Spyro wowed the gaming world in 1998 when 'Spyro the Dragon' was released, with its adorable character and its great playability, and after being brought back through the 'Legend of Spyro' series, Spyro is back for the third time in the shape of 'Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure', due for release 14th October.
It was widely thought that there was to be a Spyro movie, originally set to be released in December 2009, however, Activision decided that they didn't want a film being made of their game, so they pulled the movie, and shortly announced the new Skylanders game. And with it, they've tabled a revolutionary concept. The game comes as standard with 3 action figures, which represent 3 of 32 playable characters in the game. You put the figurines on the 'Portal of Power', a peripheral that is also included with the game, which connects to your console of choice. You can then use the character that is on the Portal in the game. This is a clever idea, apart from the fact that there is 32 characters to collect, rumoured to be around £6 each. If you were to buy all the figures this would end up quite an expensive game.
But not to worry, as it is still possible to complete the game with the three figurines you get to start with, and to explore in full what the game has to offer, you only need to buy three. The only part you will miss is each characters unique abilities. The figures are not as daft an idea as some people may think as the figures are cross compatible, meaning they can be used on different consoles.
In the game, you play the role of 'The Portal Master', who is in control of the 32 creatures, the figurines. In charge of various characters, you must solve puzzles, collect gold and treasure, as well as battle bizarre creatures, all in an attempt to combat Kaos, the evil Portal Master, who banished the 32 playable characters from the game world, and froze them as toys in ours.
Executive producer of Toys for Bob, the developer of the Wii version of the game, Jeff Poffenbarger has mentioned a lot in interviews about the ability to use the same figure on any console, so it's clearly the USP that the game is basing itself on. An interesting concept, I'll give them that. The question is, how many people will buy into such a thing?
Tom Holgate
