During this year’s Comic-Con International, I got the chance to play the new Guardians of the Galaxy play set for Disney Infinity 2.0. Previously, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I only got to sample the Avengers and Ultimate Spider-man play sets for the game. However at Comic-Con, Disney Interactive was displaying both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. For the convention, I got to try various characters in the play set for both the PS4 and Xbox One consoles, and I was very satisfied with what I got to play.
While the Avengers and Spider-Man play sets are Earth-bound and set in New York City, the Guardians of the Galaxy set has a more cosmic setting. The demo featured a mission set on the former Celestial head-turned-interstellar space station called Knowhere. In the first half of the demo, the Guardians are trying to safely transport the McGuffin artifact, the Orb, to The Collector on his base in Knowhere. The evil Ronan the Accuser and his ship, the Dark Aster, is right outside Knowhere. Ronan wants the Orb for himself. So in the first half, you follow The Collector’s instructions and explore Knowhere. Eventually, you make it to The Collector and get him the Orb.
For the next half of the demo, Cosmo the talking cosmonaut dog guides the Guardians through the rest of the stage. If you think Rocket Raccoon is awesome, wait until you see Cosmo. Ronan sends his Sakaaran soldiers into Knowhere, and the Guardians have to protect the facility. This area of the demo opens up Knowhere more, and it is a nice, fun map to play in. It has this cool urban, sci-fi, alien architecture as the Guardians delve further into the map.
All the Guardians have their own unique play styles and abilities. Through progression, more upgrades and abilities in the playable character’s skill tree can be unlocked. I enjoyed playing as Star-Lord a lot with his double Element Guns and rocket boots. Also, the shear ability to play as Rocket Raccoon in a video game is pretty incredible.
The cut scenes and cinematics all looked especially crisp and smooth. For the most part, I found the Xbox One and PS4 versions to play mostly identical. I found the visuals for the Xbox One to be a tad sharper, but that could have been due to the screen I was using to view the game. In terms of playable characters, the Guardians play set also allows crossover Marvel characters from other play sets. Throughout the demo, the Guardians can pick up tokens for Iron Man and Nova from the other play sets. With the tokens, you can switch to Iron Man or Nova in the Guardians play set. This makes sense since Iron Man was a member of the team in the comics. In the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, Nova aka Sam Alexander was a member of the team. In the Marvel comics, Nova aka Richard Ryder teamed up with the Guardians as well.
Disney Infinity 2.0 is due out on September 23 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PlayStation Vita, iOS and Windows PC.
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