Toy Story: Animated StoryBook (also known onscreen simply as Toy Story) is a CD-ROM adventure where you bring the story to life. With the click of a mouse, you'll enter a wacky 3-D world where toys come alive. As you read along, it's up to you to help Woody and Buzz escape the bad boy, Sid Phillips, catch up to the moving van, and become best buddies. Every page is packed with fun surprises, plus music and 3-D graphics, just like the movie. In fact, there's plenty of new animation for a nonstop reading adventure that are worth getting all wound up about!

Plot

Screenshot from the game.

Want to see some incredible 3D animation? Look no further than this 15-page interactive storybook based on the Disney film. Hamm narrates the tale of little boy Andy's toys. It seems that they all get along just fine until a new action hero, Buzz Lightyear, arrives. Woody, the sheriff doll, determines that his position as head toy is in jeopardy, and havoc breaks loose. Fortunately, the toys learn to work together as they thwart a nasty neighbor kid's plan to blow up Buzz. Friendship and kindness win out! This strong story is filled with humor and endearing characters. Clickables are great; most are tied directly to content and help to move the story along. The program is very easy to use. And while we would consider its emphasis to be entertainment, there is educational value as well. Text is highlighted as it is read, and five fun, albeit limited, activities accompany the main story. It is toward the activities that most of our criticisms are directed. While several are innovative and engaging, others are weak. All five activities seem geared toward the younger children in the target age-group. The Put-Away the Toys game can be played three different ways and promotes listening and following directions. The object is to pay attention to visual clues and auditory instructions to drag and click toys to their proper places. The Crane Game takes place in an arcade and involves counting and sorting objects by color. There is also a multi-level maze game where the toys must rush to catch a moving van while avoiding red lights, roadblocks, and a vicious dog.

Features

• Incredible 3-D animation, just like in the film.

• Read-along feature builds reading and vocabulary skills.

• Fifteen story screens with hundreds of clickables provide hours of exploration and loads of laughs.

• Five exciting activities, including three with multiple levels, help build critical thinking skills.

Differences between the film and animated storybook

• In the animated storybook, the toys succeeded in bringing Woody and Buzz aboard the Eggman Movers truck. However, in the film, the toys failed to bring Woody and Buzz aboard the truck, due to R.C.'s batteries running low, and Buzz "falls with style" into Andy's mom's car.

• In the animated storybook, when Buzz shows up in Andy's room, all toys come up at one time. In the film, Woody comes up first.

• In the film, Tuesday night's plastic corrosion awareness meeting was put on by Mister Spell. In the animated storybook, it was put on by R.C. instead.

• The Aliens' voices in the animated storybook sound different.

• In the film, the toys celebrate Christmas in Andy's Room. In the animated storybook, they are under the Christmas tree instead.

• In the film, Buzz sees the Buzz Lightyear toy commercial in the room of Sid's father. In the animated storybook, he sees it in what might be Sid's Room.

• In the film, after seeing the Buzz Lightyear toy commercial, Buzz realizes that he's just a toy, thus commencing his existential crisis. In the animated storybook, he just ignores that fact.

• In the film, Buzz tries to fly out the window of Sid's house, falls flat on the floor, and breaks his left arm after seeing the Buzz Lightyear toy commercial. In the animated storybook, Buzz just stands after seeing the Buzz Lightyear toy commercial.

• The scenes where Woody tries to convince the toys that Buzz is okay and Woody discovers that the Mutant Toys are friendly when they reattached Buzz's severed arm back in place are both absent in the animated storybook.

• While the Toddle Tots and Rocky Gibraltar don't have any lines of dialogue in the film, they do speak in the animated storybook.

• In the film, Buzz runs from a globe and knocks out a lamp causing to knock out Buzz out the window. In the animated storybook, he stands at the window.

• In the film, Scud got caught in a traffic jam. In the animated storybook, he returns to Sid's yard.

• In the film, Buzz flies with the rocket before being freed from it. In the animated storybook, he is freed from the rocket in Sid's yard.

• In the PC version of the film, Woody Buzz and RC are pulled inside the truck by Slinky, which did not happen in the film as RC's batteries depleted, which resulted in Woody Buzz and RC being left behind until they used Buzz's rocket. This led to Woody and Buzz throwing RC back into the truck as they flew away from the rocket and into Andy's car.

• Molly, Mr. Spell, and Troll were absent in the PC version.

• Trivia

  • Hamm is the game's guide and narrator of the story.

  • A commercial promoting the CD-ROMs was featured as one of the opening commercials for the 1996 VHS releases of The Aristocats and Toy Story as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection line.

  • The game uses numerous sound effects from the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons, along with a few Hanna-Barbera sound effects.

  • Robot does an impression of B9 from Lost in Space.

  • In order to save memory for the pre-rendered graphics and animations, the music is stored as MIDI files. This is the only Animated StoryBook to do so.

  • On the Pizza Planet page, there is an announcement of an autograph session from the "Young, Green, Warrior Reptiles". This is likely a homage to the pizza-loving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

  • On the Pizza Planet page, Buzz watches an arcade game which, based on his description, features one character tearing the other character's heart out. This implies Buzz is watching a Mortal Kombat game.

  • On the Pizza Planet Page, Buzz dances to a remix of "Also sprach Zarathustra", also known as the theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

    • "Also sprach Zarathustra" would later play in Toy Story 2, during the Buzz video game sequence.

  • There's a mistake in the animated storybook. When Mr. Potato Head's nose falls off, his mustache stays on his face, even though it's not attached to it.

  • Click on Hamm's picture with the book and ball if you want him to read to you manually and if you want game time to happen as a special treat.

  • Click on Hamm's picture with just the book if you want him to read to you automatically.

  • Click on the picture of Hamm walking if you want to quit the program.