Running through Disneyland Adventures on the XBox!

The Breakdown: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Disneyland Adventures is one of our IT Show 2012 loot that we have played quite extensively for the past few weeks now. In the It's a freebie we got from the IT Show -- thank you DBS/POSB!

In addition to the game, you also get a redemption code for 160 Microsoft Points (MSP). Not sure if that's standard issue for all Disneyland Adventures game, or if it's just an IT Show promo, or if it's a regional thing only. At any rate, free game + free MSP was enough reason for us to say "nice deal!"


The Flaws: Sensor Unsensing

Now the game. It's a Kinect game, so it pretty much has the same benefits and/or issues with any other Kinect game. However, this game has particularly annoying sensor issues. Even compared with the other Kinect games -- e.g. Kinect Adventures or Fruit Ninja -- the game has a hard time interpreting my moves. It can hardly distinguish me raising my hand for high fives with the characters (more on this later). Apparently, this has been seen by other players as well -- some have complained about this a lot in some of the forums I've checked.

In addition, there is some noticeable lag on specific games/areas. For example in the last leg of the Pirates of the Carribbean attraction where you have to swat away the bombs/grenades thrown at you, my avatar swats the bomb about a second too late so I often get, uhm, bombed away. This lag takes a little bit of getting used to.

One workaround I found to help was to re-calibrate the Kinect sensor after you have loaded the disc.

---

Playing the Game: Choosing Your Gaming Style

As the name suggests, the game takes your virtual-self -- your avatar -- to the virtual version of Disneyland. You can walk around and interact with the Disneyland characters to fulfill some quests and go into the different atttractions. The park is divided into several areas, each with their own theme, characters, and attractions -- e.g. Fantasy Land is fantasy-themed area where Disney princesses and Wonderland characters are found, while Tomorrowland is futuristic where Buzz Lightyear is stationed and home of the Space Mountain attraction. Each area also has some shops where you can buy stuff for yourself -- clothes/costumes for your avatar, photoalbums, autograph books, etc.

It's an open world play, so you are basically free to do whatever you want to do within the park. The game has a lot to offer and -- depending on your mood and/or the type of game you want to play -- you can play it in one of several ways. Think Fallout 3, where you go to places and decide which quests you want to do.

You also have your friendly Golden Ticket with arms and legs. He will guide you through the quests in the game and point out some helpful tips and constantly reminds you of your active quests. He's like Jiminy Cricket and you're Pinocchio. :)


Playing the Game: The Questing Game

You can do the adventure, questing, or RPG which I would say is the main part of the game: meet the questgivers (they have "!" on top of their heads as well as their icons on the Map), finish the tasks, return to report you success, and you will be rewarded with coins, magic (aka experience points or XP -- yep there's leveling up here, but don't get any high hopes just yet), and/or special items.

The coins can be used in the different shops.

When you have enough magic, you level up. Your level determines what kind of quests and special items are available to you. Aside from that, leveling up has no other uses. No hardcore RPG elements here -- hey, it's a kid's adventure game afterall :)

The special items let's you do some stuff and enables you to collect other specific items. For example, the first tool you will most likely have is the camera. The camera enables you to get pictures for some specific quests as well as taking discovery photos, photo passes, and getting Hidden Mickeys.

Also, a big part here is the Golden Ticket and the Adventure Trail. The Trail always leads you to where your active quest needs you to go. Very useful to get things quickly, so set your Active Quest properly. Note that the Trail does not always lead you to the shortest path to your destination; seems like the Trail ensures that you go through the main thoroughfares of the park like a guided tour -- nice views, yes; efficient, hardly.

Each Quest/Adventure consists of several Tasks. You need to finish all of the tasks in order (just follow the Adventure Trail) so that you can finish the entire questline. Finishing a questline rewards you with a Pin Badges.

Warning: many of the tasks are the fetching and collecting type (e.g. collect 12 Gooseberries, collect 5 school books, etc.) This involves alot of running around the park. This is the painfully repetitive and mind-numbing part of the game. Good thing though is that you can always jump on to one of the Attractions whenever the running around part becomes a grating experience.


Playing the Game: The Attractions Mini-Games

Another big part of the game is the Attractions -- this is basically where you make full use of the Kinect sensor (and where you encounter most of the Kinect-related problems). These minigames can be played repeatedly. Your performance will be graded on a scale of 5 stars. And achieving a certain level of stars and discovery of the Hidden Mickeys reward you bronze, silver, gold, or platinum Badges.

In the Main Menu of the game, you can go to the Fast Track option -- you skip the Park and questing section of the game and go directly to the Attractions. However, the only Attractions there are the ones you've already visited in your main game.

In the main game, though, you can go directly to the attractions, even without visiting that section yet. Just go to your Map, browse through each of the areas, and select one of the Attractions there. I manage to finish the "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" attraction without ever going to the Critter Country.

Playing the Game: The 100% Perfect Game

In case you're one of those perfectionists out there, there is a Game Progress bar that let's you know how much of the game you've already completed. This is a pretty daunting task.

All adventures must be completed. Not sure if you need to have 5stars/Platinum Badges for each of the attractions, but you need to at least complete each of them. Plus -- and this is the big kicker -- you need to collect all the collectibles. Each special item has it's own collectibles per area. As indicted earlier, the camera for example is required for the Discovery Photos, Photo Passes, and Hidden Mickeys, plus snapshots of each of the characters. Don't have the full list yet; not sure if I ever will try to make the 100%.

The main concern here is the repetitiveness of the tasks. On each area, you have to flip between your camera and magic wand and blaster to get all these secret tasks. Guess it's best to do it in stages. Whenever I am questing, I always have the magic wand at the ready because so far there are more Wand items than the other item types and many of the fetch quests/tasks need the wand. So I flick the wand whenever I see a trashcan, manhole, or parasol.

---

On Site: Meeting the Characters

Characters with "!" are questgivers, while those with a comic balloon are involved in one of you Quests. At any rate, you need to wave to interact with them.

Wave to Interact. When you are within range of the character (there's golden sparkling circle around and centered on the character), w ave your hand, bending at the elbow, not at the shoulder. (I was making a big wave with my entire arm on my first try).

High Five. Raise your hand in a high-five position as indicated to perform a high-five with the character. Each has their own way of high-fiving so it's a bit fun to watch -- at least on the first time.

Dancing. Bow, bending at the waist. Like the high-five, each has their own way of dancing with you.

Hugging. Both arms should be streched out slightly forward. (Hint: achievement for hugging all villains.)

Autograph (unlockable). Stretch out both arms forward. You need to buy the appropriate autograph book from the shop to enable this action.

Photograph (unlockable). Stretch out one hand (with the camera) forward. You need to buy the correct photo album from the shop to save and enable this action. This action can be done even without interacting (waving) first with the character.

-- to be continued --


- via BlogPress in iPhone