SNES Review 137: Toy Story

OK so its back to a Disney game again. I am going to be reviewing Toy Story  on the SNES. So Toy Story is a side-scrolling platform game which was released by Disney Interactive Studios in 1995. The game came out for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, the Nintendo Game Boy, Microsoft Windows and of course the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which is obviously the one I am going to be talking about.

The game might have been released by Disney Interactive Studios but it was actually made by Traveller's Tales, who are a British video game developer which was founded in 1989. Most people will probably know Travellers Tales for there  more recent games in particular there Lego games especially the Lego Starwars games. Travellers Tales still essentially exists it was purchased for an undisclosed amount on the 8th of November 2007 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Toy Story was a pretty important film really when you stop and think about it, after all it was the film which brought about a new age of 3D animation, it was also to a certain extent the start of the end for Disney’s traditionally animated films. This is not the first time I have talked about Pixar in relation to games strangely that would be Unirally/Uniracer but this is the first time I am talking about a game which was at least to some degree trying to bring the official Pixar experience to a home console to decide whether it succeeds or not I guess one would have to define what Pixar as a studio really stands for, what makes its films different to others and does the game live up to this in any way shape or form?

Toy Story follows the basic plot of the movie, yes it doesn't follow it to the letter but if you have seen the film then you will basically know whats going on.  Most of the time you control Woody the cowboy who controls pretty much like you would expect for a typical platformer, the direction pad controls what direction your going in and then you can jump around and you can use Woody's lasso. I have to give the game credit for the fact that it is mixes things up a bit. There are the standard platforming stages where the idea is the usual leap over this and that avoid taking too much damage and reach the levels end. Then you get stages which can best be described as sort of scavenger hunts where you have to search for toys or other items. Then there are also chase stages and boss battles so you could say things remain pretty varied which can if handled correctly can help to make games like this remain fun for longer.

The standard platform stages suffer though from being formulaic,yes they tick a lot of the boxes decent controls, graphics which look quiet a lot like the source material but there is no real defining attribute to them that you wouldn't find elsewhere. Woody's platformer stages never introduce anything new to the game but I guess the developers felt that they didnt have to do anything much with them because they went to a lot of trouble to break them up with other different game types. For instant you have one stage which requires you to drive the RC car through a maze of toys that cannot be hit. The problem is that its a complete pain in the behind to control, if you have played something like micro machines on the megadrive or super skid marks or powerdrive then you know that driving with this sort of view point can be done a lot better. Then you get to ride on Rex the dinosaur in a scrolling from left to right chase sequence which sounds thrilling but its not really, this kind of thing has been done so much better in other games. I think a lot of effort went into keeping the game varied so as to try and prevent people from getting bored and I need to make special mention of a 3D Doom/Wolfenstein bit where you move around as Woody in a first person view which I thought was pretty cool and not something I expected to see in a Disney based game. The bad side is that the whole game can be done and dusted by a decent player in under an hour and you feel very little need to come back to it.

Thats the thing about the Film Toy Story its a timeless piece of entertainment in my oppinion it is about  fundamental things, it's about jealousy about how to deal with your own sense of insecurity at your place in the world, at how you exist in various social circles and how the introduction of a new person can alter a group dynamic but its also wrapped up in just good honest fun. I don't think this game really stands for anything other than an inevitable law of the 90's if Disney make a film that wracks in the dollar dollar then they will have someone make a game of it. I am not saying that its a bad game I am just saying that its a very forgettable game, something that you will pick up play and then soon forget. This is what makes games like Super Mario World truly special you play them and they grab a hold of you and take up a place in your life

I would give toy story a 6 out of 10, it is a decent enjoyable but ultimately forgettable game, you can get a cart of it for about £10 which if your looking for a decent platformer you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. Despite receiving mixed reviews back in the day apparently the game did well  but an interesting bit of trivia to note is that there was a lot less copies of the SNES version made apparently due to a Super NES chip shortage which prevented them from producing as many copies as they would have liked to.