Now you might be thinking: "Why review Toy Story 3? That's a trivial game to review." Well for those who've played Toy Story 2 for PlayStation and N64 will know that that game holds a firm standing in platforming history, it's a darn fine game and stands as (probably the best) licensed game there is. So, surely a successor wouldn't live up to it but here we go anyway.
When I was a kid, I played the Toy Story 3 DS version before I even saw the movie and beat it the first day. To this day, it's probably the game that I've beat the most times and even speedran. Had I recorded it, I might hold the world record (the WR is currently 46 min!) but I am pretty rusty now and days and am kinda scared it won't live up to those memories because while I loved that game, it was too short.
"So, if I already played Toy Story 3, why am I playing it again but on Wii?" Because the Wii version is probably the most different of them all. You see, there's the PS2 version which is basically just the PSP version which just doesn't look as good as what I played. But the higher gen consoles at the time (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii versions) might as well be a different story, this plays completely different from the one I remember on DS but that's not really a bad thing.
DS followed its story pretty much beat for beat the movie with some added mini games (particularly tower defense) but this one plays it with the Toy Box, which is what they really pushed in the marketing and I thought the DS version had when I bought it but then learned it didn't. The story DOES play out like the movie but it's a retelling. Hamm and friends are telling Bonnie's toys about how they got to where they are using- yep, you guessed it, toys. And that is the excuse for the Toy Box.
You can play as Woody, Buzz, Jessie and even ride Bullseye, which I don't believe the latter two were an option for the DS version.
You can even play the Buzz game from TS2, or at least their version of it. So, you can use Buzz's laser which can seem finicky with cough motion controls. Which as a kid, I wouldn't have minded but being older has gotten me to look at it differently. I think maybe I had it set up with the prime distance as a kid but now and days, I'm limited, because I have a different TV, different house, which equals different space.
Cutscenes are rendered pretty well and no they're not just FMVs of the movie! You can play the levels separately to get stuff that you missed. They did care about what they were putting into this game.
The thing the DS version has over this one is environments and Buzz. With Buzz, you could glide. That's half of what I remember about that game, is just gliding around as Buzz, without even having a place to go, just to feel the sensation of being able to do it. There's a glide in the Buzz videogame but he doesn't extend his wings, it's the not same glide and it's nowhere near as long, even the N64 TS2 had a better glide.
The camera drives me nuts with this game and it's really apparent in the Toy Box, trying to figure out where to go. The unreliable camera is actually what's keeping this back as a good speed-running game, so yes, it is another short one (WR: 32 min, about 8 levels + Toy Box). I'm sure it was made under a tight budget with an even tighter deadline though.
Now it does have some other issues like lag but that's also part of the Wii, but then there some cutscenes where music plays too loud over voices. Music cutting out with a sudden interruption of a cutscene then return where the music stopped right after.
How exactly is that Toy Box? It's good to have collectibles and to be able to customize buildings and villagers but it is experimental. It worked its way up to Disney Infinity, which the Toy Box mode in that is great but TS3 is the better game overall, at least from what I've played of Infinity. There are other collectibles and cards that you can view in Al's Toy Barn (not a level, not explorable) They're literally just pictures, hardly considered concept art, I've seen much better examples.
It's not a hard game but not so easy that it's baby stuff. They have hints that you can choose to use and sometimes I did actually use them. It's a good balanced kids game even if I do prefer TS2. Speaking of which, let me talk about licensed games in general. There are quite a few that I like, contrary to popular opinion but what I like most about them is to visit places that were in the show/movie. That's it! Make a fully explorable, 1x1 creation of that world and I will be happy. Toy Story 2 was the closest that I've found to that. The Kingdom Hearts series does pretty good with it too. I appreciate getting levels and stuff that are brand new never before seen content that feels like it fits right in with the movie (even this game does that) but I think most of us play them to feel like we're in the world that we're already familiar with.
The fact that licensed games have more or less gone away is a little sad to me but going back to some of them, I see why. Many of them were very similar, made on shoestring budgets with a tight schedule to coincide with the movie. I get that but then I look at stuff like Spider-Man 2, Battle for Bikini Bottom, and even Shrek has a few cool games. There's a demand for a niche part of those games, even now, and I would be happy to see them back in a new way, one that doesn't have to rely on a release schedule and can just come out like any normal game. Many of them are cultural icons anyway. Tell me you wouldn't play a Danny Phantom game or a Moana game or something of the sort even being that old. I get striking while the iron is hot but that seems close-minded in my opinion.
When I was a kid, I played the Toy Story 3 DS version before I even saw the movie and beat it the first day. To this day, it's probably the game that I've beat the most times and even speedran. Had I recorded it, I might hold the world record (the WR is currently 46 min!) but I am pretty rusty now and days and am kinda scared it won't live up to those memories because while I loved that game, it was too short.
"So, if I already played Toy Story 3, why am I playing it again but on Wii?" Because the Wii version is probably the most different of them all. You see, there's the PS2 version which is basically just the PSP version which just doesn't look as good as what I played. But the higher gen consoles at the time (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii versions) might as well be a different story, this plays completely different from the one I remember on DS but that's not really a bad thing.
DS followed its story pretty much beat for beat the movie with some added mini games (particularly tower defense) but this one plays it with the Toy Box, which is what they really pushed in the marketing and I thought the DS version had when I bought it but then learned it didn't. The story DOES play out like the movie but it's a retelling. Hamm and friends are telling Bonnie's toys about how they got to where they are using- yep, you guessed it, toys. And that is the excuse for the Toy Box.
You can play as Woody, Buzz, Jessie and even ride Bullseye, which I don't believe the latter two were an option for the DS version.
You can even play the Buzz game from TS2, or at least their version of it. So, you can use Buzz's laser which can seem finicky with cough motion controls. Which as a kid, I wouldn't have minded but being older has gotten me to look at it differently. I think maybe I had it set up with the prime distance as a kid but now and days, I'm limited, because I have a different TV, different house, which equals different space.
Cutscenes are rendered pretty well and no they're not just FMVs of the movie! You can play the levels separately to get stuff that you missed. They did care about what they were putting into this game.
The thing the DS version has over this one is environments and Buzz. With Buzz, you could glide. That's half of what I remember about that game, is just gliding around as Buzz, without even having a place to go, just to feel the sensation of being able to do it. There's a glide in the Buzz videogame but he doesn't extend his wings, it's the not same glide and it's nowhere near as long, even the N64 TS2 had a better glide.
The camera drives me nuts with this game and it's really apparent in the Toy Box, trying to figure out where to go. The unreliable camera is actually what's keeping this back as a good speed-running game, so yes, it is another short one (WR: 32 min, about 8 levels + Toy Box). I'm sure it was made under a tight budget with an even tighter deadline though.
Now it does have some other issues like lag but that's also part of the Wii, but then there some cutscenes where music plays too loud over voices. Music cutting out with a sudden interruption of a cutscene then return where the music stopped right after.
How exactly is that Toy Box? It's good to have collectibles and to be able to customize buildings and villagers but it is experimental. It worked its way up to Disney Infinity, which the Toy Box mode in that is great but TS3 is the better game overall, at least from what I've played of Infinity. There are other collectibles and cards that you can view in Al's Toy Barn (not a level, not explorable) They're literally just pictures, hardly considered concept art, I've seen much better examples.
It's not a hard game but not so easy that it's baby stuff. They have hints that you can choose to use and sometimes I did actually use them. It's a good balanced kids game even if I do prefer TS2. Speaking of which, let me talk about licensed games in general. There are quite a few that I like, contrary to popular opinion but what I like most about them is to visit places that were in the show/movie. That's it! Make a fully explorable, 1x1 creation of that world and I will be happy. Toy Story 2 was the closest that I've found to that. The Kingdom Hearts series does pretty good with it too. I appreciate getting levels and stuff that are brand new never before seen content that feels like it fits right in with the movie (even this game does that) but I think most of us play them to feel like we're in the world that we're already familiar with.
The fact that licensed games have more or less gone away is a little sad to me but going back to some of them, I see why. Many of them were very similar, made on shoestring budgets with a tight schedule to coincide with the movie. I get that but then I look at stuff like Spider-Man 2, Battle for Bikini Bottom, and even Shrek has a few cool games. There's a demand for a niche part of those games, even now, and I would be happy to see them back in a new way, one that doesn't have to rely on a release schedule and can just come out like any normal game. Many of them are cultural icons anyway. Tell me you wouldn't play a Danny Phantom game or a Moana game or something of the sort even being that old. I get striking while the iron is hot but that seems close-minded in my opinion.