On Thursday before Hallowe'en I was invited to take my two
kids down to the Disney Holiday Gaming Preview being held at the Xbox Central location in Toronto. For those who haven't had
the chance to visit Xbox 360 Central, I highly recommend a visit next time you and the kids are down in the Queen West area
of Toronto. Xbox Canada has locations in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver where you can go in and try out the latest Xbox
and Kinect games in a bright, fun environment where product experts are on hand to answer all your questions on the latest
Xbox titles.
For the Disney Holiday Gaming Preview the entire location was
decorated with Disney characters and being close to Hallowe'en, people were encouraged to dress up. While my son simply wore
his Mickey Mouse ears my daughter wore her Cheshire Cat costume, much to the delight of the two women dressed up as Alice
and The Queen of Hearts.Once we had a tour of the candy
bar, met some costumed characters and had photos taken with the stars of Disney XD channel's Zeke and Luther (Adam Hicks and
Hutch Dano) We took some time to try out the the two games featured at this event, Disney Universe and Kinect:
Disneyland Adventures.
Disney Universe,
published by Disney Interactive Media, is a 1-4 player adventure game set in 6 different worlds inspired by Disney and Pixar
films. Your on screen character is able to suit up as one of over 40 different Disney and Pixar characters including Alice,
Tron, Nemo, Wall-E and many more. Disney Universe is perfect for families with kids and adults of different gaming abilities.
Simple controls and classic puzzle solving/bad guy smashing gameplay make it easy to pick up and get into the action. The
game alters the puzzles and other challenges depending on the number of players and allows for different styles of play to
be rewarded. If one player likes to bash the enemies but another prefers to pick up coins or find other treasure, thats ok
because in the end, everybody gets points for their accomplishments. Parents or veteran gamers in the family don't have to
help the novice gamers, whatever a player decides to do in the game they will be rewarded.
My 9 year old son found this
game to be his favorite of the two. Despite the candy treats and other attractions, he kept coming back to play this game.
Disney Universe for Xbox 360 and other consoles launched October 25th and is in stores now.
Kinect: Disneyland Adventures, published by Microsoft, is a virtual recreation
of the Magic Kingdom where your avatar can explore the park, meet familiar Disney characters and play games based on Disneyland
attractions. They've recreated nearly every aspect of a Disneyland visit except the lines. With over 40 characters and at
least 12 attractions turned into Kinect mini-games, this is a must for any Disney park fan. Since the game demonstrated at
the event was still in pre-release form, we only got to try out a few of the mini-games. This being my 7 year old daughter's
favorite game of the night, we found ourselves falling down the rabbit hole in the Alice in Wonderland area and playing croquet
with the Queen of Hearts (we get to play the ball!). I think this will be a hit especially with the younger Disney fans when
it launches exclusively on Xbox 360 for Kinect on November 15th, 2011.
More information on each game can be found at their official web sites:
Disney Universe
Kinect: Disneyland Adventures
