E3 2014 - Disney Infinity 2.0 Hands On

Disney Infinity has been nothing but a massive success for Disney and rightfully so, but even before it was launched people wanted to know where are the marvel characters?

Well with the upcoming launch of Disney Infinity 2.0, people will glad to know that the Marvel characters are present and they are amazing, more so Spider-man. With 2.0 though, the team at Avalanche did not just want to release the game again with new levels and characters, so they took the time to look at the feedback and build the game from there. What is the result from all that work, well now each of the characters feel unique and they feel just like they should.

With the launch set you will receive Iron Man, Thor and Black Widow, each of the characters has skills that make them feel different from the rest and at E3 I was able to take the controls of a few of the characters and experience what they can do. Playing as Thor is such fun because you can hurl Mjolnir at enemies from a distance and when they get close you can unleash powerful attacks. Plus Thor can fly, thanks again to Mjolnir and that’s just awesome. However playing as Black Widow for example will provide a completely different experience due in part to the fact that Black Widow is more stealth and hand to hand.

As you play with each character you will earn sparks that allow you to level up your character through the all new skill tree. As you start you only have a few skills that you can access, but the more you play the more skills your character can access. But be warned it’s not possible to unlock each and every skill, so there is a little thought required so you can make your character the best it can be for your play style.

While each of the characters plays differently from the rest, the worlds themselves are also much different from the last game. The world alone for the Avengers playset is roughly 4 times larger than Metroville from The Incredibles playset and that was pretty big on its own. The city is also a lot more vertical in how it plays, which the flying characters can really take advantage of. Hidden throughout all the playset worlds are icons for each character to collect and collecting them opens up more skills for your characters.

If you collect more than just the starter set, you are given more worlds to access and more characters to play with, but there is a feature that is amazing but not really known. Hidden throughout the Avengers playset are tokens with the face of Nova on them and by collecting all those tokens you can bring Nova into that playset. This is a massive addition to the game, but it is only for certain characters. In the Spider-man playset, you can bring Iron Man into the world should you locate those tokens.

But the playsets are only half of the experience in Disney Infinity and in 2.0 the Toy Box has been improved by a factor of 10. A lot of players have grand ideas about the world they would love to build and the games they would like to create, but sadly not all of us have the skills that match those desires. The team at Avalanche also realised that as great as the Toy Box was with the first game, with the second it could be so much more. So to accomplish this they have introduced world builders, but what will the world builders do, well they do a lot.

Each of the world builders look like the citizens of the Toy Box from the first game and will work in tandem with what you are already working on.  If you want to build a great city but don’t want to spend the time placing trees and other decorations around, fret not because the builders will do that for you. Should you desire to build a great race track but can’t think of a design then let the world builder loose and let them do it. The best feature about them is that they will work in co-operation with each other, which means you won’t have trees sticking out of the middle of your buildings or rocks in the middle of your race track.

The amount of content and options that has already been announced for Disney Infinity 2.0 is incredible and there is still loads more to come and you truly start to realised just how much can be accomplished with the game. Oh and don’t forget all your version 1 characters and power discs work as well and your worlds you have created in the first version will come across into 2.0 no problems. Look for Disney Infinity 2.0 Marvel Super Heroes when it launches later in the year.