superdeluxe

Reviews are either hit or miss:

Game informer 9/10
Forbes 9/10
Pocket lint 5/5
IGN 8.7
Game Trailers 8.6
Polygon 8/10


Digital spy 2/5
Gameradar 2.5/5

RichC2

Kind of surprised at how good the overall reviews are.

dsa_shea

It didn't seem like people were lining up for this like Disney was hoping for. I recall the release day for Giants much busier than what I just dealt with. It also seemed like their collection was less picked over with Mater being the only character that TRUS had few left of. The rest of the stock was still abundant. It irks me to know that we only have a few levels to play without having to go out and buy more expensive level packs. At least with Skylanders they gave you a story mode with a decent variety of levels before the asked you to buy extra ones.

Deftones

Yes. You have to buy the sets to get the Cars level or the Lone Ranger levels. Sort of obnoxious, but it's very obvious why they wouldn't include Cars level in starter set. It's their biggest money maker, so they wanted to make people buy all that stuff separately.

Here's my haul for my son. Now the wife and I needed to figure out what to give him now and what to save for Christmas. She said to save it all and I said "bullshit."

Deftones

FWIW, I went to my Target and they were completely out of the 2 play sets. I went to BB and they matched their price, which was nice. Outside of that, both them and TRU (where I ordered the bulk of my crap) had a ton. I'm sure they got a ton of inventory due to the demand. No reason to have shortages.

Looks like there will be several of us with this, so I'm sure trading between us should be fairly easy. I'd rather do that and pay the money for shipping instead of going to a store and looking like some lecherous perv.

RichC2

Skylanders: Giants was also a sequel to a popular original. I don't think the first release of Skylanders was particularly popular off the bat.

Edit: Yeah, Skylanders sold like 16k on the Wii, 11k on the 360, etc; its first week.

dsa_shea

Well, once you get past the popularity of the Disney figures then they have to deliver on the gamefront. By only offering you 3 worlds and the toybox out the gate without having to spend even more money will get around quickly to the people that want a little more value than that. I had no idea that I would have to go out and buy the Cars set just to unlock that level despite buying the Lightning McQueen crystal figure. Fortunately, these sets are on sale right now but I don't see too many people eyeballing that 35 dollar price and saying "I want that!"

superdeluxe

“@DisneyInfinity: For those who have reached out about issues with the PS3, we are working on it right now and will be back with more info soon!”

Shagrath

I'm 36 and childfree. So I guess the kid I'm buying for is 36.

Supermallet

You have to buy specific figures to unlock entire sections of the game? That is some serious bullshit. I thought Skylanders was a rip off, but as far as I know, you didn't need any specific figure to unlock entire levels. There are just certain areas within levels that are only available to certain types of characters.

dsa_shea

Well, after talking with my daughter about this and seeing certain figures and sets on sale she decided that this will be a lion share of her Christmas gifts from us. I will post a pic here shortly of what we bought her today. I am still irked that you get very few levels to start and are forced to buy to unlock more. I am looking forward to Wreck-It-Ralph stuff whenever it does come out.

RichC2

I'm confused, I thought you got essentially 3 games with the starter kit?

superdeluxe

I believe the starter pack comes with 3 playsets each playset offering 6-8 hours of play in the story mode for each set

dsa_shea

Yes, you do. However, if you want to play other levels you have to buy more than just a single figure for that level. You have to purchase the level packs which comes with two characters and the level pack for 30+ and tax. Now is the time to get those two extra packs (Lone Ranger and Cars) as Target has them for 17.50 plus tax.

superdeluxe

You do

cruzness

I had already been eyeing this for a while . my two youngest kids go nuts when they see the trailers. I preordered from amazon starter set included a free figure of my choice and a power pack. Ordered the cars pack from target for half off. Thought about the lone ranger pack but I think they'll be giving that away as we get closer to the holiday. Also ordered the 2 character triple packs from Walmart. For 50% off. This should satisfy the kids and keep them busy until the inevitable toy story, wreck it Ralph and nightmare before Christmas packs

cruzness

Starter pack has monster's university, pirates of the carribean and incredible a along with the basic Disney stuff.

RichC2

Gotcha, so you get the full game if you have a character from the game, but you get DLC-style bonus levels if you have additional characters from the same universe? Makes sense.

dsa_shea

Wreck-It Ralph is the set that I'm looking forward the most. I wouldn't complain about a Nightmare Before Christmas set. I hope they come out before Christmas so that someone else can buy them for us.

dsa_shea

Well, you only get the full levels for the three characters included in the starter pack: Pirates, Incredibles and Monsters. If you buy a single Cars figure like Mater then you still have to buy the Cars pack to actually get to play the Cars levels. You also can't use figures from one story like Pirates in the Monsters level. However, you can use all figures in the Toy Box. Gotta milk every penny they can out of us. It would be cool to see how Jack Sparrow would be able to interact in the Monsters level and vice versa. They dropped the ball in this regard if you ask me.

Groucho

So wait, I can't do co-op play doing just the starter pack then, because there's only one character for each level?

Adam Tyner

Polygon's review says the same thing too, so apparently... :-/

Yeah, being able to drop all sorts of characters into all sorts of different worlds was a big part of the appeal for me too. I can see why they might do that, since it'd let them better target level designs/certain mechanics, but it's certainly disappointing.

musick

this is correct (as far as story mode goes)
and the Wii won't even support it in story mode with 2 same themed figs

Groucho

That's really, really stupid (from a player's perspective, not from a Disney makes lots of money perspective).

dsa_shea

That is why I said in an earlier post that once the appeal of playing with Disney characters starts to fade then they are going to have to deliver on the gameplay part. If they don't then this could be a one and done deal.