The action figures are lining up – the battle will soon commence. This autumn will see a three-way fight in the nascent 'toys to life' market – a range of video games that come with compatible action figures.
For a while, Activision had the sector sown up with its Skylanders series; then Disney popped in with Infinity; and now Nintendo is introducing its Amiibo range of classic characters. The novelty of being able to place a physical figurine on a special controller and see the character appear on screen will no longer be enough. It's all about having the right licenses and line-up now.
Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes is pretty well placed. As the title suggests, the game is introducing a large range of comic book stars to the sequel, including Spider-Man, the Avengers and, as announced last week, the Guardians of the Galaxy. As usual, the figures will all be sold separately from the game, or in bundle packs, and each group gets its own story mode and missions.
For Spider-Man, it's a classic face-off against Norman Osborne, who has kidnapped Venom and is trying to clone the symbiotes. The parasitic aliens escape however, and now Spidey has to protect the city. The Avengers, meanwhile, are dealing with Loki's attempt to freeze New York City, while the Guardians of the Galaxy are basically reenacting their movie.
This time round, all the playable characters get skill trees, so players can increase certain abilities as they collect experience. With Spider-Man, for example, the accuracy and range of his spider sense can be increased, and his range of web attacks widened, to include things like web barrages. However, it's impossible to level up completely and get all the powers – Disney wants players to personalise their figures with preferred skill ranges.
Seducing the Marvel fanatics
It seems there's a realisation that Marvel is going to bring in older more experiences gamers. As such, there's a health bar now, and players can fail missions. There's also more depth to the gameplay structure.
"We’ve added in a whole variety of side-quests and missions in the Play Sets so that gamers can tackle new tasks away from the storyline," says exec producer, John Vignocchi. "This all takes place in some of the biggest cityscapes we’ve ever created – the city in The Avengers play set is four times bigger than the city from The Incredibles play set in Disney Infinity, for instance."
As for the Toy Box mode, where players are able to create their own missions and environments, the aim has been to add more choice, but also to simplify things for newcomers. My children never really built much in the Disney infinity version. It was too fiddly and complicated to use, and they just ended up spawning robots and throwing them off the edge of the world.
This time there are Templates – a range of pre-built "attractions" which can be placed into a world and will immediately function as mini-games. For example, the Cliff-side Battle Arena template is essentially a scrolling beat-'em-up for four players. There are also more extensive customisable missions which can be played with any of the characters. The starter pack includes two – “Asgard Tower Defence” and “Dungeon Crawler” which play about with familiar genres.
"We’ve also added new Builder and Creator tools to aid gamers in their world creation," says Vignocchi. "Builder tools will automatically populate a user-defined section of the Toy Box with a new set-piece – whether that’s a castle, tree-house, cityscape, pirate town or even race track. Creator tools work exactly the same, except instead of drawing out an area which automatically populates, gamers can drop in a friendly creature who will get straight to work creating new environments."
It's a good idea, giving fans something to work around rather than just a blank canvas to fill. But at the same time, experienced users get a host of new Marvel items to play about with, plus the chance to design interiors for the first time. They'll also be able to bring across all their unlocked toys and saved projects from the first title.
The key aspect is going to be appeasing the Marvel acolytes while staying true to the slightly younger demographics that's embraced the 'toys to life' genre so far. Traveller's Tales skilfully appealed to differing groups with its Lego Marvel Super Heroes title, playing on the self-conscious comedy of the series, but making enough nods to comic book lore and Marvel canon to appease the fans. It'll be interesting to see if Infinity developer Avalanche Studios can manage the same feat.
Certainly, the team is trying to emphasise authenticity, bringing in Spider-Man and Avengers writer Brian Michael Bendis and working closely with Marvel's chief creative officer, Joe Quesada. And the figures are rather lovely, retaining the slightly playful look of the original Infinity characters, but with more muscle tone and edge to them.
Against Activision's Skylanders Trap Team, which is a more complex game with a new enemy control mechanic and the more pervasive Amiibo figures, which work with a variety of games and don't need a seperate "portal" peripheral, Infinity 2.0 is a sort of mid-point. It's going to to require significant investment from parents, but you won't need a new portal to put the figures on as you do with Trap team.
The real draw, of course, is being able to design your own super hero showdowns in the Toy Box mode. The automated add-ons seem like a good idea, and anything that services the idea of designing a world entirely for Hulk to smash is probably going to go down well. As a parent, I'm torn between despairing at the incoming expense and really wanting the Thor figure. Disney, as always, has us right where it wants us.
Disney Infinity 2.0 is due out on PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U this autumn.
