''Disney Universe'' is a co-operative action-

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

video game developed by

Eurocom Eurocom Entertainment Software was a British video game developer founded in October 1988 by Mat Sneap, Chris Shrigley, Hugh Binns, Tim Rogers and Neil Baldwin, to develop games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Eurocom expanded to Handh ...

and published by

Disney Interactive Studios Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and inter ...

. The game was released on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...

, Wii and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

in October 2011 in North America and Europe. It features the ability to suit up as characters from multiple Disney franchises, including ''

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; , , ATU 561, 'Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of the original ...

'', ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical coming-of-age drama film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, produced by Don Hahn, and written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. Produced by Walt Disney ...

'', '' Monsters, Inc.'', ''

WALL-E ''WALL-E'' (stylized with an interpunct as ''WALL·E'') is a 2008 American animated Romance film, romantic science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, produced b ...

'', ''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Lee Unkrich, and produced by Graham Walters, from ...

'', '' Pirates of the Caribbean'', ''

Phineas and Ferb ''Phineas and Ferb'' is an American animated series, animated Musical film, musical-television comedy, comedy television series created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh for Disney Channel and Disney XD. The series originally aired on t ...

'', '' Tron: Legacy'' and ''

The Muppet Show ''The Muppet Show'' is a variety sketch comedy television series created by Jim Henson and starring the Muppets. It is presented as a variety show, featuring recurring sketches and musical numbers interspersed with ongoing plot-lines with ru ...

''. The game was made backward-compatible for

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

and Series X/S on November 15, 2021.

Gameplay

Up to four friends can connect through local multiplayer and play through 6 different worlds to defeat enemies, and collect powerups and coins. One unique feature is that the enemies actively try to hinder a player's progress by setting up traps or hiding key items. The two main attractions of the game are the levels and the costumes. Players travel to 6 worlds from classic and contemporary Disney and Pixar properties, consisting of ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'', '' Pirates of the Caribbean'', ''

'', ''

'', '' Monsters, Inc.'', and ''

''. The travellers can acquire 45 costumes based on numerous other Disney franchises, such as ''

The Little Mermaid "The Little Mermaid" (), sometimes translated in English as "The Little Sea Maid", is a fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Originally published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children, the story foll ...

'', ''

Tron ''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer ...

'', ''

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...

'', '' Lilo & Stitch'' and ''

''.Clark, Matt
"'Disney Universe' Is Mickey's Answer To 'Little Big Planet'"
. MTV Multiplayer. 2011-05-26.

Character mode

The costumes need to be upgraded by finding stars in the levels. The skill set remains the same for each, but becomes more powerful. Each character has a handheld weapon specific to that character.

Development

Downloadable content

Downloadable content has been announced to be a big part of ''Disney Universe'' for the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 versions of the game. Through the "Online Shop" featured in the game or the PlayStation Store and Xbox Marketplace, the DLCs featured additional costumes and worlds.Disney Universe DLC Unveiled
The first release featured a ''Disney Villains Costume Pack''. A theme-pack based on ''

The Nightmare Before Christmas ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (formerly known as ''Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas'') is a 1993 American stop motion Animation, animated Gothic film, gothic musical film, musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick in his f ...

'', was released near the Christmas season and is the ''Disney Universe'' voting poll winner. Theme-packs based on ''

'', and ''

The Muppets The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an surreal humor, absurdist, slapstick, burlesque, and self-referential humor, self-referential style of Musical theatre, musical Variety show, variety-sketch comedy. Cre ...

'' were released in March 2012.

Re-release

''Disney Universe: Ultimate Edition'' included the original Disney Universe game along with all six downloadable content packs. The extra downloadable content included packs from The ''Disney Villains'', ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'', ''

The Jungle Book ''The Jungle Book'' is an 1894 collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who ...

'', ''Phineas and Ferb'', ''The Muppets'' and the ''

Neverland Neverland is a fictional island featured in the works of J. M. Barrie and those based on them. It is an imaginary faraway place where Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys, and some other imaginary beings and creatures live. ...

'' pack. The ''Ultimate Edition'' was released on June 27, 2012, in

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

regions, but not in North America and other

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

regions.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews on all of its released platforms. Where it is praised, there are the same negatives. When writing for the ''Disney Universe'' experience, Druanne Miyamoto video game reviewer journalist for

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

describes the game as an excited detailed game "(...) players will never get bored exploring the ''Disney Universe''." and although it's not exactly alike to the films they represent it still provides the player with a sense of "freshness". For the

WIRED Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

review, Michael Venables complains about how the environment seems "watered down" and how its "Disneyness" is taken away from the characters designs. Just as well he connected the game's similarities to that of the

Lego Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...

video games series' following the same game mechanics.

References

External links

Official U.S. websiteOfficial UK website
{{Authority control 2011 video games Action-adventure games Crossover video games Wii games PlayStation 3 games Xbox 360 games Windows games Disney video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Eurocom games Video games scored by Steve Duckworth 3D platformers Video games scored by Jim Croft Pirates of the Caribbean video games Alice in Wonderland (franchise) Monsters, Inc. video games WALL-E The Lion King (franchise) video games Aladdin (franchise) video games Disney Interactive Studios games

Gameplay

Character mode

Development

Downloadable content

Re-release

Reception

See also

References

External links