in the starter pack with figures for Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars: Clone Wars. Rise Against the Empire is themed, of course, around the original Star Wars Trilogy and the last Play Set will arrive with the new Star Wars film. Each Play Set actually has a different gameplay focus that is made to match their styles. Space travel and vehicles are huge in the original films with speeders, X-wings, Tie Fighters and the iconic Millennium Falcon, so it makes sense that the Rise Against Play Set focuses on that more so than melee combat, which is the core of the Twilight of the Republic Play Set instead. But possibly the best feature of these new Star Wars additions—besides the figures—is that there is crossplay available! Want to play Darth Maul on Hoth? Done. Want to screw with your brain by playing co-op with Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader at the same time? Go for it.

I started with Luke during the Battle of Hoth and promptly died. Getting used to the jump mechanics (a small jet pack-like boost verses a straight double jump) proved to be my undoing, but once I restarted with Leia, I slowly got the hang of it. The demo featured two approaches to the mission. First I had to take down an AT-AT Walker manually in order to get access to a ship for the rest. Trying to climb their legs with a whole battle going on around me felt very Star Wars, but Disney Infinity still put this stamp on it by making things more toy-like. Instead of carving holes in the walker with a lightsaber or blaster, it was opening a hidden battery compartment and getting rid of the battery that netted me the ship I needed. After the usual fuss of learning the flight controls and failing almost as badly as I did at the start, everything came together in a fun, clever little package.

Disney and Pixar’s new Inside Out themed Play Set shows a different side to Disney Infinity altogether. More melee battle? Nope? Vehicles? Well... no. This Play Set actually takes place in the world of Riley's nightmare (the child whose mind Inside Out takes place in), and is set up as a puzzle-platformer. Each of the emotions from the movie have different abilities and must work together cooperatively to get through levels. In our shot at the game, two of us played Sadness and Disgust. Sadness could walk across clouds without them disappearing while Disgust would get a jump boost from clouds because she really hated fluffy things. So when we needed to reach a high place, Disgust had us covered, but it took some serious team work and carrying Disgust across clouds to get what we needed done. Coordination is big in this Play Set, but this is probably some of the best co-op I've seen from Disney Infinity to date.

Play Sets aside, the Toy Box sees two new add-ons and several changes this time around. For those who always liked the concept of the Toy Box but never had any clue how to get the ball rolling, Disney has added guided tours in their new hub. It gives players the basics of building and takes them through building simple designs with the freedom to stop whenever the player chooses. Revamped gameplay for weapon usage and vehicles have also found their way into the Toy Box straight from the new Star Wars Play Sets. Disney decided to improve upon the old systems, contracting other companies to better develop these parts to the games, and made sure to make those available to everything in the Disney Infinity library.

And in case you still didn't have enough to do, Disney has created two new "game-within-a-game"s: Toy Box Speedway and Toy Box Takeover. Speedway is your standard racing title but with the added Infinity spin. All the game's vehicles are free to use and customize for racing. Takeover heads the adventure route. Syndrome has taken the magic wand from the Toy Box and it's up to you to use your figures to defeat him and his lackeys. They're said to be pretty extensive in and of themselves, so Disney has slapped a $19.99 price tag on them. If these extra games have as much as to offer as they say, then I might be persuaded, but there is certainly more than enough going on in Disney Infinity that they might not be missed.

Star Wars fan or not, Disney Infinity 3.0 is definitely the best version of the game we've seen yet, and Disney continues to think of ways to connect with fans and improve this growing world. From what I got to play on the show floor, they're on the right track and 3.0 is worth a shot, especially for those who might not have Disney Infinity yet.