A Licensed Game based on Toy Story 3, and the final mainline tie-in game for the movies. The game is a 3D platformer with two modes of play: a story mode that loosely recreates the events of the movie in open levels with a linear sense of progression, and a Toy Box mode that is more of a Wide-Open Sandbox where the player is placed in the world of Woody's Roundup, and starts off in a mostly blank slate with the task of completing missions and earning money to populate and build more of the town.
The Toy Box mode got a lot of notoriety upon the game's first release, due to its very unique level of customization and high replay value. This mode was popular enough that it became the basis of inspiration for the Disney Infinity franchise.
The game was originally released on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Windows, Mac OS X, and heavily scaled down on the PSP and PS2. The latter two platforms lack the Toy Box mode entirely and have a completely different set of levels, while the Wii and PC/Mac versions mostly adapt from the HD console versions but have fewer features in Toy Box mode and lack multiplayer. In addition, the PS3 version also adds Zurg as a playable character in Toy Box mode but is otherwise identical to the 360 version.
Tropes in the Toy Story 3 video game:
- Adaptation Expansion: Several levels in the story mode are based on scenes that don't appear in the movie, such as a brand new Imagine Spot with Bonnie and an entire aside level where Rex plays the Buzz Lightyear game from the Fake-Out Opening of the second film (which itself also undergoes expansion from what we see in the film). And that's not even mentioning Haunted Bakery...
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Stinky Pete appears in the Toy Box mode with no hint of his Evil All Along tendencies from the second film. Ditto for Zurg and Lotso. Possibly justified if they're different figures from the same toy line.
- Adapted Out: The Potato Heads, Barbie and Ken are completely absent from the game's story and Toy Box mode, likely due to them being preexisting toys that would have required obtaining additional permission to use them, though oddly this doesn't seem to be an issue for Slinky Dog. However, Ken's Dream House is present in the Sunnyside levels.
- Anachronism Stew: Justified in the Toy Box mode, where multiple different set pieces that normally have absolutely nothing to do with each other come together. After all, you're just combining all of a child's collection of playsets together, which is what most kids do with their toys to begin with.
- Anti-Frustration Features: If you repeatedly die during the falling platform puzzle in the Buzz Lightyear level, the game will make it easier by changing some of the platforms to never fall.
- Apocalypse How: How does the witch on the Bonnie's Room stage cause mass destruction? By flooding the room... with coffee.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Sid's House in Toy Box mode.
- Bottomless Magazines: In the Toy Box mode, Zurg can fire an unlimited supply of Pixar balls from his blaster without ever running out.
- Broad Strokes: The similarities between the story mode and the movie pretty much end at featuring the same locales and characters as the movie, and even that's not always true (see Adaptation Expansion). Just to name a few examples, the Batman Gambit at the beginning of the movie has an entire extra scene play out where the army men are fetched to grab the home phone from the basement, and the notorious incinerator scene is nearly completely discarded in favor of Buzz, Woody, and Jessie working together to rescue some of the others from a Conveyor Belt of Doom.
- The Cameo: Several unlockable cosmetics directly reference other Pixar films like WALL•E, The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo.
- Cloud Cuckoo Land: Lotso's Garden in Toy Box mode.
- Collection Sidequest: The story mode has collectible cards and items littered throughout the levels, while Toy Box mode has capsules littered around the game world with unlockable cosmetics inside.
- Conveyor Belt of Doom: Hamm, Rex, and Slinky are trapped on one in the Junkyard level.
- Cosmetically Different Sides: Averted in the story mode where Buzz, Woody, and Jessie all have their own exclusive abilities, but played straight in the Toy Box mode where the three all play identically.
- Deathbringer the Adorable: A Power Up Mount in Toy Box mode is a dragon from Lotso's Garden, who has a very cutesy outward appearance... and also giggles like a little girl whenever she breathes a destructive fiery projectile.
- Demoted to Extra: Lotso only appears in one level in this version and is mostly treated as an afterthought. Justified, likely to avoid spoiling him being the Big Bad for people who haven't yet seen the movie.
- Disney Acid Sequence: Bonnie's House is this in spades. The level starts off with an evil witch flooding Bonnie's room with coffee, and just getting more ridiculous from there. Haunted Bakery is arguably even more so, with evil muffins coming after you and the same witch attacking you with deadly bubbles.
- Distressed Dude: In the Junkyard level, the Aliens get trapped on a conveyer belt going towards a shredder, forcing Buzz to keep throwing them to safety while Woody and Jessie try to stop it. Afterwards, Hamm, Slinky, and Rex get trapped on a Conveyor Belt of Doom, necessitating that Woody, Buzz, and Jessie work together to disable each part of the incinerator.
- Earn Your Fun: Toy Box mode starts off fairly bare-bones. Collecting capsules and completing missions are needed to unlock most of the customization features.
- Easter Egg: During the Prison Break level, you can only play as Woody and Jessie since Buzz is currently brainwashed into serving Lotso. However, if you press a button while Buzz is the selected character, he will briefly stop moving and react to it.
- Endless Daytime: Played straight in the Wii version, which lacks the time-of-day toggle the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions have and has Toy Box mode permanently set to daytime.
- Eternal Engine: The junkyard incinerator, naturally.
- Evil All Along: Hamm in the Toy Box mode turns out to actually have been Evil Dr. Porkchop the entire time after you finish his last mission.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: In Incinerator, there are broken flame-spewing pipes.
- Flashback: The story mode is told in this form.
- Game Within a Game: You actually get to play the entire Buzz Lightyear game from the second film's Fake-Out Opening.
- Lighter and Softer: This game is much more light-hearted than the film it is based off of. The Toy Box mode is pretty much all just fun and games, and the story mode has hints of some of the movie's intense moments but nowhere near the same level, and no hint of the more emotional scenes either.
- Reformulated Game: The PS2/PSP versions are much more standard platformers that have a completely different set of levels, no character-switching and no Toy Box mode.
- Rising Water, Rising Tension: Or rising coffee rather, in the Bonnie's Room stage.
- Shout-Out: Once you get deeper into the Haunted House, the game starts playing "Grim Grinning Ghosts".
- Space Zone: Zurg's Fortress in Toy Box mode. The second half of Bonnie's Room also counts as this, as does the Buzz Lightyear game level.
- Super Drowning Skills: It doesn't matter if the water is knee-high, it will instantly kill anyone who touches it. May be justified when you consider toys aren't meant to withstand getting wet, unless they're made of nothing but plastic.
- Teamwork Puzzle Game: In the story mode, each character has a unique ability they can use to aid in platforming: Woody can swing from grapple points with his pull-string, Jessie can jump onto small points and Buzz can throw objects and other characters further than the former two can.
- Version-Exclusive Content: The PS3 version adds Emperor Zurg as a playable character in the Toy Box mode, but is otherwise identical to the Xbox 360 version.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You get to beat the tar out of NPCs and kick around the little figurines in Toy Box mode with no repercussion, leading to quite a lot of this. You can even get gold stars for doing it enough!
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Toy Box mode, naturally. Slightly downplayed, as you can customize the looks of buildings and every citizen (unless you're playing the Wii or computer versions, which apply figurine customization to everyone in town) as well as adjusting the time of day, but otherwise it's mostly an open world platformer.
- Writing Around Trademarks: While most of the licensed toy characters from the film were completely omitted from the game, the Chatter Telephone is dealt with in this fashion: he plays the same role he did in the movie informing Woody about the best way to escape, but he does so through an air vent and is never directly seen.
