Snapshots and Impressions of Disney Infinity

NOTE: All the pictures in today's post were snapped with an iPhone pointed at my (very cheap) little television screen. This game looks much, much better in person.

Barbosa finds the Hatter's tea party...and doesn't know quite what to make of it.

Disney Infinity is a huge, sprawling game, so full of possibilities and options that no two people will play it in quite the same way. We'll have a complete review later this week, but here are our impressions after several hours inside Infinity's strange, astonishing world.

Mr. Incredible borrows Mulan's horse. And yes, that's an Autopia Car

The game is brilliant, beautifully animated, and an absolute blast to play with. And that's the key to Infinity: you don't simply play through it like a normal video game. You play with it, tweaking it, experimenting and changing it around as you go.

Time Machine Day: Space Mountain 1977

Space Mountain opened at Disneyland on May 27, 1977. I got to the park a few weeks later to take my initial trip into "superspace." I'd heard opinions of the ride from friends who'd gotten there first. One fellow actually swore the tracks were invisible because they were made of transparent fiberglass. Another claimed the ride ended by circling a small planet and then crashing into it.

Remember, there was no interenet. All you had for new-attraction reference were rumors, commercials, and a few paragraphs of PR in the latest issue of Disney News. I'd read everything I could find about Florida's Space Mountain (there sure wasn't much to be found in those days), and I could not wait to finally ride Disney's dark indoor coaster.

I finally arrived on a June afternoon to find a two-hour wait, with the line starting back on Main Street. Star Wars (before it was known as "Episode IV") had also opened that May, so Darth Vader t-shirts were everywhere. We inched forward past Adventure Thru Inner Space and the People Mover entry, up the speed ramp, through the upper-level switchbacks, and into the mountain itself. Immediately, things got more exciting as the air around us echoed with rumbles and distant screams.

What if Disney added Kingdom Hearts to Fantasyland?

Never. Gonna. Happen.

Now that Disney California Adventure has finished its multi-year makeover, rumors naturally turn to "What's next For Disneyland Park?" The most likely candidate for renovation is Tomorrowland, and an expansion for Frontierland could also be in the works.

I'm no Imagineer, but there's a franchise out there that Disney could -- and should -- bring into Fantasyland in one form or another. It's called Kingdom Hearts. If you don't know what Kingdom Hearts is, ask your children, your teenagers, or your resident game player. Full of Disney characters, yet darker and edgier than we're used to seeing, it's a world that could potentially be as popular and profitable for the park as the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Click below for more about Kingdom Hearts and why it could make a great addition to Disneyland. Please keep in mind that this is all wishful thinking on my part; Disney has announced no plans to build a Kingdom Hearts attraction.