Skylanders: Giants Review

I don’t get it, Activision creates a game with familiar generic gaming tropes that uses a fancy new technology to bleed the obsessed and ignorant of their hard earned cash, but rather than calling shenanigans, the gaming community loses its shit because they don’t like how EA and Bioware ended a Mass Effect game. Maybe I’m the weird one.

Skylanders Giants is the second game in the Skylanders series. Having not played Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, I only had a basic understanding of how the tech worked. Having finally played it, I’m pretty impressed. In a nutshell, Skylanders are physical real life figurines that have an RFID in their base. This RFID communicates with a pedestal (The Portal of Power) when the figurine is placed on it. When the character’s figurine is placed on the portal the character appears in game as the game’s playable character.

The game comes with one or more Skylanders (depending on the SKU purchased), but at retail, dozens of different Skylanders are available. All the figurines from the first game are usable in Giants and new “Giant” figures are available for this game. I say “Giant” because while they are bigger, I wouldn’t consider them giant in size. Whatever, that’s simply a matter of perspective.

Clearly Toys for Bob and Activision were trying to tap into the ever so lucrative toy market. Much like Transformers, Ben 10, or TMNT the existence of the show (or in this case the game) is an excuse to sell plastic toys children. Its a time honored American tradition that I’m going to do my best to try and not treat as a dirty money bleeding despicable marketing ploy that preys on the the easily influenced.

They had a lot of success with the first game, so in true Activision style Skylanders has been annualized. Unlike Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, or Guitar Hero, I think Skylanders can really benefit from annualization because it gives the children a new adventure to experience with the figures they have sitting around their room. Actually, at the rate children lose interest in things it wouldn’t be too far fetched to think that a Skylanders game could come out every six months. Children’s properties always move significantly faster than their adult counterparts.

Is the game fun? Well…that’s a really hard question to answer. Technically the game is functional, the gameplay is simple (too simple) and keeping in mind that this is for children its good enough. Personally, I think its too slow paced for anyone to really enjoy, but I’m kind of impatient. The characters themselves are probably the strongest thing in Skylanders. The Skylanders I played with were Tree Rex, Cynder, and Jet Vac. Each had different and useful attacks and a very charming design both in the game and on the figurine.

The game is played in a 3D environment where your Skylanders roam from area to area using basic puzzles and context sensitive video gamey adventure staples. Each Skylander has been designated a different elemental power like (Magic, Life, Fire, etc) and certain areas of the levels can only be accessed by specific elements. So when you walk an Undead elemental Skylander into an Air area, he is locked out. To access that area an Air Skylander must be placed on the portal. With there being 8 different elements, to access every section of the game the player must purchase 5-7 figures in addition to the ones packed with the game. With the figures costing anywhere from $6-$15, your investment in the Skylanders brand can double or triple very quickly.

Since the Skylanders RFID is attached to a tiny writable medium in the figurine, key in game characteristics like level, and gold total are saved to the toy. This makes it possible to take your Skylanders to a friends house and used your leveled up characters in battle or in co-op modes. This makes the experience somewhat magical, at least to someone that doesn’t understand the tech.

It wasn’t until about ⅔ of the way through the game that I realized how nefarious the game design really was. None of the my Skylanders died until level 10. I didn’t think much of it, until the game told me to place a new Skylander on the portal. I placed a second figure on the portal and continued to play. Since this level was more difficult than anything I had encountered before it I quickly burned through my 3 Skylanders. Thats when I realized that the game doesn’t check point at all.

Your Skylanders have a finite amount of life and minimal healing items in the levels. Once your Skylanders die, or become too tired to fight (which is what the game calls dieing) they can no longer be used on the level you are working on. If you run out of Skylanders, you have to restart the whole level. In some instances levels are 35-40 minutes long, especially if you are trying to collect all the dumb trinkets in every corner of the world. So, its very possible to lose large chunks of progress. The problem of all your Skylanders being dead can be remedied by having more Skylanders. How do you get more Skylanders? You buy the figurines! So not only do you have to buy more Skylanders to access the entire game you own, but owning lots of figurines effectively creates a “Pay to Win” scenario.

If you own 30 different figures, presumably you have 30 lives on each level. If you only have one Skylander, you better be damn good because, you only have one life to live. I was completely ok with the idea of Figures being used in game and I think the game is executed well enough, with the right amount of magic and charm to be endearing. Its got a Pokemon feel to it without the weird Japanese undertones, and we will probably see Skylanders on retro T-shirts 20 years from now. However, “Pay to Win” is never a good idea, and in my eyes, is a step over the line. I’m not necessarily against the idea of on disc DLC, but locking off certain areas of the game until a Fire Skylander is bought is the exact same principle.

Somehow Activision can get away with these practices because they are veiled behind the already kinda messed up idea of exploiting children with toys and because anyone that would try and take a serious stance on it would be dismissed by just saying, “Calm down dude, its a silly kids game!”

Overall, Skylanders left an odd taste in my mouth. The game, while bloodcurdlingly slow paced, is interesting enough for its target audience, and the those figures really do look damn cool. The tech the game is built on is impressive and it blows my mind that it has not been leveraged in a Transformers game yet. Parents should be aware of what they are getting into and if older gamers enjoy this kind of simplistic adventuring it maybe worth a shot for them. Just remember to bring your wallet, and your buddy’s wallet, you’re gonna need them.