Produced by Disney Interactive, Toy Story Mania is based on the Toy Story Midway Mania! attraction at Disney’s California Adventure and Hollywood Studio. There riders play a series of carnival games hosted by various characters from the movies, the game is based on these activities. Players will interact with Buzz and Woody in both single and multiplayers game modes in a shooting-gallery type gameplay. In theory it’s a decent idea, reliving some magic of your time at Disney or interacting with iconic movie characters, but it pains me to say Toy Story Mania doesn’t deliver the magic.
The Nintendo Wii port offers Free Play, Party and Adventure modes. Party mode is a multiplayer mode that randomises the mini-games. Adventure and Free Play mode are basically clones of one another with the only difference being whether you’re asked or not to move on to the next stage. The game chooses the next activity for you. With the limited variety of game type, most of which being a variation of carnival shooting galleries, gameplay gets repetitive very quickly.
The mini-games are largely focused on shooting targets and dodging pies. You can play using the Kinect or controller, although in this case it doesn’t really matter as neither is overly entertaining. Last year’s Disneyland Adventures offered up some great features that I would have expected to be followed up in this title considering its theme park roots, but that’s not the case. There is no story or plot and the party atmosphere even lacks any real context. The only “goal” is to collect stickers, which are awarded when you clear one of the five booths.
Each booth consists of eight stages, which would be great if the game offered more than six game types. This is where things get repetitive, 30 stages consisting of six games each doesn’t offer much in variety. The game does try to offer some variety in mixing up themes and characters but it the fact is painfully clear that you’re playing the same game over and over. Tossing rings at aliens with Buzz Lightyear or shooting rubber arrows with Woody, the way in which you play the game is always the same.
The challenge is also non-existent, even when playing with the Kinect sensor. The game takes away the action to shoot and does the work for you as you just stand there aiming your arms at the screen. The only challenge with the Kinect is when the sensor bar is being over-sensitive. Even then though, little to no effort is required since you rarely have to move your hands to return balls in the paddle game. It’s hard to see who the game is aimed at because regardless of age you’ll unlock every level in 20 minutes and beat all the high scores in one go.
The Buzz Lightyear game is an exact replica of Fruit Ninja, which is mildly entertaining for a time. However, it lacks any real substance. There are virtually no penalties and the game only lasts a couple minutes. I’m hard pressed to even suggest that this game mode has any potential as I’d just rather play Fruit Ninja on XBLA or iOS.
Mini-game collections are traditionally a great and enjoyable party game experience. Toy Story Mania on the other hand, really misses the mark on this one, lacking any real challenge and most importantly, variety. It’s really difficult to justify a full retail price on something that just has little to no replay value. A low priced arcade title or app, maybe but there are plenty other titles out there that are worth the price of admission. Really there’s only so many variations of shooting targets on a screen we can handle and regardless of the demographic they’re targeting, I’d be surprised to see Toy Story Mania holding the attention of anyone let alone a child.
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