As a father who has spent a few hundred dollars on Skylanders accoutrements for his son, I both dreaded and thrilled when I got wind that Disney had something planned along the same lines of that brilliant Activision game franchise.
Today, Disney announced Disney Infinity, a game that will be playable across all current platforms, but honestly promises to top the cleverness of the Skylanders franchise.
If you're not familiar with Skylanders, it's (so far) two games involving a gaming world and a "portal" which attaches to your game system. With that are a series of figurines representing characters in the game, but the catch is that the figurines actually ARE the characters; you have to buy the figurine and place it on the portal in order to play with that character.
Oh, but there's more brilliance to the system: the figurines learn and carry all their XP and upgrades inside themselves, so a kid can take his characters over to a friend's house -- regardless of whether or not they're both on Wii or PS3 or XBox -- and the character plays exactly the same as the last time the kid -- okay, maybe adult -- played it on his own system.
So it's gaming, it's action figure collecting with carrying cases, and they're really fun games that can be done either cooperatively or in PvP mode. And in June, Disney raises the bar.
So... THREE different characters on the portal (Skylanders only allows for two), which may not seem like a big deal from the outside, but I suspect could drive a lot of young gamers crazy with the possibilities. One of those slots on the "Disney Infinity Reader" also allows for "landmark tokens", which unlock further areas for game play. The basic set will include one for Monsters University.
Disney also promises the possibility of players being able to build their own private universes inside the system which then means it isn't just Skylanders, it's Little Big Planet -- reaching ACROSS all platforms, including PC and mobile, while Little Big Planet (which is also an amazing game) is restricted to the PS3 (but to be fair, has narration by Stephen Fry).
It's either the greatest game ever devised or the signal of the end times, or both. Because gamers and Disney fans both are going to get sucked into this thing. We may forget to eat or sleep. This was what I dreaded; I could resist Skylanders, but now I have to buy two of everything, one for my son and one for me. Yes, that's Jack Skellington and Jack Sparrow stopping at Flo's Diner. Seriously, I've had dreams about that.
Disney promises to start small with 17 additional characters -- from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles and Monsters University, but 40 "pieces" overall. Okay, saving about $300 for that already on top of the price of the game system itself, which I will estimate at $70... but soon to follow are Cars, The Lone Ranger, Phineas and Ferb (I know what we're going to do today),and Toy Story in Space sets of characters.
I've seen conflicting reports as to release date -- some as early as June, which would make sense with the Monsters University set. But if not by then, you can bet it will be under Christmas trees in 2013.
As a father who has spent a few hundred dollars on Skylanders accoutrements for his son, I both dreaded and thrilled when I got wind that Disney had something planned along the same lines of that brilliant Activision game franchise.
Oh, but there's more brilliance to the system: the figurines learn and carry all their XP and upgrades inside themselves, so a kid can take his characters over to a friend's house -- regardless of whether or not they're both on Wii or PS3 or XBox -- and the character plays exactly the same as the last time the kid -- okay, maybe adult -- played it on his own system.
Disney also promises the possibility of players being able to build their own private universes inside the system which then means it isn't just Skylanders, it's Little Big Planet -- reaching ACROSS all platforms, including PC and mobile, while Little Big Planet (which is also an amazing game) is restricted to the PS3 (but to be fair, has narration by Stephen Fry).
Disney promises to start small with 17 additional characters -- from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles and Monsters University, but 40 "pieces" overall. Okay, saving about $300 for that already on top of the price of the game system itself, which I will estimate at $70... but soon to follow are Cars, The Lone Ranger, Phineas and Ferb (I know what we're going to do today),and Toy Story in Space sets of characters.
