Disney Infinity 3.0: Toy Box Expansion Games

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So outside of the playsets, of which I spoke here, the other half of the Disney Infinity experience (one-third, I guess, if you count collecting the figurines) is the Toy Box mode. Here, players can construct their own environments using virtually any element of the Disney pantheon.

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New features that streamline the toy box interface are present in 3.0, such as “Flynn’s Arcade,” which facilitates the match up of players looking for competitive Toy Box games, and the “El Capitan” theater, which is an all-media access point for players wanting to up/download Toy Boxes, or watch the latest episode of Toy Box TV.

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“Sidekicks,” mini characters that you can now recruit to help out your main character in combat, etc., can be upgraded by feeding them various items you either find throughout your adventures, or grow in the Sidekick Portal from the Toy Box Hub.

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When I first tried out Disney Infinity 1.0, I was frankly underwhelmed. It’s a concept best suited to people with a deep interest in world-building, and as someone with pretty limited experience with Legos and Tinker Toys (yes, I’m old,) I had some trepidation to begin with, anyway. When I actually tried to build something, it was more or less a disaster, where I felt like I was going through tutorial after tutorial, with detailed instructions that I couldn’t read on my low-definition TV. Couple this with the lack of internet connectivity that the Wii platform had, and it wasn’t something I found particularly compelling.

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In contrast, the 3.0 Toy Box is like night and day. The process of building was considerably streamlined in 2.0 with a variety of pre-made templates and “builders” who can handle the mechanics of creating a toy box for those of us creatively-impaired, while the option to do it manually is still present for the engineering types. 3.0 continues in that bent, introducing new tools to create paths, play music, and dispense toys.

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While I might still not have a burning desire to make my own Magic Kingdom, the easy access to community-made Toy Boxes gives the game enormous replayability. There are some varying degrees of quality, as you’d expect from community-derived content, but some of them are incredibly detailed and are as entertaining as many Facebook/app games I’ve seen.

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Brand-new to this edition are the Toy Box Expansion Games. These are stand-alone games that can be played with any of the Toy Box assets, up to four players online, two players in local co-op, or one person and your trusty sidekick.

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The Toy Box Speedway is a racing game with three different game modes (Time Trial, Race, and Combat) and nine different themed tracks ranging from Sugar Rush to Halloween Town, to Gravity Falls, or Tatooine.

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Like most kart-racing games, I think this one is probably most entertaining when played with a bunch of people competing, but even just running trials on your own, the tracks are creatively designed with impressive variability.

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Of the two, however, I actually think Toy Box Takeover is the more exciting–Syndrome, from “The Incredibles,” steals the Power of Creation and builds a number of different lands you have to battle through before accessing his Supervillain Lair to take it back. In the past, I’ve heard people wish that they could use any character in the playsets instead of just being limited to the characters from that particular franchise, and weren’t interested in playing the non-professionally done toy box games. This is perfect then, because any and all characters can be utilized (and believe me, I died a LOT, so I used quite a few) throughout.

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The interesting part is the strategy you need to evolve as the game progresses, with which character to use at which times–some are heavy-duty fighters, some are lithe jumpers, some have better ranged powers, etc. Unfortunately, since there’s no way of knowing before you enter a given level what challenges you’ll face, you have to be ready to switch out on the fly, or suffer the indignity of watching Darth Vader miss a jump into lava, and have only Minnie Mouse and Olaf left for the Boss Fight.

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One thing I did notice, is that it was occasionally possible to find yourself trapped in an area with no perceivable exit. The game doesn’t appear to have a way to save at a particular point, and switching to a different character just puts you back in the same spot, leaving you with the only recourse of starting the whole area over again by going back to the Hub–a bummer, if you were almost finished with it.

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In general, however, I think the Toy Box Takeover is an immensely entertaining addition to Disney Infinity 3.0, and really fills a want for more adventures people can play with all the diverse characters available. Hopefully Disney Interactive will put out more expansion games like this in the future…although maybe not too soon, given that I played this one so long, I think I bruised my thumbs. Oh what? Look, you can’t let someone like Syndrome keep that kind of power!

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“Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Video Game and Base are required to play the Toy Box Expansion Games. Toy Box Takeover and Toy Box Speedway will be sold separately at the suggested retail price of $19.99 each.”

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Jeanine resides in Southern California, pursuing the sort of lifestyle that makes her the envy of every 11-year-old she meets. She has been to every Disney theme park in the world and while she finds Tokyo DisneySea the Fairest Of Them All, Disneyland is her Home Park... and there is no place like home.

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