Explore your favourite areas within Disneyland on your own or with a friend (up to two players can explore the park together). Visit Tomorrowland and don your spacesuit as you take-off in Space Mountain. Walk over to Fantasyland sled down a snowy mountain at the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Pop into the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique to done a costume from your favourite Disney character.

There are 18 Disneyland attractions offering you 100 challenging quests, from tossing snowballs at yetis to rescue Goofy to collecting autographs of your favourite characters.

Our family enjoyed this game on so many different levels.

VISITING DISNEYLAND

There’s the park experience. Your character can walk around the park grounds, just like you remember them from your own trip to Disneyland. You can meet characters within the park and interact with them: get their autograph, give them a hug, do a dance, take their photos. Just like in the theme park, there are photo stops in front of iconic landmarks, like the castle, where you can stop and grab a photo of yourself for your memory book. And of course there are rides and shops to visit.

The kids loved walking the streets, seeing the rides and recounting memories from their last trip. I must admit, I found myself doing that too. I love that the characters in the game give players challenges, like getting autographs or finding lost objects, but you were also free to explore on your own.

Along with collecting autographs (which you could view within your various autograph books – actual fun signatures like at the park), the kids were also excited about collecting pins. Pin collecting is something our kids do when visiting Disney in general so it was a nice touch to add within the game. Along with earning coins by participating in games, players earned pins when they completed certain tasks.

VISITING THE ATTRACTIONS

The kids were excited to see some of their favourite attractions included within the Disney Adventure game, like Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Haunted Mansion to name a few. Although the attractions looked like the ones at the theme park from the outside, the actual ride experience was different, and that’s a good thing. To be honest, sitting on a train car riding around Big Thunder Mountain or a space ship zipping in the dark, just isn’t the same on a TV screen as it would be in real life.

The games uses elements of the live experience but adds more of a challenge spin to them. On the Matterhorn Bobsleds you are on a snowy hill zipping around a mountain, but you have to steer the car with your body to collect coins  as well as avoid obstacles (and yeti attacks). After you complete a level you can move on to the next level, a big snowball fight with the yetis.

The same was true with Space Mountain. You rode your ship through space, dodging astoroids and black holes, collecting coins. In Alice in Wonderland, you were the croquet ball, having to steer it through the card arches. In Pirates of the Caribbean, you were paddling through underground caves, avoiding dead pirate attacks.

All the games had you ducking and jumping and leaning to play which is the great thing about the Kinect game system.

OTHER GREAT GAME ELEMENTS

Players could collect coins walking around the park and playing games. These coins can be used within the various park shops to buy clothing, costumes and other accessories (like autograph books). I was please to see that the costume prices weren’t ridiculous. Within a few hours of game play the kids were able to grab enough coins to buy one of the higher priced costumes. Nothing can be more disheartening in a family game than not being able to get the prize.

Players can walk through the park, from section to section, to explore or find their next attraction just like they would at the actual park. But a park map is available should you loose your bearing or want to jump right to a specific part of the park or even a specific ride. I loved that the digital map, as well as the game insert map, are all modeled after the actual maps you get in the park. It’s a little thing but it really makes a connection back to the real park experience.

Although we all love the game, from the 4-year old to the 40-something year old, there were a few frustrations with the kinect system. Although my son and I didn’t really care much about what our digital characters looked like, my two daughters spent a great deal of time crafting their characters (the customization is a little limiting). This was great, until they fell off the game space (ducked too low or stepped away). When they signed back in, the game didn’t remember their character (heaven help us if it loaded a boy instead of a girl too). You do have the option to change your avatar but it’s kind of inconvenient when you’re in the middle of game play. We just had to remind everyone to stay within the game zone unless they were done playing, but this did seem to happen quite a few times to us.

And about the game zone, the character issue aside, it was great to have the options to drop in and out during the game. You could switch from one player to two back to one without interrupting the game. A nice feature when you have finicky kids playing.

Disneyland Adventure is rated Everyone 10+ due to mild cartoon violence, like the yetis or pirates attacking you. My 4-year old played most of the game except the Haunted Mansion as she thought the ghosts were a little scary.

Of course there is another drawback to the Disneyland Adventure game. I joked that with this game there would be no need to visit Disneyland again, that Disneyland would be in our living room. However, I’ve discovered from playing the game that I now want to go back to Disneyland. The recreation reminds me so much of our great experience I want to relive it again. But even if you’ve never been to Disneyland before, you’ll have just as much fun exploring the park, interacting with characters and participating in the attractions.