Whenever I can’t get into FFXIV (Which is a lot) I play Disney Infinity. After spending quite some time with the Cars and Lone Ranger play sets I figured it’s about time to share my thoughts. Each pack comes with the play set which features 6-8 hours of content along with two figures.
Cars Play Set
This pack contains the Cars set piece along with 2 Cars characters, Lightning McQueen and Holley Shiftwell. Cars wasn’t my favorite Pixar movie, but I still enjoyed it. I haven’t actually seen Cars 2 so a few of the characters are foreign to me but it all still makes sense. The game is set in the Radiator Springs area and, from what I can tell, recreates the movie setting pretty well. It features several buildings from the town along with several more that you can build and place in pre-designated areas. Venturing off from the town you can find various tunnels and paths to race through along with a nifty skate park that you can unlock.
The characters themselves are quite different compared to other Disney Infinity characters. They more closely resemble the characters if they are piloting a vehicle. You can drive around, jump (No double-jump), perform tricks like flips and spins, power-slide, boost, etc. Later on you unlock additional features like the ability to tow objects and cars (up to 4 at once) along with several different weapons like rockets, chainguns, and mortars. The weapons are mostly used for Mario Kart-esque battle races and can’t be whipped out on command unless you are in the Toy Box.
Obviously, most of the gameplay in this set is going to be about racing. A large portion of the content consists of various races and battle races. The driving mechanics aren’t bad at all and it’s quite an enjoyable kart racer experience. Maybe not quite on par with stuff like Mario Kart or Sonic & Sega Racing but still solid. You also get several different missions and challenges that revolve around performing various tricks. The whole game world is full of ramps, half pipes, and jumps that you can use to get huge air. You can also grind on certain surfaces and rails which all-together gives the game game almost a Tony Hawk-lite kind of feeling.
I really enjoyed my time in it and did my best to collect all of the capsules. Cars added some neat additions to my toy box that I’m looking forward to testing out. The only things I wasn’t able to check out were a few character specific missions (Mater and some Racer Car guy) and I wasn’t able to unlock the vault, which contains a ton of content for the toy box mode, since it required all characters to open.
The Lone Ranger Play Set
I played this one mostly with Keen, having done Cars by myself. He took the lead as the Long Ranger and I followed around as Johnny Depp. Kinda getting some deja vu with the Pirates set here. Anyway, neither of us have seen the movie yet but we were still able to enjoy all of the content. I don’t think any of these play sets really need full knowledge of their movies to enjoy, and tend to follow stories unrelated to the cinematic experience anyway.
The characters are pretty cool in this one. The only ones for this set already come in the package and feature some nifty abilities you can unlock. Initially you can only shoulder-rush, ground-pound, and shoot your weapon. For some reason The Lone Ranger and Tonto can’t melee combo like the Pirates characters but their ranged weapons more than make up for it. TLR gets a nice six-shooter that can rapidly take out bad guys while Tonto can hurl tomahawk after tomahawk. Eventually you can unlock throwable dynamite along with several spirit powers like summoning a spirit warrior, sending out a rushing spirit horse, or turning yourself into a crow. The last one is actually pretty awesome since it lets you fly around the whole play set and collect all of the out-of-reach capsules. It’s also pretty awesome that you get to unlock all of these for the toy box and use them on other characters.
The main part of this game takes place around a small old west town surrounded by train tracks. The train is actually a large part of this play set in the same way that the ship is from Pirates of the Caribbean. The train constantly travels around the area and you don’t exactly control it but you can hit various switches to make it stop in certain places. You also unlock various train cars that hold resources like water and livestock, and several of the missions require you to deliver these to various stops along the way. Eventually you unlock more areas for the train to visit and more quests to undertake. You can also completely customize how the train and its cars look, just like the ship in Pirates. Keen’s favorite thing about the train would have to be the machinegun and cannon cars that you can hook on.
It was a REALLY fun play set but a little bit on the shorter side compared to the others. I was able to collect most everything in the set and so far I’ve clocked in just shy of six hours. Even so, it was a fun ride. The toy box unlocks are really cool and the character ability unlocks are some of my favorite.
That’s it… for now
I would recommend both of these if you are looking for more Disney Infinity experiences. Both play sets seem to be the same caliber of quality as the original three in the starter pack. In the coming months the Toy Story play set should come out. I’ll pick that up and share my thoughts on it as well. Now I just need to reign in my urge to rush out and buy power disc packs.