Disney’s All Star Cards Review

There are a lot of card based games available at the Apple iTunes App Store. While most focus on casino style games like Poker and Blackjack, there’s at least one that brings a little something different to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Disney’s All Star Cards is a 4 in 1 card game application currently priced at a whopping $9.99. The game is aimed at the youngest of iPhone gamers and no doubt tries to capture their attention through the 3d characters and Disney name. The four games included with Disney’s All Star Cards are Donald’s Go Fish, Mickey’s Crazy Eights, Minnie’s Hearts and Goofy’s Card Toss. Players start the game in a mobile device version of ToonTown and select which game they want to play by tapping a character’s house. There is also a Town Hall, which controls the settings for the game, and an unused house which simply tells players to check back later. After selecting one of the game houses a nice loading screen appears before you’re inside sitting down with three Disney characters for a nice game of cards.

The card games all have the same basic features. Hold down your finger in the middle of the game board to access the menu, slide left and right to look through your cards and drag cards towards the center to play. In addition to these basic features, all of the included games except Goofy’s Card Toss let you acquire Pixie Dust. The magical Pixie Dust has different effects depending on which game you’re playing. In Mickey’s Crazy Eights the Pixie Dust forces all other players to draw two cards, in Minnie’s Hearts it allows you to get a new set of the three passed cards and in Donald’s Go Fish the dust allows you to ask every player for the rank you’re fishing for.

In the most recent version of Disney’s All Star Cards the game has added additional sound, character voices, tutorials, Goofy’s Card Toss enhancements and various bug fixes. Sounds impressive right. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Even with all of these updates Disney’s All Star Cards leaves a lot to be desired, not the least of which is it’s $9.99 price tag.

You know your game has problems when the best looking part is the “loading” screen. Disney’s All Star Cards feels incredibly dated and clunky. Honestly, the game would have been better done in 2d. I know 3d is was all the rage, but speaking as an ex 3d character animator, the animations and character models in this game are not anywhere near Disney quality. The whole game feels a little pixelated, muddy and dated.

The sound in the game is decent, if not a tad repetitive. The character voice imitations are nice but Disney didn’t include nearly enough phrases. If you’re youngster plays this game for any length of time the sounds will undoubtly annoy you.

With the addition of the tutorials, all of the card games are much easier to pick up and play. The game play in general is pretty decent and, for the most part, the games work as advertised. While the controls work, they were the wrong choice for a kids game. Sliding through the cards takes a little bit of work, slows the game way down and can be difficult for kids (who don’t use an iPhone all day) to master. Disney’s All Star Cards should have put a lot more focus on the actual cards. They should’ve been bigger, easier to see, easier to play and adorned with the likeness of popular Disney characters and symbols.

There were some parts of the games that I did like. I spent a lot of time playing Goofy’s Card Toss, which I found to be only slightly less fun the actually tossing cards. The Pixie Dust feature was pretty cool and did add some strategy to the game. Of the actual card games, I would say Micky’s Crazy Eights was the most fun. Donald’s Go Fish played way too slow and Minnie’s Hearts lacked a few features common to most Hearts games.

At first glance your might think Disney’s All Star Cards looks like a lot of fun for you and your kids. It offers 4 different games, 3d Disney characters and a 3d Toon Town’ish game menu. If that weren’t enough, Disney’s iTunes description of the game promises, “dazzling animation, great music and surprises throughout.” Unfortunately, the first surprise you’ll encounter is how mediocre this game really is. It’s not awful. It just doesn’t have a single drop of that old school Disney charm or quality some of us still expect. Your $9.99 would be better spent downloading five of the Pixar Short films. Personally, I’d pick Presto, Lifted, For the Birds, Boundin and Luxo Jr.

That reminds me. In exactly 19 hours and 32 minutes I’ll be in Disneyland with the wife and kid. Hopefully, I won’t have to listen to this game the whole way there.

By: Aaron Robbins