Whenever you approach a title like Disney Universe, you have to not only think about the audience it was intended for, but how much credit the developers give the audience it's intended for. In this case the main target is both young gamers and Disney geeks alike. Being a Disney geek, I at least covered one end of the spectrum. I expected a mix of a LEGO game with something childish and uninspired. Fortunately, it wasn't quite that bad.

Disney Universe is sort of like a watered down version of LittleBigPlanet, with the confines of one of the weaker LEGO titles and an attempt to shove Disney content into the mix to keep the Disney geeks happy. All players begin as bland little characters and get costumes to dress up as pretty much any Disney character they can think of (okay, around sixty different chraracters… and nothing too obscure). Shoved into a virtual Disney world, where bad guys have taken over the system, players then go about saving the virtual world from these baddies.

When the game begins, players are put into a LEGO game style platformer, where mashing and bashing enemies (over, and over, and over again) lets you progress within the stage. There's real no magic in this battle system, as you can obtain different weapons but even though they look different, they all do pretty much the same thing. Button-mashing is pretty much the key here, with very little thought to strategy.

So will the kids like it? Probably, as it is fairly simple and straightforward. However, like most games geared towards kids, Disney Universe tends to hold your hand A LOT. There isn't so much as a whiff of challenge, nor are there any real gaming skills needed, or even any serious light puzzle-solving involved. Disney Universe, however, progresses just like any old kids game that doesn't take in account that age group of gamers with actual skills, softening and lessening the challenge to sometimes downright dumb.

Disney Universe does offer co-op, and this is where the game should shine. However, once you get too many cooks in the kitchen, things start to get confusing. We had four people going at once on the game, and well, it just sort of ended up becoming one big confusing graphical mess with more curse words than should have been accounted for while playing a children's game. Nevertheless, I have a feeling younger gamers will enjoy playing this with one another even though things get too messy in co-op to really figure out what's going on on screen. 

Disney Universe is bright, colorful, and fun, with plenty of rewarding feelings of busting up enemies, collecting coins, getting more costumes, and progressing through world after world. The worlds are supposed to mimic their settings: Alice and Wonderland, Lion King, or what have you, and unfortunately, they just simply don't feel right. World designs seem off, bland, and boring. Disney geeks will be fairly upset that these worlds look more like a generic contemporary television show for kids rather than having the classic look and feel of a Disney animation. Worse even are the bits of gameplay which deviate from the smash-smash-progress formula. These sequences include rail shooting or side-scrolling platform jumping, all of which completely take you out of the brainless bashing moments and offer a fairly wonky level of action gaming.

As a Disney geek, I wasn't fully pleased with the fact that most of what is Disney-related is essentially the costumes. While it's fun, I feel that Kingdom Hearts is much more Disney than Disney Universe. Even the costumes were limiting for the more hardcore geeks; they could have tripled the amount of them.

All in all, although the music, sound, and graphics are cheery and chirpy, and there's some fun in bashing baddies, Disney Universe won't hold attention as long as say LEGO Batman, or give endless content like LittleBigPlanet, but it will still give you a bit of a joy. With 18 stages, it will take young gamers and casual gamers a while to complete it, but a hardcore gamer will run through it in less than a day. But then again, it's not designed for you, Mr. Hardcore gamer; it's designed for your younger sibling… so there.

GameDynamo's Score for Disney Universe (Wii)

	Score	Description
Graphics	48	Full of color and sort of fun. It’s not surprising that cute graphics are inspired to impress. However, the fact that the graphics tend to focus on being edgy and new instead of classic Disney or even Pixar slick is heartbreaking.
Sound	49	Don't expect a lush musical Disney soundscape here – just mostly annoying and generic voices and sounds. Again, heartbreaking.
Gameplay	58	A little bit of LEGO, a little bit of LittleBigPlanet, but never matching either of those games. Disney Universe feels lost and a bit redundant.
Play Value	60	Enough levels to keep casual and younger gamers happy, but a disappointingly weak amount of Disney content to make the Disney fan want to come back for more.
Final Score	55	Neither good, not great, with a disappointing amount of themed content and style for Disney fans. Disney Universe comes off as a slightly okay kids game, and that's about it.

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