My Played Video Games Review: Toy Story for the Sega Genesis

Toy Story is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Disney Interactive Studios for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and other video game systems in 1995. It is based on the popular computer-animated film of the same name.

The movie was popular among kids of the 1990s. I was pleasantly surprised that this game was good when I played it back then. I thought it would be mediocre like most games based on hit movies.

The Story

Little Andy’s toys live a secret life whenever Andy is out of his room. However, on Andy’s birthday, Woody, the toy cowboy, who also happens to be Andy’s favorite, gets “replaced” by the latest fad toy: Buzz Lightyear, a toy “space police ranger”. After Woody tries to get revenge on Buzz, he goes too far and must go out of Andy’s bedroom to save Buzz before Andy’s family moves to another home!

The Graphics and Sound

The graphics are outstanding, they look great even today. They have a 3D look and have a nice, glossy look to them, the characters are large and animate fluidly, and the backgrounds are just as good. They are very vibrant, graphically and everything is like in the movie.

The sound is another of the game’s strong points, the music is great, it just sounds like the music in the movie; only of lower quality and lacking vocals. The speech used in the game is nice, there are quite a few voice samples from the movie in the game and they sound good. They are a little garbled, but not much.

The Gameplay

It's basically a platform game mixed with a car racer mixed in. In the first level, for example, you have to get the lid off a box of toy army men, then you have to get to a radio set. On the second level, you have to make all of Andy's toys get into their respective boxes before he comes in. Later there are top-down racing levels and a semi 3d one. This really adds to the game from getting boring. Every 4 levels or so there is a boss battle.

The controls are, for the most part, great, but the platform jumping is not smooth to pull off properly. Thankfully, it is the only major control flaw.

Replayability is okay. The game will not last you too much longer. It is challenging as a platformer, but once you’ve beaten the last stage, there is not much to go back and play it again.

My Verdict

You should consider adding Toy Story to your Sega Genesis/Mega Drive collection. Although it is not perfect, the overall experience, both graphics, and sound should be enough reason to try it out. It is sometimes overlooked especially by older gamers because of the kiddie theme, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t have fun playing it. Come on, be a kid again.

Play it on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console or play it on a good emulator.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!