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Toy Story remains the ultimate go-to film for child minders. The film’s accessibility completely transcends gender and age, and it holds up to multiple viewings incredibly well. The franchise is almost ludicrously marketable too – I just bought my sister a borderline ridiculous Buzz Lightyear doll for Christmas, complete with 65 phrases and various flashing lights (I cannot wait to play with it). With Toy Story 3 on the horizon, Pixar’s presumably bottomless coffers will no doubt soon be filled with more money than a Trump/Murdock dinner party conversation.

It’s not unlikely, then, that there’s a Toy Story crazy kid you know of who thinks they want this game. On the surface, Toy Story Mania seems like a fairly earnest attempt to make your money part from your wallet. All your favourite characters are in here – complete with either the original voice actors are fairly competent sound-alikes, it’s hard to tell which, exactly, in some cases – and the game even comes with 3-D glasses, so surely there’s some sort of innovation amongst this particular collection of Wii mini-games, right?

Yeah, not really. Toy Story Mania, for the most part, conforms to the standard checklist for Wii mini-game compilations, and while it may ultimately be superior to much of the brain-dead shovelware on the market, it’s certainly not a great game, or a particularly strong use of a great license.

Toy Story Mania has been designed to fool non-players into thinking that the game might actually be enjoyable. Presentation-wise, Toy Story Mania feels like an incredibly upscale series of sideshow amusements, the usual collection of balloon popping, hoop throwing and hammer swinging being complimented by flying rockets, colourful settings and all your favourite characters from the films.

It could have been a blast if the games were any good, but they’re not, really. There isn’t an ounce of originality or imagination to be found in the game. There is, at least, not a great deal of waggle – there’s plenty of pointing and clicking, and the odd occasion to shake the remote in a prescribed direction or fashion, but no real ‘waggle the controller until you inexplicably win’ games. This is, I suppose, a minor source of solace if your waggle arm is getting tired.

Over the years Woody and Buzz have become pretty good at shielding projectile vomit from their legions of infant fans.

Some mini-games in Toy Story Mania are objective based rather than simply high-score based (although high-scoring will typically be at least one of the objectives), meaning that different goals can be focused on with multiple play-throughs. For example, an early level ring-toss level tasks you with not only getting a high score, but also hitting 5 ‘alien’ targets in a row, hitting a bunch of spheres towards the back of the level and hitting a bunch of rockets in quick succession. Honestly though, in many of these games the objectives can potentially be accidentally achieved by simply hammering the A button and moving the Wii remote across the screen more or less randomly. Others still are simple high-score affairs, and are generally stupidly easy.

The Wii remote controls on most games feel fairly responsive, albeit quite sluggish. They don’t take long to adjust to, and have been tuned in a way that makes the game suitably forgiving for young kids. It’s not hard to do what you want to do at all times, which sadly can’t be said for a surprising amount of games on the little white box. The game may not be frustrating, then, but it is plenty boring – there’s very little variation between the games, and most of them play very similarly.

This repetition isn’t helped by the complete lack of a save function in the game’s story mode. You need to play through story to unlock tickets and buy games to use in free play mode, but the story mode restarts every time you switch the game off. This means that to see everything the game has to offer (which isn’t much), you need to play through all 30 mini-games at once. This isn’t a SNES game, and even if it was we’d be whining about the lack of password saving before going back to one of the system’s much better games.

Don't do drugs kids.

The menu system deserves a brief special mention for being particularly bad. There are way too many options that are unlabeled, and finding the game you actually want to play in free play mode can be an irritating and confusing process at first. When your game is aimed at kids, easy interface should be a top priority. The 3-D mode available on a few games also looks terrible, and is more likely to give you a splitting headache than the mirth and enjoyment the game promises.

Toy Story Mania is capable of holding a young kid’s attention for a while (maybe twenty minutes if you’re lucky), but purchasing it in lieu of a game with long-term appeal would be a big mistake for the parent who doesn’t want their kid to complain about being bored the next day. Do your kids – or yourself, if you’re really curious – a favour, and give this game a rent rather than a purchase.

By James O’Connor

Graphics: B-

The characters and presentation look alright, but it’s nothing special.

Sound: B

The voice-acting is solid; generally the sound is decent.

Gameplay: D+

You point, you click, you flick, you take out the disc and replay Mario Galaxy again.

Overall: C-

The kids will tolerate it enough to courteously hide their disappointment from you – but trust me, they will be horribly disappointed.