by sdp4life » Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:23 pm
@goofyspaceranger – I am jealous you were able to get into game design. I would have loved to been able to do that but that path never came my way and I am a terrible programmer. I have tried and just suck.
Anyway to respond to your toy box/play set point. The point I have been trying to make is if the point of the game is to create your own worlds in the toy box then you need stuff to do it. Whether it be earning spins through gold stars or finding capsules you need to play the play sets to get the tools to populate/build your worlds. Therefore the play sets need to be a complete game experience that can be enjoyed independently and they are not (for the most part). By total game experience I mean the following: solid gameplay (including cameras, multiplayer setup, etc.), cohesive story (I can deal with a bad story as long as it’s consistent), and expanded content (collectibles, trophies/achievements, Easter eggs). Little Big Planet has done this successfully twice. In those games you never need to create anything and you get a complete experience playing the provided game levels. Infinity only does the expanded content well.
Infinity had a unique opportunity to provide a variety of game play options through the different play sets and instead provided the same gameplay with a different paint job for each play set. I hope this is different for the Cars play set since you are playing with cars the mechanics have to be different. At the very least by providing different styles of play (sidescroller, level based, racing, sports, etc) they could “show off” what you can create in the toy box. After trying the terrible Mario side scroller I think that the create tools they have are not very good. Maybe I’m spoiled by some of the outstanding games users created in Little Big Planet 2 (first person, 3rd person, overhead camera, etc) and now I expect games that have a building aspect to have the same level of detail.
And no I do not have a lot of time invest in building in the toy box. If I can’t build something I feel is good then I would rather spend my time on something else and creating in toy box requires time I don’t have right now. We limit the amount of time my son can play video games especially since there are so many more ways to play games now and I have younger son who can’t play video games I need to make sure I play with as well. So for now we play the stories, when we finish those we will see. My 5 year old is not big into “building”. When he plays he tells stories, directs where others (this could be people or his toys depending) should be to tell that story, and will set up what is needed to tell that story. However he is not big on his own “vision” by that I mean he wants the Legos to look like what’s on the box. He doesn’t want to make a six wheeled car or bi-plane; he wants his toys to look like the box. He is very good at puzzles/problem solving, math and things like that but creativity and reading not so much. I am hopefully a steady dose of art class in school will help and maybe when we are done with the play sets he’ll start to want to do that more in infinity. Winter is coming, we need more inside activities.
The other issue I have is the additional content. Give me a reason to play as different characters. They should have different abilities, powers, weapons, etc. I can get the same experience as Sully as I can as Randal or Mike. So why buy extra figures? If I want to build a race track in the toy box (something I think I would have time to do) and I want to have Mike’s car, mickey’s car, Cinderella’s coach, and Abu I can’t because only 3 discs can be on the base. I really do want to build but limits are killing my desire. I paid for power discs and toys I want to be able to load them into a toy box world and use them for my world. I want Jack, Sully, & Mr. incredible all on the screen at one time to tell my story and I can’t. Heck at this point I would settle for being able to have 2 figures on the base I can switch between while playing single player. And I really want an improved 2 player experience – still my biggest issue. If this worked at least as well as a Lego game or any racing game we would be having way more fun.
I am glad to know I am not the only person on here who is experiencing these frustrations.