Disney Infinity attempts something really ambitious: translating the principles of the childlike way in which we play with toys into a video game. And so it lets you build whole new worlds where logic is an infrequent guest, and then gives you the power to knock them down and start again. It wants you to go on new adventures with the toys you own, but it also wants you to reenact the scenes that made you fall in love with them in the first place. It’s crammed with creativity and variety, and I think, above all, it just wants to make you smile. And it succeeds, time and time again.

Infinity is neatly divided into two complementary parts: the Play Sets and the Toy Box. Again, it’s all structured around how we think of toys as kids, or at least how I did. The Play Sets are mission-based adventures – the closest Infinity has to a straightforward campaign – and each take place exclusively within a single Disney movie setting. When inside a Monster’s University Play Set, don’t expect to see Jack Sparrow sauntering across the manicured campus lawns. Those kinds of lawless mash-ups are reserved for the Toy Box, a level-editor where you’re free to create your own adventures. Loading

And that’s the key to really appreciating the magic of Disney Infinity: you don’t play as Jack Sparrow; you play as the toy version of Jack Sparrow that comes in the box (he still has the boozy pirate’s wayward swagger, of course). And that toy comes to life and is transported into the game the moment you place it down on the Infinity Base, a peripheral that plugs directly into your console.

The toys themselves are well-made statues; they’re not poseable, but each one really captures the personality of that character with a charismatic stance. The toys have their own unique style that sparked desire in my inner Disney fan. It’s a good thing, too, because Disney Infinity is really all about celebrating the wonder of toys, and that concept is really sold through some lovely deft touches. For instance, Jack’s just a tad too short to see clearly over the helm of the Black Pearl; the robots you fight as Mr. Incredible have visible battery slots; and or when you “die” you break apart like a neglected plaything. These really are toys that have come to life.

The Starter Pack comes with three Play Sets, one for each of the three characters included: Jack Sparrow, Sully, and Mr. Incredible. Sadly, there’s no place for classics like Donald Duck, Snow White, or Peter Pan as a fully playable character. Classics still appear – Mickey welcomes you at the beginning (and has now been confirmed as an additional character) – but Infinity is definitely pitched more at a contemporary audience.

My biggest fear going into Infinity was that each of the Play Sets would be very similar, differing in largely superficial ways. I was very wrong. Each Play Set really embraces its unique setting in a way that shows not only an abundance of imagination but also a canny respect for its source material. Loading

Pirates of the Caribbean is a swashbuckling adventure, with hack-and-slash combat, some nifty Uncharted-inspired platforming and puzzle solving, and naval warfare on the high seas (which is every bit as good as Assassin’s Creed III’s for my money). And if that wasn’t enough, it has a Kraken and equips you with canons powered by voodoo. The Incredibles, meanwhile, is a complete change of pace: an open-world superhero game, in which you help the helpless, drive cars, and learn how to powerslide, traverse roofs, glide through the air using a wing-suit, and drop-kick a Panda back into a zoo. But there’s more: have to build your own superhero base, select what building to buy, figure out where to place them, and how to customise them. Although still varied, it’s probably the least captivating of the three sets – Metroville just isn’t that interesting. What’s the point of an open-world if you don’t want to explore it?

Monsters University is the real standout, though. In many ways it’s an ideal adaptation of that film, succeeding where a more straightforward movie tie-in would fail. Under no obligation to recount the film’s plot beat-by-beat (in fact, none of the Play Sets are) it has the freedom to do something much smarter; it captures the spirit of the source material by translating it into a gameplay experience that makes sense. Monsters University is a stealth-action game, which sees Sully infiltrating the campus of rival institution Fear Tech, stealing mascots and defacing statues. You’ll “take down” Fear Tech jocks by sneaking up behind them and scaring them senseless. Playing on the Fear Tech campus is a treat – you don’t really get to see it in the movie – but it’s been realised with great thought. It has all the architectural inferiority of a new-build compared to the august institution of MU, and that attention to detail that runs throughout the game.

Everything you unlock goes straight into the wonderful Toy Box mode. Part Minecraft, part LittleBigPlanet, Toy Box lets you not only build worlds, but design your own games. I spent most of my time creating a huge pinball table out of the Monster’s University campus, a third-person shooter set in a Pirates of the Caribbean port, and a race track that weaves in and out of Cinderella’s castle. Right from the start you have a healthy range of building items, which quickly expands once you gather new ones from the Play Sets. Materials range from a simple blocks and shapes to huge pre-built items (like Cinderella’s castle). Building isn’t always the easiest, though: it’s sometimes fiddly to line-up pieces – they don’t always snap into place – and when building on a large-scale this can quickly become frustrating and time-consuming to rectify. (The Wii U's GamePad makes rummaging through your items slightly easier, but doesn't really improve the overall experience.) Additionally, pieces of terrain can’t be overlapped, so if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to build in advance, you’ll soon encounter situations where blocks conflict and can’t be placed down. It’s also really annoying there’s no undo button, especially considering how easy it is to delete something. Connecting switches and dynamic items like doors and fireworks is really intuitive, all done with the assistance of a magic wand, and that’s down to a clear interface and tutorials that do a great job of laying down the basics. Loading

The elephant in this particular room is that this is a review of the Disney Infinity Starter Pack, which rightfully implies there’s a great deal more to this that’s not included in the purchasing price. Understandably, it’s been scrutinised for the amount of content that’s available before additional purchases rear their ugly heads, but on the whole I found the Starter Pack to be an incredibly generous experience on its own. Each Play Set’s campaign lasts around four hours – add another hour or so if you want to complete every side mission and challenge – but there’s plenty more to do. Just when I thought I knew what the Monsters University set was all about, I got a bike and discovered an entire BMX course waiting around the corner. Then there’s a little hut on the MU quad which let’s you combine gruesome items – bat wings, tentacles, claws, and so on – to create your own monster. It exists for no other reason than because it’s fun, and Disney Infinity understands that pure fun doesn’t need an objective.

However, one of the most prominent aspects of Infinity is the character you get control, and after a while I did end up longing to play as someone else – especially when everything from the box art to the cutscenes teases you with tantalising cameos, like Mike turning up in nearly every Monsters University cutscene only to disappear when the game resumed. It’s also a genuine shame you can’t play co-operatively in a Play Sets locally without buying an additional toy from that world – that’s the only thing you have to pay extra for that I really feel should’ve been included.

That frustration aside, the lack of additional characters or items never really compromised my single-player experience – sometimes you’ll come across gated areas accessible only with characters that you have to buy (video advertisements pop up, which comes across as a little on-the-nose) but usually it’s just extra points or an additional character-based challenge that you’re missing out on. I know some will have a problem with extra content being present on the disc that is inaccessible without further investment, but I feel the Starter Pack presents more than enough to justify its price.