PixlBit

Today was a long gaming day for me. I finished all but one achievement in Disney Infinity 2.0. Mark and I played the Exploration Survival Mode on the Brave power disc and got to the end of the 50 levels. It took about two and a half hours. Luckily no disconnections occured. Then I had to play the story missions on that same disc to get all 50 sidekick items. Mark and I played about four levels co-op before I got the achievement and we both exited to do other things: Mark had to get his 90 Feats achievement, and I started the Pirates of the Caribbean Playset in Disney Infinity 1.0. But more of that after a picture of today's purchases. 

I got Ultron (Disney Infinity 3.0 figure), a Thor figure for Mark (not shown), and three Skylanders off my core list..

             

                                  Ultron (back row), Spotlight, Rocky Roll, High Five.

I'm slowly adding 3.0 characters for when I get the starter pack, probably later this year when it goes on sale.

So after finishing all but one achievement in D.I. 2.0 (last one is play a 4-player game), I went back to D.I. 1.0 and started the Pirates of the Caribbean play set with my Barbarosa figure. This was a lot of fun and took up the whole rest of the day. There were a few challenges specifically for the other figures, Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones, so I used my Jack Sparrow once or twice and Mark's Davy Jones as well. There are three achievements for completing all challenges within a playset, so I guess the other characters could be necessary, but maybe not because other playsets may not have character specific challenges, but I'm not sure.

So this playset is pretty darn fun. You get a sailing ship pretty early on and sail to different towns and fight, do missions, explore for collectibles and do challenges. The challenges are either: defeat a goup of enemies within a time limit, or run around collecting orbs within a time limit. The environments are actually quite detailed and nice to look at. The sailing ship is fantastic and controls beautifully. You travel the local area to islands, forts and other towns while battling other ships along the way. Mainly you use cannon, which you can upgrade by buying new ones with coin you collect, but there's also special defense mechanisms on the ship which can also be bought. These do various things that I won't spoil, but they're kind of cool. 

The combat system is a little simpler than in D.I. 2.0. There isn't a skill tree and leveling up is automatic. You use swords, pistols and bombs (maybe Davy Jones has something neat, I don't know since I only used him for an orb collecting challenge). You can attack, block and do a power attack.. There's also a ground pound attack by jumping and then attacking. That's it. No combos or activiation of a special move, just basic fighting mechanics. It was fine though. Some of the fights were actually a little challenging, especially when they throw a lot of bombs at you. Thankfully you just respawn when you die without losing progress, and your health meter recovers if you go hide. I did have to use my block move much more than in 2.0. Spamming the attack button until your combo move activiates is not going to work here. You have to go at it a little more strategically. 

Anyway, I finished the play set in about seven hours or so. I really wanted more missions after the final battle, and I found a few, but after that there's not much to do but keep fighting ships at sea. I left one mission unfinished because I couldn't find a part for my ship (probably a collectible in some corner somewhere), But there isn't an achievement for completing all the missions, and looking it up kind of spoils the fun, so I left it and played a few minutes of the Toy Box version of Pirates of the Caribbean, which is just a town where you can add toys. I got an achievement or two for dropping townspeople into it, and then. . . um. . . kicking them around.  

Monsters University is up next. I guess I'll dig into that next week.