Toy Story Mania!

THE last time Disney spun off a new franchise from a theme park ride (Pirates of the Caribbean), it struck gold.

Toy Story Mania - a Nintendo Wii exclusive - is heavily based on the phenomenally popular attractions at Disney's California Adventure theme park and its Hollywood Studios, in, err, Orlando, Florida.

Watch the trailer for Toy Story Mania! on the Wii

In case you haven't been lucky enough to experience the Toy Story interactive "ride", it's basically a laser shooting game in full 3D with ambient weather effects thrown in for good measure. And so it is with Toy Story Mania on the Wii. It takes all that is good about the attraction and mixes them up with the usual light gun tropes.

Sure, it's pretty lightweight and hardcore players weaned on Final Fantasy-style epics will scoff at just how basic it all is, but youngsters should have a good time. And it's Toy Story for goodness sake.

The main game is a series of variations on shooting - piethrowing, balloon popping, shooting suction-cup arrows, breaking plates with baseball bats, darts etc - just like the ride.

Generally, the shooting mechanic is well handled, although the onscreen target did sometimes wink out of existence at crucial moments. If you don't like shooting at things, though, there's not a lot else to do.

Disney's current obsession with 3D has filtered down from its movies to its games. First we had G-Force in 3D and now Toy Story Mania comes with a couple of free red-and-green glasses. Again, it's an amusing diversion but 3D in the home uses older technology than the current crop of movie blockbusters and after a while I found it strained my eyes. Without glasses the graphics are nice and crisp and the overall presentation is first rate.