We are fast approaching the release for Disney Infinity Marvel Super Heroes 2.0, which is a mouthful, but just as there are a lot of words in the title, the Toy Box has even more features over the first game.



When Disney Infinity was first announced, people were really into the playsets, I mean playing as Jack Sparrow and running around that would was something that appealed to me. But when Disney first described the Toy Box, I thought this was cool, but once I started to play around with the tools I realised that the Toy Box is even greater than I first thought. However, using the tools to build my own worlds usually ended up being more trouble than it was worth.


The team at Avalanche Software heard my complaints and those of other gamers around the world and have worked hard over the past year to correct those complaints and they went even further and built a heap of new tools to help players go even further. But first let’s talk about the updates to the existing tools, one of which is really impressive.

In the first game, players could use a 2d side scrolling camera to help create their own platforming levels, which resulted in some amazing challenges and some others. But there was a problem with this, the player characters still moved around in three dimensions, which resulted in players falling from the back and off the front of the stages that people were creating. There was a simple fix for stopping the back, place terrain blocks that would result in a wall stopping people from falling, but the front was the problem. Should you put a wall there, you could not see where you were going, which brings us to the first fix. If you use a 2d camera in 2.0, an invisible wall will be populated, which means you can still see your character but you will not be able to fall off the front of the level anymore.


Another problem from the first game, was decoration of the worlds. It was easy enough to create a racetrack, or a platforming stage, but then adding decoration to the world became a task all of its own. Simply adding the same tree or shrub everywhere was not an option, so you as a player had to place them all manually, constantly swapping around the various options, to help give your world the organic look. Thankfully the team have also taken that into account and the result is the all new builders will help you out here. There are a few different builders that you can use, the one that will more than likely be used a lot is Eve, who will fly around your world and lay all sorts of plants down for you.

But it is not just plants where you can use these new tools. Should your ambition for creation outweigh your skill, there are new tools that will allow you to create buildings, cities, racetracks and even custom games with minimal effort. Creating a sprawling metropolis is really simple now, you only need to select the building toy and when you place it down and the game will create a building for you. This building might be short or tall, long or narrow, it will even go around the side of the building and place fire escapes and such around it as well. But the best bit is, that if you place another beside it, the game will create another random building, which means you can create a city of almost limitless options simply by using this tool.  The same can be said for creation of a racetrack, or even just the basic terrain.


But simple creation of objects is not all that the game has to offer, with a heap of new tools you can now do even more. First up of the ones I want to speak about is the controller tool, when you place this down, you will notice it looks like a giant direction pad. But what makes this tool so powerful is that you can remap what the buttons do on the controller, in the first game, if you wanted to make a pinball style game, you had to have your character run around pushing a ball, but with this new version you simply remap the buttons and you get a full pinball game.

The next tool that had me thinking of so many options is the text generator, I know it sounds pretty simple, but this tool allows you to place text over the head of the citizens of the worlds you create, even over a goal or anywhere really. You can even link the text to appear when you push a button, which means you can use this tool to help give players instructions, in order for them to complete your missions. You can link this tool to almost anything in the world, so if you desired to make a Haunted Mansion, you could link it to the gate that when you walk through messages appear, giving that ghostly feel. In order to help with that feeling, the camera tools are also expanded to include a variety of new options, which includes a new static camera.



It would be impossible to list all the new tools and features that the game contains, but perhaps the biggest new addition to the game are the interiors. Interior spaces give you the space to create your own space where you can deck it out with all manner of items. Perhaps you want to sit inside a giant head of Venom, while you look at your Captain America shield mounted to the wall, maybe you want to place your Tron arcade game right by your giant Alligator clock. These spaces are all your own and fully customisable, however they are not just used for clubhouses, you can also use them to create your own full games. It is entirely possible to create a multi stage world, which connects via doors, meaning you could recreate your favourite game or maybe the next best dungeon crawler.

With all these new features in the Toy Box, gamers might be spoilt for choice, but that is never a bad thing right.