Monday, October 10, 2011

Skylanders - Preview


Today we're talking about Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. Scroll down for a trailer, screens and an interview from E3.



Among the first-party Nintendo games we tried out earlier this week we were also able to get our hands on the 3DS version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. It's not secret that I'm a big fan of the old-school Spyro games, so I have been eager to try out the upcoming title and see how it holds up.

The demo I got to try was short and straightforward. For those of you who don't already know, Skylanders works with a toy "portal" accessory and toy figures that come with the game. You place whatever character you wish to play as on the portal and the character appears onscreen. In the 3DS version, you point the 3DS's infrared reader at the portal in order to read in the character. As you play the game, the stats of your character are actually saved onto the toy itself, allowing you to literally carry your character around with you.

The 3DS demo involved choosing a character and heading into a warp point for a sort of mini-game. You move your character back and forth on a platform while blasting enemies, collecting items and avoiding being hit. Spyro himself still has his flame attack and the controls are simple and responsive. The bottom screen also keeps a second character benched that you could swap with during the game. Unfortunately, the demo was too short to get too much of a feel for this game. This game definitely has loads of potential. While this is not the direction I was hoping they would take Spyro in, I do hope this game succeeds if only so that there will still be hope for a proper Spyro revival in the future.

In related news, I was also able to try the console version of this game back at E3 earlier this year. For those of you who missed out on the interview, here it is again, followed by some screenshots. Enjoy!