Review: Skylanders Giants
Skylanders Giants (Activision, $74.99 for starter Pack for Wii, WiiU, Xbox360, PS3, 3DS, includes new game software, one Giant Skylander, one new Skylander, one Series 2 Skylander, three trading cards, and a poster; $59.99 for Portal Owners Pack for Wii, Xbox360, PS3, includes new game software and one Giant Skylander) is the follow-up to the video game Skylanders Spyro's Adventure. Rated E10+ for mild cartoon violence, it offers new games and bigger characters. Users put real toy figures on a "Portal of Power" so the characters are "teleported" into the game's cartoonlike worlds. Original characters are 7 inches tall; the new game has 14-inch figures. Credit: Handout
If Skylanders intoxicated your boy or girl last holiday season, he or she will love the follow-up, Skylanders Giants (rated E10+, or recommended for those over the age of 10).
A big fan of 2011's Spyro's Adventures, my 9-year-old loves how he can use his old, smaller figures in Giants and how "there are more adventures" in the new game.
There are new areas for the game's characters to explore as well as new foes, puzzles, challenges and rewards.
There are also 16 new characters, some of them "Giants." Crusher, for instance, uses his passion for crushing rocks to defeat an evil army of robots. Tree Rex, on the other hand, went from a peaceful tree to a mutant -- this after a nearby war machine factory polluted the area -- that will destroy anything that jeopardizes the order of things.
Skylanders Giants is available for Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360and handheld and mobile devices. The suggested retail price for the starter pack is $74.99, and it includes the software, a Giant Skylander, a new Skylander, a Series 2 Skylander, three trading cards, and a poster.
