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Skylander's Spyro's Adventure Features

Skylander's Spyro's Adventure Reviews

Reviewed by L. Jacobs

I am so impressed with the Skylanders starter pack. To me, this is the neatest video game technology to date. The characters are placed upon a little platform that sits on the floor or TV stand and lights up. The game recognizes each of these little characters and then inserts the characters into the game. Each physical piece stores the character's accomplishments, rewards, and upgrades--and they all transfer to other systems, so that you may pick up your game wherever you left off (i.e., at a friends' house, between Xbox and Wii, our American skylanders are even compatible with overseas consoles, dispite the different format).

The game play is simple enough for my 4 year old and the puzzles are challenging enough for me! My four children (age 4, 5, 9, and 10) LOVE playing this together and they all collect the Skylanders pieces. The characters are simply adorable! and their upgrades make them even cuter.

I can't say enough about this set-up! We invite friends over to play and explain how neat and unique the whole gaming system is, so I'm more than happy to come on to Amazon and RAVE. If this is where video games are going, I CAN'T WAIT to see what they come up with next.

Reviewed by J. Edwards

I bought Skylanders and sure, the initial $70 was a bit much but it was for my kid, although as my wife says 'yeah, right'. Anyway! He has so much fun with this game! He takes Spyro around everywhere with him and has Trigger Happy proudly positioned on top of my Monitor (which looks weird) and Gill Grunt is guarding the bathroom. Kids eh? But, whenever he fires the game up, there's a blur and the toys are gone.

When he plays, he collects everything and just has a lot of fun playing it. He loves when Spyro does the charge attack but when he saw Trigger Happy's mini-gun attack, I'm sure his eyes almost burst out of his head.

Anyway, if you have kids (or you want to buy it 'for your kid') then this game is a must! Its fun. In fact, i'm going to say it's GREAT fun and, after all, isn't that the important thing?

Oh, you don't need to buy any other toy to play the game but I just ordered Prism Break and Chop-Chop because, well, they look so cool! Oh, yeah, and my kid likes them too. Sigh, I wonder where Chop-Chop will end up 'guarding'.

Reviewed by Alexander Shen

Scope of Player (me)
If you're curious to who I am as a game player so as to understand this review: 28, married, no children and the last games I just finished or am playing are Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, Cars 2, Burnout Crash, Rock of Ages and I'm highly anticipating Professor Layton 4, LotR: War of the North, Saints Row 3 and Uncharted 3.

If you want the quick answer/review, here it is: if you love figurines (regardless of points of articulation), fun and quirky character design, new technology, a decent 3rd-person brawler and the grind, then you should buy this game this very moment.

The Gimmick
There's always got to be a gimmick when you try to charge more than the "standard price of admission" for any game. In this case, the $69.99 you spend nets you the PORTAL OF POWER and three Skylander figurines. What this is used for is essentially your real-time character change. When you place a Skylander on the Portal of Power, the game recognizes this and swaps your character to the one you places on the portal. The really neat part is that it saves that individual character's stats (current level, stats, upgrades and hat). That means it's basically it's own proprietary memory card. I think Toys for Bob and Activision did a good job executing this new integration of figurines with video games.

I also like the way it's integrated as it's compatible across the board. This means if you bring your figures to a friend's house who owns a different system than you, you can still join the fight with your characters. There's even an online portal that allows you to access the Skylanders Universe with your figures, storing a separate chunk of data (web vs. console).

To be completely honest, I'd rather have DLC presented this way than your standard $4.99 download from XBL or PSN. At least you have something physical to show for it, versus virtual goods in general, which is something so many folks (see: your parents) have a hard time understanding.

The Game
The actual game is your standard 3rd person action brawler. You basically have three different characters to choose from (the initial three that come in the starter) and you just spend the rest of your time running through a linear map, fighting bad guys, leveling up and buying upgrades while seeking out hidden treasures that contain hats (which also give you buffs). This means you don't have to buy any more figures to beat the game (or get the achievements), but it does help and add more flavor to the mix.

It's definitely not a bad game as it really is presented quite well. I think my first inclination would be to compare it to Gauntlet. You can even break open barrels to obtain food items because your figure is likely hungry.

The visuals aren't anything to write home about as they definitely aren't pushing the system's capabilities nor is the writing in the story. It's definitely geared toward the younger crowd, but I think that's completely okay. It's a great way to really integrate the game playing experience with the family.

Speaking of family, Joe from Family Guy (the neighbor in the wheelchair) voices one of the characters in the game. I'm just waiting for him to ask Bonnie for something.

Should You Buy It?
Yes. Like I mentioned earlier, if you really love figures, new technology and well executed 3rd person action brawler games with a decent grind, this is for you.