The Battle of the "Toy" Games - ExtremeGamer's Blog

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The Battle of the "Toy" Games

Posted on August 27, 2013 at 09:58 AM.

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Disney Infinity launched just last week bringing the new game into the fold that uses toys in order to play the game. Will it be a better game than Skylanders? What the cost difference be and how broke parents will be this holiday season, let's take a look.

Skylanders released 2 years ago starting the toy game fad, the whole premise is you have a portal that plugs into your system of choice and then you place your toy on the portal in order to play. It's a cool concept; it has the best of both worlds, as the toy the child is playing with can instantly be placed into the game world. Since then we've had a sequel released, Skylanders Giants, which added larger figures to the fray. The cost seemed to keep going up over time as these are not cheap DLC add-on's like you would normally pay to download off Xbox Live or Playstation Network; these are full-fledged action figures that are used for your games as well.

Disney has now countered and given Skylanders some competition with Disney Infinity. Sort of the same concept, but Disney used what made the Toy Story 3 game so great and added up on it with the Toy Box Mode. Where Skylanders has a straight story that allows you to use any character(s) you desire, Disney Infinity goes a different route. Included in the box is Monsters Univerisity, Pirates of the Carribbean, and The Incredibles story modes, each of which is about 5 hours in length to complete. With the story mode, you can only the characters that belong to each story in each story. Example being, you can only use Mike, Sully, and Randall in the Monsters University story mode, so if you have kids that want to play co-op in the story, you will need to purchase extra figures. That's a big negative, but in the Toy Box mode, you are able to pair up any 2 characters you like.

The big selling point for Disney Infinity is the fact it has licensed characters we all know and love, unfortunately the starter packs are lacking in that department. Anchored by Cars and Monsters University to get customers in, they are missing are big hitters like Toy Story, Mickey Mouse and Phineas & Ferb, but in typical smart marketing by Disney, the Toy Story set is coming out when the next Skylanders game launches.

Now on to price, both games are going to set you back $75 for the starter packs. With the new Skylanders Swap coming this October, a new portal is required regardless if you already have the one from Skylanders or Skylanders Giants. That is a big mistake by Activision, as it keeps Skylanders price the same with Disney, a missed opportunity to undercut their price and get the game in homes. Disney will be able to once again cut its price (as it did at launch with multiple deals) and then advertise Toy Story to combat the Skylanders Swap launch.

The new Skylanders game will have 48 new Skylanders figures, 32 completely new to the series and 16 series 3 of returning figures. No Giants this time around but new "Swap" figures which can interchange with one and another to create an entirely new character, creating endless possibilities for the figures. Problem is the price. Giants were $15 a piece, while LightCore figures were $13, I expect Swap figures to be in the $13 price range, with regular figures being the normal $10.

Disney's pricing is higher, but with a different bang for your buck. The play sets for Disney are $40, but that gives you 2 figures and an approximate 5 hour story block. The figures are $14 themselves while you can get 3 packs for $30. They also push into blind buy packs of power up discs at $5 for 2 discs. Those add abilities or level colors to the Toy Box mode.

Now all these prices are obviously MSRP prices and can all be found for cheaper. It all ends up being which you prefer. Either way, parents are going to be dropping coin on these games and toys until they are run into the ground like Rock Band/Guitar Hero.

In giving a quick review of them from watching my 4 year old play them. He enjoys Disney more for the characters and that he can just "run around" as he put it. Skylanders is a great game, but in the end, it's a straight forward story, where Disney Infinity is an open canvas to pretty much do whatever you want.