Toy Story 3: The Video Game (Xbox 360) > Reviews (1)

In our household it's fair to say that we are firm fans of the Xbox 360 with it being played most days, on average, for at least an hour or two. My other half was thrilled when he realised that there was a Toy Story 3 game for the Xbox that went along with the film. This was promptly rented from Lovefilm but can be purchased from Amazon for around £20-£25 at present with the price varying from seller to seller just slightly.

There are two modes to this game, story mode & toy box mode. Story mode contains eight levels during which you will play as Woody, Buzz or Jessie. Sometimes a combination of these characters will be needed in order to get through the level. It's easy to change through the characters and for the most part the story mode is quite simple, for an adult, as you are pretty much guided through what you need to do. Some of the levels are similar to things that happen in the film, some not at all. This does add something extra to the game as it's not just following a storyline that you already know about entirely. The best level we played was one where you are Buzz Lightyear and you are in space, you get to use all of the features of Buzz such as his laser and you have to kill Zurg and lots of other aliens. This was my favourite and my partners also as it was something different to the other levels as you were not sticking to a platform, also, Buzz is definitely our favourite character and I know it's been my partners favourite since the very first Tory Story movie.

Each of the three characters that you can use can be interchanged during the game, at times, and this is very useful, also, it adds another dimension to the game play as you need to think quite strategically in order to get through the levels. Whether it's using Woody's drawstring as a lasso, Jessie's jump and ability to balance on the smallest objects or Buzz's laser beam or jet pack there really is always a way to get through the level and it's just a case of working it out.

The toy box mode is a bit of a free for all as you are able to roam free chatting to other characters, taking photographs, buying toys, buying objects to customise your play area and compete in missions. Competing in missions is the main way to purchase new objects but you can also take part in a whole host of other things such as placing criminals in jail, throwing balls at objects and collecting up boxes full of surprise items and sometimes tokens. You are able to split screen this mode to play it two player but we both preferred to work on this game separately which gave us both fun and meant we were able to customise things just the way we wanted to.

We ended up keeping this game for around 3 weeks as it was quite fun, also it had fantastic longevity. The main thing that springs to mind when thinking of this game was that there were times when one of us got stuck or had to do a mission continually for 30 minutes just to be able to complete it and I can imagine that a young child would get very frustrated with this game.

In terms of playability for children I'd say it's a little difficult but it's a good clean fun game. The only time it's possible to 'meet your maker' is if you drop off in to water but the game just restarts from the ledge you were on with no mention of dying or anything like that. Also, there is a good message in being able to catch criminals and throw them in to jail. The only thing I can think of that a child may find difficult is just some of the gameplay, it can be a little tricky in places. This game does take a fair while to work through, particularly in toy box mode, that's if you want to unlock all of the achievements of course.

There are 38 achievements for 1,000 gamer points with some of them being very fast to unlock, right at the beginning of the game, and some of them being unlocked for basically doing everything on the game. This adds to the longevity of a game for us as we like to try and get as many gamer points as possible, to beat our friends, and therefore we usually end up playing a game right through to the end, even if it means going over a mission several times to ensure we get the gamer points.

We really enjoyed this game, it was fantastic. Some of the achievements were quite difficult to unlock but by the time we returned this game back to love film we had completed the game and earnt pretty much the 1,000 gamer points. I was just two achievements short and my other half had completed the 1,000 points and was very pleased with himself. There is so much to this game to keep you playing for hours and hours and even if you have a young child who isn't bothered about his gamer points they will find plenty to keep themselves occupied, even if it's just running around riding on a horse or using Buzz's laser! I've given this 4/5 as some of the missions will just be a little too hard for young children to work out and as this is a game based on a children's movie it should be a little easier.

Summary: A fantastic game for almost the whole family!