This year, Disney decided to show Disney Infinity 3.0 offsite during Comic-Con so fans could check it out even if they didn't have a Comic-Con badge. That's right, anyone who's in San Diego can head on down to 815 J Street during the day on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and play several playsets, including Star Wars Rise of the Empire, Star Wars Twilight of the Republic, Inside Out, and a whimsical cart racing game where players can pit any character from Disney Infinity 1, 2, and 3 against each other.
I spent most of my time playing the Star Wars Rise Against the Empire playset because I'm a big fan of the original trio of movies. After playing it for over an hour, my view towards Disney Infinity has completely changed. To be completely honest, I used to think that Disney Infinity 1 and 2 focused more on the licenses at the cost of gameplay. Although the game was fun for kids, I found it to be very limited. However, with both Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars playsets, the depth of gameplay has drastically increased and I actually enjoyed playing them.
I started out on planet Hoth, just as the Empire was attacking with massive AT-ATs. Han Solo was already in the game, so I used him to perform similar functions as Luke Skywalker did in The Empire Strikes Back. First, I ran on foot towards an AT-AT and shot one of its feet, which broke armor off the leg and revealed handholds that I could use to scale the metal beast. Once I was on its side, I shot the conveniently-located large battery and was dropped back down to the ground. All the while, Stormtroopers were shooting at me, so I had to take them out as well.
On a whim, I replaced Han Solo with Darth Vader and proceeded to repeat this process. I finished out the level by scaling another giant AT-AT and using a huge remote control to direct his movements and attack other AT-ATs. Then I jumped in a snowspeeder and used its tow cable to take down yet another AT-AT.
Believe me, it was weird to use Darth Vader to shoot Stormtroopers and disable AT-ATs (talk about self-sabotage!). While Darth moved slower than Han, I liked his powers much more. One of my favorite combos was a force pull to draw enemies towards him before slashing them to pieces with his lightsaber while they floated in the air. It's cool that LucasArts didn't limit the gameplay to only imitate what's in the film, as all characters from both Star Wars playsets can be used to play any mission. Another cool feature is the ability to level up characters and then select various skills from a large skill tree. This lets players customize their characters and also adds a lot of depth.
Another mission placed me inside an X-Wing flying over the Death Star. I was tasked with protecting fellow pilots by shooting down Tie Fighters that were chasing them, and when I had Tie Fighters chasing me, I had to evade their shots. This was a chaotic mission with dozens of spaceships shooting at each other, the Death Star shooting giant lasers at Rebels, and various spaceships crashing into giant towers, sending them crashing to the ground in glorious explosions! This mission ended in classic fashion, as I had to shoot Photon Torpedoes down into the belly of the Death Star to blow it to smithereens.
My final location was on Planet Endor, which was set up as an open-world area where I could run around and explore, hop on landspeeders and zip around, and even accept missions from Ewoks. While I only tried a few missions, there were dozens to choose from that range from basic fetch quests to piloting a land speeder through challenging courses, to scaling the giant trees and finding secret areas. I could have easily spent hours on Endor, but I just didn't have the time.
With so much variety and depth of play in just this one playset, I can't imagine how much time can be spent with both Star Wars playsets, much less Inside Out and the Toy Box. I used to prefer playing Skylanders over Disney Infinity, but Disney Infinity 3.0 has won me over.
