At EGX this week there was one booth on the Nintendo stand with a constant crowd of kids. Unlike the other games on offer though, young players at the expo each contributed to a team effort to beat Skylanders Trap Team — a kind of communal “EGX Plays”.
A lot of the excitement was around this being the first full public outing of the new Skylanders game. Choosing the Wii U for this event perhaps marks the importance of the platform to Activision. In fact one of the big distinguishers between Skylanders and its big rival Disney Infinity is the former’s ongoing support for the original Wii.
Playing through the game on the Wii U was a chance to see how the system measured up both in terms of visuals and frame rates. It certainly looked impressive. If you had it side-by-side with the next-gen versions there may be some difference, but the Wii U edition really looked the business and attracted quite a crowd.
The challenge for players was only having the two Skylanders from the starter pack to play with — die twice and it was level over. However, with everyone using a common save file and levelling up the same characters, progress was soon much quicker.
As you can see from the videos below, each time we visited the game there were more levels unlocked, and more upgrades and power for both Snap Shot and Food Fight. With the help of everyone’s play time on the booth we uncovered a whole bunch of new villains (Hawkmongous, Threat Pack and Hood Sickle to name three) and saw levels for the first time (Time Town, Mystic Mill and Wilikin Workshop for instance). This simply wouldn't have been possible without the collaborative efforts.
With the game out this weekend in the US and the following week in the UK, the attention at EGX certainly bodes well for Activision’s part in this year’s “toys to life” battle for Christmas spending.
Here’s how things developed over the four days of the expo, thanks to the hive-like abilities of young Skylanders players:
Comments 7
If Disney Infinity continues with the same amount of quality with the next game then there's no way the games would measure up to the quality in these Skylanders games. Soon people would stop buying them when they see how much better this series is. Didn't expect Swap Force to be such a major improvement over the original it made me a fan of the series. I have no problem buying this one glad Activision put all their effort to make this a great version
@Mega719 Only problems are the timing, the (rather poor) marketing, and the fact that Disney Infinity is infinitely more recognizable.
Otherwise, these games are superior.
My kids have the first 3 games and are eagerly awaiting the 4th. They dont play Disney Infinity and Im glad b/c those extra packs are $35 and the toys are $15. And it doesnt seem like the playsets from 1 work with 2. So far weve spent more than maybe we would have but we have a whole wall to show for it and I feek we've more than gotten our mobeys worth. Gotra love B1G1 sales
The biggest disappointment with Infinity over Skylanders for me was that you couldn't use any character you wanted in the play sets. You had to use the incredibles characters for their story n so on. And then releasing characters that only worked in the toy box.. Thus highly limiting their usage. So until they change this then I probably won't buy their games anymore.
With Skylanders I can use any character I want in the new games with only small limits, like breaking a giants seal or an element seal n so on. Then I can switch back to my favorite char again.
@TheWPCTraveler Disney Infinity is far from being superior. For some reason the games are near poor quality for a "Disney Development " game. Skylanders is a series that sits well in these generations
To be honest, this seems like a downgrade more than an upgrade, with the seeming lack of extra modes (aside from Kaos Mode, which doesn't look like it'll add as much variety as the new modes in SF did)... I'm pretty disappointed about this game and the reviews seem to echo my concerns, regardless of high scores. I'm really sad about what they did with Story Scrolls
@Mega719 Sorry, meant to say superior in the eye of the regular consumer.
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