Review: Spyro's Skylanders Adventures

ESRB Rating - E for everyone
Accesories - Portal pad and figures

     I'll admit this I saw the commercials alone and wanted to try it. I think almost everyone has seen the commercials for this game but never realize it's a console game that is powered by action figurines.

Gameplay: It's your basic bash and shoot em up simple enough for the kids to play in depth enough that some of the grown ups will want to play with it too.

Storyline: You are the portal master and in charge of bringing back the skylanders to defend the peace from Darkness and Chaos.

     This one actually amazed me shortly after set up. The game is simplistic, but there is enough challange at points and amusement of the cartoony characters to appeal to almost anyone. It plays simple enough the game advises you to choose your skylander and place him upon the portal. Just about instantly the character you chose appears in game. Granted they chose characters that deal with different elements and abilities making you require more than the base pack to get everything first playthrough. There are at current a total of 30 figures and your starter pack comes with 3.  The huge thing that might affect actual success of this game is the fact of buying figures to play further. single figures are $7 (us) and 3 packs as well as expansions are $20 (us). I bought a figure of each element type  and an expansion. I can honestly say beyond the pricetag it's worth it to have a variety and each stage has a beneficial area made for a character of each element. This makes changing figures on the portal a bit tedious, but since they transfer rapidly and just about instantly it's not really that much of a bother.

      There's also webplay which at time of post I've not played with yet. For the price you do get alot of collectable stuff like stickers and posters as well as the figures and gameplay from the figures. The game also is multiplayer that simply turn on another controller and place another figure on the portal when prompted and you and a friend can battle forth.

    The game holds some adult humor like cartoons of past where it's subtle enough to pass by the kids. As well you have some talented voice acting like Richard Horvitz (Billy from The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy, Invader Zim) and Patrick Warburton (Joe from Family guy, Kronk from Emperors New Groove). Simply you may find this game an expensive hobby or collectable for your kids but for the price there is actually hours upon hours of playtime that in my opinion may nullify the price.