I had a chance to go hands-on with the toys from the first Playset expansion for Disney Infinity. Here's our close-up assessment of Lightning McQueen, Holley Shiftwell, Francesco Bernoulli and Mater in Disney Infinity style.

With all the Skylanders Swap Force news, I'd not kept such a close eye on Disney Infinity of late. Catching up, the first thing to report is that the release date has now changed to August 18th in the US. The official word on the change from Disney is "We have moved the launch date for Disney Infinity to August 18th (23rd in UK) to capitalize on the critical fall retail season."

While this certainly nudges the game into the more lucrative year-end period, it also pits it alongside Skylanders Swap Force that will likely be making a retail release soon after. It is not inconceivable that Activision could bring their release date forwards so that we really do have a head-to-head battle between to two toy-powered games.

The other big news is that another Playset has been announced. Disney Infinity Cars joins Monsters University, The Incredibles and Pirates of the Caribbean as both adventures in the game and franchises in the Toy Box mode. I was keen to see both the game-play for the new Playset as well as the toy cars themselves.

At a recent visit to Disney in London I had a chance to go hands and view the trailers for the characters that will be included in the new Playset. The Cars toys again take on a slightly more stylized form in Disney Infinity, this much I had expected. What was more of a surprise was that they were quite a bit bigger and weightier that the other Disney Infinity characters I've held.

Partly because of the nature of a car having more weight and volume that a figure and partly by design, these toy cars feel good to hold. The only down side is that you naturally want to whiz them around the carpet, only here you can't do that because of the Near Field Communication tech requiring them to sit on a static base. It made me wonder about versions of these toys with detachable bases or perhaps with the electronics buried in the toy itself – I'm sure we will see that before too long.

Here's what I made of Lightning McQueen, Holley Shiftwell, Francesco Bernoulli and of course fan-favorite Mater the four cars currently announced for the new Playset.

As you can see the Playset offers quite a bit of content, both in terms of physical play and in the game. It was particularly interesting to see how this works as this will set the tone for other Playsets that are likely to be released in the future.

The Cars Playset that comes with Lightening and Holley retails for around $34.99 on Amazon, with Mater and Francesco Bernoulli available separately. There has been no mention of whether there will also be related Power discs included in the Playset pack to complement the new Cars adventure and Toy Box play.

Disney Infinity will be available on 18th August for $74.99 on Amazon. Addition figures and cars are available for $12.99, and upgrade Power Discs for $4.99.