Skylanders Giants - Booster Pack

Before reading any further, if you are trying to decide between the "starter pack" or the "booster pack" take one major thing in consideration!

** The new Portal of Power which comes with the Skylanders Giant's start pack is a USB CONNECTED and DOES NOT require batteries at all and DOES work with the first game too - making it a massive reason to upgrade!!! **

I absolutely loved the first game and only stopped playing for ONE simple reason - the batteries kept running out and they have finally fixed this ONE negative aspect of the game.

So even if you already own a portal of power from the first game, it is actually good value for money to buy the new starter pack again for Giants because 1) You get 3 new characters 2) You get a portal of power which is USB powered and 3) its actually the same price as the booster pack anyway on Amazon at least.

Why they didn't do this in the first place is beyond me?

Anyway the game itself...

The game works and feels almost exactly like the last one except the odd change and mostly improvements.
If you loved the first one like I did, you will love this one even more.

- The story is slightly shorter but its still lengthy story campaign.
- A new max level of 15 with old and new characters.
- More abilities to unlock for old characters.
- The ability to choose the difficulty including easy, normal, hard and NIGHTMARE once you complete the game once.
- Slightly crisper and nicer graphics.
- The in-game movies have been improved a lot visually, but still the lip-syncing is a completely off.
- They have removed the shaking of the stick to open boxes and now its just bashing the 'A' button instead.
- Now Kaos is a lot less annoying a character to listen to on screen!
- The new Giants are beautifully made, just like the previous toys.
- The Giants have eyes and certain parts which light up when on the portal.
- The new POP actually lights up at the bottom now and again it is now USB connected!!

You also have a whole new set of season 2 characters which have orange bases and new stances (but are basically the same existing characters standing differently).

They have also added a whole bunch of new features which just improve on the game as a whole.

- You can now spend your ingame gold on stuff..... imagine that!!
- You can buy hats, challenges and other items so all that gold saved up from the previous game can be used now.

- Also *UPDATE AFTER FINISHING THE GAME* the end fight with Kaos is actually well designed, fun and does not drag on and on and on like the first one did! Great improvement!!

Skylanders is one a game which is easy to mock and insult because it comes off as an attempt to make money out of kids and parents and yes it is! But it can't be ignored that Skylanders is actually a very well designed, built and thought-out product with a MASSIVE amount of re playability to it.

Its all your own personal choice if you choose to buy all the characters, but would maybe buying a new triple pack every month really hurt your pocket? That extends the game lifespan by another month or two a lone every time you get a new set of characters.

It works and its great and now that the POP is USB powered there really is nothing I can honestly say is negative about the game.... except if your a parent with kids... I feel sorry for you.

great game. good use of fun characters to add into your game, is costly if you buy all the characters needed, as the children know parts of the game they wont see, if not got a particular character, but can be completed without all the characters

First class product with great service. Will use again for sure! Its service like this that makes online shopping a breeze!