Clown with a tearaway face

I saw this reAction figure on clearance at Target and figured, why not. I was hoping he had an action feature, but if not, the figure looks pretty neat. I was surprised twice. First: the face does come off and can be held by the figure! And second, the figure isn't attacked to the unicycle like I feared. It actually comes off the unicycle and can stand by itself, but holy crap I am amazed at how it is able to balance on that unicycle. You don't really have to fuss, just put it on with his legs near the petals and it just stays there. That's it. It's like one of those balancing toys you get in kids meals.

Disney minifigures

I've stopped following you news, so these came out of left field to me. They're kinda cool. I like the new pieces they have to make for these figures, but I don't know how much I want to get more of them. I kinda just want to find a Donald and then stop. The problem is that squeezing to find a Donald is super hard because his accessories and body and head are almost identical to Daisy's. Super easy to screw up. Thank god they didn't do Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Winnie

So if this is from the Disney Planes line, does it count as a Disney Cars figure? Either way, I'm just amused they made a Winnebago. And they made the wheels the same as the Cars so this will technically work on any track the Cars can go down... So the potential for loop-de-loops is there!

Grem In Trouble and Acer In Trouble

This two pack should really be called "Grem and Acer are sad." I guess. I've never seen the movie, I just like the toys of the Lemons. For some reason I buy every variant of them.

Snoopy and Louis LaRue

Okay, with Snoopy I'm just bragging that I found one. Because it's Snoopy, possibly the biggest part of my cultural childhood. And he has a Hot Wheel where he drives his house.

As for Louis LaRue, I've been waiting for this guy for a while. He's a mime. But he's also an anthropomorphic car. It's a ridiculous combination and I must win that ridiculousness. The only Cars due cast in this series I want more is the irrate and surly French tour bus. Because stereotypes.

Minimate Monday: Peter Pan set

For the Peter Pan anniversary a few years back they released Peter Pan minimates in 3 different sets. One was the Smee/Wendy pirate ship set I discussed earlier and another was this set of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys.

First things first, the Lost Boys suck. Not the toys, just the characters in the Disney movie. They completely failed to make an impact and I barely remember they're in the movie. Sure that might be because I've never watched the movie start to finish but I think I've got the gist of things. I wouldn't have gotten this set if it was just made up of Lost Boys, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that sentiment.

But then I think they knew that and that's why they put the Peter Pan minimate in this set. Because if you're going to be the type of person that gets Peter Pan minimates then you are damn well going to get the set that includes Peter Pan. And at least he comes with some cool accessories, like a flying stand and a Tinkerbell mini-minifigure he can hold to simulate her obsessive need to be at least 1 foot or closer to him. (A personality trait that does not at all gel with her characterization in the Disney Fairy straight to DVD movies of which she is the star. In those she's a sweet natured eccentric inventor.) although Peter Pan has his dagger so he can straight up murder the dude Peter goes out of his way to antagonize.

I'm not a fan of what I've seen of the Disney  movie. But damn do I love minimates.

Minimate Monday: Peter Pan Pirate Ship

I mentioned last week that I only buy minimate vehicles if I want the figures that come with them. This is a prime example. The only way to get the Wendy and Smee minimates was to pick up the Pirate Ship that came with them. This made them the most expensive figures to acquire and also meant I would end up with a second minimate pirate ship since this is pretty much just a repackaged ship from the Calico Jack minimate pirate line. (Remember that? I barely do. But if they release more figures I'll snatch them up, because I have a sickness and it's called minimates.)

There's some differences, to be sure. The mast is larger to match the one from the movie and the sails are different, but the base ship is the same. I dunno, I would have just preferred they released the figures seperately.

I'm sure they knew they had collector's by the balls. Who would get Peter Pan minimates but not get the Wendy minimate? Weirdos, that's who.

Video Games

No toy blogging, playing Disney Infinity and Super Smash Bros.

Interesting note though, after reading comments disappointed about how few female heroes you can play as in the Marvel sets (2 out of 18 total) I decided to look at Disney 1.0.

So yeah, that's 8 female characters out of 29. And only 4 out of the 18 characters that come with playsets so they get plots and dialogue. Disney 2.0 is 7 out of 30!characters are female and The breakdown for playset characters: 2 women out of 21 characters.

That is pretty screwed up considering how many iconic female characters Disney has, and how large the segment is of Disney Infinity players that are women, girls, and men who like female characters.

Disney Infinity 2.0

I didn't love the first Disney Infinity but there were parts I liked. The game designers promised they fixed all the problems I had and then made it all superhero based.

End result: I bought all the figures on day 1.

I may have a problem. It helps that the figures can double as vinyl collectibles and cost roughly the same as some vinyl collectibles but aren't blind boxes.

Pizza Planet Truck

Remember the Pizza Planet Truck from Toy Story 2? Well now he's a Cars character! Combining your favorite Pixar series with your most hated Pixar series! 

Look, I only like Cars for the resulting toys, and when the toys are as ridiculous and inside jokey as this, it's almost enough to justify giving Larry the Cable Guy a paycheck. And I hate that guy.

Cars 2 cars

I've found myself getting into the concept of the Cars 2 diecast cars. I shouldn't be surprised, considering how much I really liked the Cars 2 Lego sets. Of course those ended up proving too expensive for me to get all the ones I wanted. And the same can be said of the diecast cars, morseo considering how freaking many of these things they make. And really, I can't say I care for all the figures, hell, there's a reason I never watched either of the movies.

So I've decided to limit myself to really weird sets. So only really ridiculous cars that tickly my funny bone or irony ligament or whatever. Unfortunately I've come to this party way too late, so all the good cars are now hard to find. But I still stumble upon some that I want.

Which is why I got this Mater/Zen Master Pitty. Because look at Zen Master Pitty in all his Japanese glory.

They put him in a rice picker hat... how much more Asian stereotype can you get? You know what, this dude is getting this post labelled with the Toys depicting Asians tag. And actually, looking at the wikipedia he's supposed to have a fu-manchu-esque mustache

The other recent set I got was of a car that is a priest and two forklifts that are cardinals because WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING THIS MAKES NO SENSE! This either means that the Cars have accepted human Jesus as their savior or at some time there was a Car Jesus... THERE WAS A CAR JESUS!!!

So anyway, here's Father Burke and Cardinals Antonio and Angelo.

Stitch as Elvis

I went to a Star Wars mini-con for May the Fourth and didn't buy any Star Wars merchandise in the vendors room. Instead I picked up this guy from some dude's box of cheap Happy Meal toys. Why? Well I'm amused by Elvis merch. Especially crossover Elvis stuff. What's great about this toy is that it's actually a bobble head type thing. You know those hula girls that shake around when they're put on a dashboard? It's one of those, which makes sense because of Lilo and Stitch's use of hula.

Love it. Especially since it cost less than a dollar.

Family Guy K'Nex and Mickey hulk

Saw these at Toys R Us recently. Can we just agree that these look grotesque?

Okay, the Meg/Brian figures look decent, but the rest look horrifying.

Meanwhile, this is a thing of beauty.

They couldn't just produce a green Mickey Mouse, they had to use a regular plush doll with new hands/feet and give it a green body stocking. 

Jack Skellington

The Disney Infinity game is actually a series of different games based on different movie properties. Each game can only be accessed with characters associated with that movie license, so your replayability is limited. That's because the big thing in Disney Infinity is supposed to be the toy box, which is essentially a level creator. In user-created levels, any character is accessible, which is good because...

Some of the Disney figures can't be used in any of the games. That's right. From the 2nd wave of 12 figures, only 3 can actually be used in actual pre-made game levels. The other 9 are only usable in the toybox mode. But hey, who wouldn't want to buy a figure of Jack Skellington even though if you want to play as him in the game you have to build a game level yourself... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

But I pre-ordered him because I was curious, and after having him run around my horrible pre-made level... I don't know if I'm going to buy any more of these non-game figures. Because really, without goals and objectives, it's all pretty damned dull. Which is insane, because the way they designed Jack's moveset, they could have just dropped him in the Monsters University game with no problems.

At this point, if Disney Infinity wants to become "fun," or at least justify its price, it needs to let you play as different characters from different properties in all the levels.

And leveling up doesn't get you anything. No increase to stats, no unlocked abilities. It's just leveling up to make a number go up. That completely ignores the addictive property of level grinding.

All these problems I'm mentioning here, they've all been addressed by Skylanders Giants, which is costing me more money, but which I'm having a LOT more fun with. When you level a character up, your stats increase. When you acquire money, it doesn't just unlock the next part of a game level, you use it to buy new abilities for your character. Oh, and EVERY CHARACTER CAN BE PLAYED IN EVERY PART OF THE GAME! Replayability is all there. And the game play is combat based and fun, it's not just a bunch of fetch quests or collectathons which is pretty much what most of the Disney Infinity Game feels like. (Although Skylanders has both, they're not required to advance gameplay, just to unlock bonus items.)

Violet Parr

Violet is my favorite Incredibles character, and the one I was most looking forward to playing in the game. I was really hoping that they would get Sarah Vowell to do the voice again, and they did! It's awesome hearing her do super-hero banter and quips... as well as her impatient idle time lines. In the game her regular attack is throwing force field bubbles at enemies, making her one of the few Disney Infinity characters to get a distance attack as her regular attack. Her "Powerful Attack" isn't actually an attack, she turns invisible and enemies will ignore her. And while that's cool, your attacks are strong enough that it doesn't really matter if the enemies see you or not. So sometimes it feels like a wasted opportunity to have her... I dunno, have an exploding force field. (And yes, you do get to use her force field as a force field; it's her "block" move.) Still, she's proven to be my favorite character to use in the game. 

The figure itself is a little odd. The paint varies from figure to figure, and I noticed that at one store all the Violet figures had a rosy face that wasn't apparent on the figures I had seen at other stores. Like they had all been given a layer of blush. (The makeup, not the facial reaction.) Another issue is that the character model dictates very thin arms and legs and a stick of a torso, which ends up giving the figure a flimsy feeling not apparent on the other figures, most of which are basically blocks of plastic.

Mrs. Incredible / Elastigirl

Let's start with Helen Parr aka Elastigirl. She's usable in the Incredibles part of the game and her powers in the game reflect her powers better than a third person game has any right to. Her punches and kicks basically turn her into Dhalsim and her "Strong Attack" imitates her rubber arms version of the Spider-man swing, allowing you to attach to buildings and or enemies and then slingshot yourself towards them. It's such a useful power and well implemented that the game eventually gives you an accessory so any character can imitate it. And I mean any character. It's available in the toy box mode so now Jack Sparrow can slingshot himself at walls and enemies.

Holly Hunter doesn't return to voice the character, but EG Daily does a pretty good job with the southern drawl. The figure looks awesome, the paint is sharp and the pose really showcases the character's effectiveness as a badass. You may want to check the paint around the mask though, I noticed a few figures where the paint can be a bit blurry around the eyes and edges of the mask, but it's barely noticeable. I'd say it's one of the better figures in the first wave, although really, all the figures in the first wave are pretty well done, with a few noticeable exceptions.

Disney Infinity

Let's explain the concept before reviewing the figures.

So some store I visited was throwing this sign away. Right place, right time.

Disney Infinity, the video game that is pretty much seen as a knock-off of Spyro the Dragon: Skylanders. Basically you buy the game and the only way to unlock the content on the disc is to buy figurines that you place on a reader. Then you can play as the character depicted on the figurine! Of course each figurine only works in the level (or as they call them: playsets) that is associated with the figure's movie property (So Pirates of the Caribean figures won't work in the Monsters University game) or the Toy Box, which is essentially Little Big Planet using Disney themes. The Toy Box is surprisingly well done, with the ability to use elements to make sports games, side scrollers, and racing games. Disney is even releasing pre-made Toy Box levels, like an ESPN themed race track or a simulation of Columbia from Bioshock Infinite.

I was going to ignore this game at first, but then I found out that the Incredibles level was basically GTA: Incredibles and that some of the original voice cast appeared. Hearing Sarah Vowell talk as I beat people up as Violet makes me happy. I played a little, got obsessed, and ended up buying every figure from the first wave. Fortunately, if you were willing to shop around you could get some good deals. For example, Wal-Mart had all the multi-packs of figures for half-off.

I'm slowly opening the figures. There's about 4 hours of gameplay per figure, more if you want to level them up (which doesn't improve their plat stats, but does earn you currency to unlock more Toy Box items and pretties up the character's display in the virtual exhibition hall of collected figures.) The starter pack (video game, figure reader, 3 figures) comes with the figures for Mr. Incredible, Jack Sparrow, and Sully and the figure that unlocks their respective levels/games. So far I've been playing through the Incredibles and Monster University playsets. (And yes, it IS like GTA: Incredibles. I've drop kicked the mayor more times than I can remember. Monsters University is more of a... stealth collection puzzle game?) The games are fun, and what I've done with the Toy Box so far shows some promise. I'm hoping to figure out a way to make the side-scrolling work in a way that I can create a good brawler or 2D fighting game.

And yes, the blind packed Power Discs which either add a bonus to your character during gameplay (like a shield or extra currency rewards) or add new elements to the Toy Box such as exclusive vehicles or background paint, those are a pain in the butt. Especially since some of them are "rare" and so now you get a collectible aspect into this. $5 for a two-pack of accessories that unlock something already on the disc you had to pay $75 for. But I still want some of them, because the unlocked skies include new background music, so the Alice in Wonderland background has a creepy old school song loop that implies a threatening psychedelic environment.



How bad is the power disc thing? Last Saturday Toys R Us had a event where people could trade their discs and get an exclusive disc. End result: they sold out of the exclusives in less than an hour and the store was fricking packed, or so I'm told by employees since I had to work and wouldn't have participated anyway because I don't want to be the creepy adult trying to trade toys with children. Which is a shame because I wanted the exclusive Tron disc... (Which is actually going to be included in the wave 2 blind packed power discs coming out sometime before December.)

Curiousity... Infinity!

So quick question: Is there any interest in me doing reviews and looking over gameplay of Disney Infinity? Because I bought all the figures. For some reason.

My plan is to use the toybox to make a version of Pac-Man with Disney characters.

Iron Mickey

Saw this at a Toys R Us. I've been expecting something like this ever since Disney bought Marvel. You knew this was going to happen eventually.

Finn McMissile

Why did I buy this? Because I really do love me some Cars 2 Lego figures. So everything I've said before applies here.

Also, it's Michael Caine.