REVIEW – Activision has been sort of struggling on the market since 2011, and has been only able to gather new buyers with one game only. This game is called Skylanders. The game itself is good, but not revolutionary, however the technology behind the game is all the more interesting. Even though I have 20 years of experience with consoles, I had no idea what I was getting out of the box.

You buy it, take it home, unbox and think… so what is this exactly? After being dazed by the product for half an hour, you realize „oh yeah I should try this”. You have seen a CD already in your life so maybe you should begin with that: put in the disc, install it nothing new there. Then a new message pops up which says: activate the Portal of Power. Kept wonder for a while what it is, then realized it’s that thingy with the USB. Okay, done Portal active.

Next instruction is to put a vehicle on the portal. I thought that before rolling over the portal with my Ford I should use the tiny plastic car. I put the plastic car on the portal, and the tiny car appears in the game on the TV screen….. WOW really?! Then you can put your character that you got with the bundle on to the portal, and even that appears in the game.

The future is here

Maybe I’m just a bit behind on this, but I have never seen anyone in the videogame industry use NFC technology. Activision and Vicarious Visions were revolutionaries in the console market, with their game and its accessories, which were used to maximize profit. As the starter pack only has two characters and one vehicle. The full roster however is 150 characters, and 18 vehicles, but the Supercharges pack only gives us 18 characters, and a few vehicles. The characters from the previous games can also be transferred.

„Ask your father!”

Is the mother’s reply when the sad puppy faced young gamer asks for more figures to extend his collection. Yet it is really a dick move from Activision, as the kid gets two figures, and a small vehicle that can be played without turning on the PlayStation 4. Plus if he puts them on the portal the kid will be able to control them in game. The issue is that the game pushes advertisements into the gamer’s face saying: HEY KID THERE ARE STILL 148 CHARACTERS AND 17 VEHICLES YOU DO NOT HAVE, ALSO 18 CHARACTERS HAVE THEIR OWN UNIQUE GROUND, AIR, NAVAL VEHICLES”.

So it is understandable that the game kid will keep begging for more from Daddy and mommy, as these characters / vehicles cannot be obtained, and played with in the game unless the figures are bought and on the Portal of Power. The parents will have a hard time keeping their kids at bay.

Lets get to it

Once we are over the shock by this new kind of technology we entered into a lovely world. Of course only terms of graphics, as Skylander’s main antagonist, Kaos has ruined the universe. Our first objective was to free a few imprisoned helpers. After the rescue mission they take us to Skylander Academy which functions as the game’s headquarters. From here we can go on different missions, upgrade skills, and vehicles, go on races, and fight against each other in the arena.

There’s a lot of content, even if I only had the chance to try out ground vehicle. According to a statement made by Activision the vehicle called Hot Streak which is included in the Starter Pack will only let you complete 50% of the game. As the rest of the side quests, races, missions cannot be completed without a naval, or air vehicle.

We never die

After we bankrupted our parents, let’s see how family friendly is Skylanders Supercharges. The final verdict for that part is: 100%. The visuals are entirely kid friendly, there is no depressing landscape, frightening enemy, this is a game that a young gamer can sit down to have some mindless fun(of course only if the homework is done, and a bit of outside play was included in the daily schedule, so that the mind and body is not left to rot).

We should also talk about not just the graphics, but the game’s complexity when it comes to the script and dialogue. Well this is also really basic, as there are no slang words, or old words used, I could even suggest someone to study some basic words from this game if English is his foreign language. The title of this section of the article is also not a coincidence, because we never die in this game, there is no game over.

Forget the checkpoint system, if miss a jump or „fall” in battle then we just teleport a few meters away with full health. If we mess up too many times than the only thing the system will ask from us is to switch characters, as the currently used one is too „tired”. Plus we can always change the difficulty levels any time in the game.

Almost perfect.

Just almost, as there are problem here and there. One of the problems is the controls when we are in the arena, as we do not know a lot of times where is our vehicle, and we won’t know which way to turn. The biggest issue is with this game is that if we get stuck in an object the game will not help us in any way to get us unstuck from the object. At this point there are only two options left: mess around until we become free, or restart the level. The worst part is the vehicle section, to be more specific the races or time trials, where the game does not reset your vehicle when you crash. So you can do whatever you want, but the vehicle will not be rest, so restart….

In Summary

All in all Skylanders Superchargers is an excellent game for kids, and was even able to get me to play it for a few hours. The Portal of Power is a unique idea, and those gamers who are more creative can play with the figures and vehicles without turning on the PlayStation 4. I must add that buying the entire collection is really not a good idea as it is too expensive, but the game is pretty good. Of course we will have to use a bit of violence to progress in the game, but in Mario we had to jump on heads, and throw them in lava, and that was considered kid friendly.. right?

-Dazo911-

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Vicarious Visions

Genres: Platformer, Racing

Publication: 2015. September 25.