This year at the Activision booth, there was quite a long line to check out yet another Call of Duty title, this time Black Ops 2. While the masses wanted to see what was going on in the world of FPS from the company, the opposite side had a modest amount of people checking out Skylanders Giants and a few other IPs.
Skylanders Giants
Version Played: N/A (Watched a presentation)
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo 3DS
Release Date: Fall 2012
The wildly popular game/collectible figure in one franchise is back with Skylanders Giants. What’s new this go around are the introduction of LightCore Skylanders. These will actually light up and look quite impressive on the portal when they do so. When they’re brought into your game, they can provide a sort of smart-bomb that can be performed once per level. Also new is the introduction of Giants which light up just as the LightCore figures do, but also provide a much more powerful character in your game. The balance to this is that the Giants are slow, so it may be wise to use these characters sparingly. Along with the new figures are the series 2 versions of characters that are already available. These new versions will have new different powers that their older predecessors lack. It should be noted that the series 2 figures will be able to be used with Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, however they’ll remain at the level 10 cap.
Along with the figures is the game of course and with this comes a new level cap of 15. The powers the figures have will remain intact to the transition to Skylanders Giants. When it comes to the actual game, there has been more of a focus on exploration that the Spyro’s Adventure touched on. There’s also an active effort to more “organically” integrate certain elemental sections so they flow better from environment to environment. Those who found the original game too easy will be happy to note that there will be difficulty levels present, though what that entails was not discussed at the time.
A few notes of interest: When asked about Wii U, the representative stated they were looking at the console. The Nintendo 3DS version will receive a unique Pop Fizz figure. Varied colors and varieties for all the Skylander figures are being looked at.
