The holiday shopping season has officially begun. The Thanksgiving leftovers are stacked in the fridge and people are off to the malls and shopping centers to hunt for those bargains and perfect gifts. There are always so many choices for the big Disney fans on your list. There's always something from the Disney Store or DisneyStore.com. Maybe something from the parks? How about some awesome vintage Disney collectibles for your favorite online author that he can write about in a future article about Disney Stuff? Did I say that out loud? Sorry. That's supposed to be the hint for my wife not for my readers.
If you have any video game fans on your list then you're probably already shopping for Disney's newest and biggest toys-to-life game: Disney Infinity 3.0. Of course, my sons and I couldn't wait for Santa Claus. We picked up the 3.0 starter set pretty much as soon as it came out, just as we had the previous two incarnations.
For those of you that don't particularly follow the latest video game trends, let me briefly sum up what a toys-to-life game actually is. It is is a stroke of pure marketing genius. The game comes with a peripheral platform that attaches to your video game console via USB. You separately purchase different figurines that have a built-in computer chip in their base. When you place a figure onto the platform, that character is “transported” into the game. Each character adds something different to the gameplay with his or her own abilities, and once you bring a new character into the game, certain other things can be unlocked.
It's a very cool concept that has been very popular over the last several years. The figures drastically extend the life of the game. They allow you to keep the game fresh longer. How many other video games can you continue to add to in this fashion? It's a whole different genre now. Just think of the endless list of figures that a company like Disney could theoretically introduce into this game. When you figure that out, consider that each figure costs around $15, and you begin to see the marketing floodgate that “toys-to-life” games represent.
Disney has been pretty conservative about the amount of characters released for each version of Infinity. There are currently 41 different figures planned to be available for 3.0. The characters are spread across the different Disney owned universes such as Pixar, Marvel and, now for the first time the newest and perhaps most significant Disney acquisition: Star Wars. As a Star Wars fan, it's been pretty cool to have Ashoka Tano zipping around Tatooine in a land speeder, and that's just the start of it.
As a game fan, I've enjoyed the Infinity series immensely. The playable levels are fun and there's no end to the creativity that can be experienced in the game's toy box, where you can build and create your own playable worlds, mixing up the characters from the different Disney universes as you go along. It's a recipe for endless creation and fun. Each time you power up the game and connect to the web, more and more toy boxes can be found from gamers around the world. It's really quite impressive.
As a Star Wars nut, this game is a total blast. The characters, scenery, sounds, music, and scenery are all straight out of the films. So far, I couldn't be happier with it, and I don't even have Han Solo or Yoda—my two favorite characters—yet.
As a Disney collector, it's the figures that excite me the most. The Infinity action figures are large, solid, extensively detailed, and due to the stylistic design, completely unique. There is a distinctive Disney Infinity look that began with the original game back in 2013 and has carried through all three installments. The characters don't quite look like their usual selves, even the classic Disney figures like Mickey Mouse.
You do however instantly recognize them as being Infinity figures, and that's really what I like about them. They've created their own animation-like style for the game and brought that style to the physical world with the action figures. I'd probably collect the figures even if I had no interest in the game, especially the Star Wars figures.
Here's the collection my sons and I have amassed so far.
It all started with a mouse. Photo by Chris Barry.
Anakin Skywalker before his turn to the dark side. Photo by Chris Barry.
Anakin's Padawan Ashoka Tano all grown up from “Star Wars Rebels.” Photo by Chris Barry.
Chewbacca is our only classic Star Wars figure so far. Photo by Chris Barry.
Zeb Orrelios from Star Wars Rebels is one of the newest additions to the Star Wars universe. Photo by Chris Barry.
Olaf from Frozen has some special abilities that warranted a purchase. Photo By Chris Barry.
We chose Fear as our emotion from “Inside Out.” Photo By Chris Barry.
Quorra from “Tron: Legacy” was a more obscure choice to include in the lineup. Photo by Chris Barry.
That's eight figures, which only leaves us with 33 more to go. I'm quite sure with Christmas just around the corner, the collection will be complete before you know it. Until then, it's back to the Inifinity toy box where the possibility exists that Mickey Mouse and Chewbacca will be running through the streets of Agrabah together trying to complete a quest. That's the beauty of Disney Infinity. Worlds truly do collide and somehow, someway—thanks to imagination—it all makes some sort of crazy, wonderful sense. If you haven't jumped on board the Disney Infinity bandwagon, I can safely say that 3.0 would be a fantastic place to start. When you're not playing the game, make sure to put these very cool figures out on display with the rest of your awesome Disney Stuff.
