Disney Infinity Cars & Lone Ranger Play Set Impressions

Disney Infinity is packaged with three lengthy play sets based on The Incredibles, Monsters University, and Pirates of the Caribbean licenses. Launch day also brings two additional sets, sold separately, based on Cars and The Lone Ranger. The core game should keep you plenty busy, especially if you take to creating worlds in the Toy Box, but should you eventually want to add new adventures to your game, or simply want all of the great content on day one, Cars and Lone Ranger are both quite good. Here's is a rundown of what both expansions offer.

Cars

The Cars play set doesn't roar out of the gates. The opening moments are slow, leaning heavily on a variety of fetch quests to get the player acclimated with the controls and familiar with the world. A few enjoyable races are peppered in during this time, and hardly any of the fetch quests last more than a minute, but the real fun starts when the stunt park is unlocked.

This happens after roughly an hour of two of play, depending on how complete you wish to be. The stunt park challenges are reminiscent of the Tony Hawk games and are actually quite challenging. The Cars characters are also equipped with rail sliding technology. Yes, this is odd, but it ends up being quite fun. At the same time the stunt park comes online, lengthier races are added to the mix. I wish Avalanche would have explored more gameplay avenues with the mounted weapons, which are used minimally in challenges. When they are used, the excitement ramps up and the races are often decided on the final stretch.

Like all of the play sets, Cars offers a wealth of collectible Toy Box items. Of the four Car characters offered at launch, I didn't feel like any of them gave me a distinct advantage. They all control well and are equally competitive in races. The Cars set ranks as my third favorite at launch, trailing Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lone Ranger.

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger may end up being the biggest bust at the box office this year, but at least some good came from it in the video game space. Don't let its license scare you away – it's play set counterpart is one of the best that Disney Infinity's first wave has to offer. The despicable Cavendish gang are terrorizing the town of Colby and its surrounding area, which is a great excuse for the Lone Ranger and Tonto to dispense their own brand of justice.

This adventure's biggest draw is its large open world. It's not Red Dead Redemption, but the sandbox offers plenty of space for you and your horse to speed around. Mounts are one of the biggest collectables in the set – including a spectral breed and an elephant – along with the pieces to build your own train and Wild West-themed town in Infinity's Toy Box. Regardless of how you choose to get around, missions focus on battling bandits and upgrading the rail system to access new areas. You will have to do some fetching along the way, but on balance it's more action oriented than the Monster's University set that's built into the main game.

Tonto and The Lone Ranger are both included in the play set, and although Tonto favors tomahawks over firing silver bullets, the two characters play identically. One of the coolest gizmos that you can unlock is a special charm that turns the user into a crow. It's not only a great way to pull cleanup duty on the play set's collectable capsules, but it's also a nice alternative to helicopters when you're messing around in Infinity's Toy Box.