Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Starter Pack

My 6 year old absolutely adores skylanders. And so do I. The premise is fantastic - bring your toys to life - and indeed they do come to life in a virtual world via the portal. A really good game on it's own, but the portal is a spark of genius. You will need 8 toys to access all the bonus areas - one of each type (although there are 36 to collect, not all have been released yet) - you don't need to access the bonus areas to complete each level and can complete the whole adventure with the three characters in the starter pack - although the more characters you have the easier it is. It's a game that can be added to with each birthday, xmas or an incentive for young ones to save up. There are additional adventure packs to get - only 2 of 4 are available at the moment. My son has lots of fun lining up the toys in the order in which they will play - they form the audience around the portal which is really cute and I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the toys themselves.

The game is a platform game, with battles and puzzles and a great story line with over 20 levels. Each character has its own special moves and can be upgraded with treasure collected in the game and levelled up with hit points. The upgrades and levels remain with the toys so your child can bring it to a friend's house and it will have the same level and upgrades - this is cross platform too; the same toys can be played on the wii, xbox, mac, pc etc. It can be played as a one or two player co-op game or you can battle each other. The attention to detail is fantastic, a lot of thought and attention has been put into this game and it really is rather beautiful and very entertaining for young and old alike.

The types are as follows:
Magic - Spyro, Double Trouble, Dark Spyro, Voodood, Wrecking Ball
Tech - Boomer, Drill Sergeant, Drobot, Trigger Happy
Water - Gill Grunt, Slam Bam, Wham Shell, Zap
Fire - Eruptor, Flameslinger, Ignitor, Sunburn
Earth - Bash, Dino-rang, Prism Break, Terrafin
Life - Camo, Stealth Elf, Stump Smash, Zook
Undead - Chop Chop, Cynder, Ghost Roaster, Hex
Air - Lightning Rod, Sonic Boom, Warnado, Whirlwind

The legendary figures are coloured navy and gold, and have slighly different stats but play exactly the same as the originals.

Even after completing a level, you may find that you have missed a treasure chest, a hat or a scroll and so the incentive is there to repeat levels until you have achieved all the goals. If you buy a new character, it's probably best to progress them from near the beginning of the game so that they get a chance to level up and in this way the playability just goes on and on.

I can't recommend it enough and I suspect that in time we will have collected everything available. Hours of fun and co-operative gaming is recommended as one of many great ways to bond with your kids. Just brilliant.

The game is geared toward younger players with relatively simple gameplay. Its been a big hit with my 7 & 9 year old children. They love the toy figures and love working out all the characters different moves and have got very into it. As you play with the characters, they gain more powers and abilities and the kids get quite excited about it. As well as the straight forward adventure/story mode where multiple players work together, there is also a Battle mode where the players can fight each others characters which was quite funny to watch. Theres also an online game where they can play with other kids but thats not something we've got into yet.

I have to say this one has been a big hit and I don't agree with the other reviewer who said all the add-ons make it expensive. I think all the add on characters and packs mean I can string this out with the kids for a long time.

My two boys, 5 and 7, have been playing this for just over a week, and the gameplay is varied, exiting, challenging, funny and captivating. The graphics on the Wii version are the best I have seen for this type of game with masses of different environments and textures. The game itself is a big hit.

The hardware however is something else. If the game is good, the accessories are outstanding. The portal of power is a solid well sculpted and fantastically engineered piece of kit, which is actually quite attractive in its own right! The action figures that serve as memory units are detailed, well painted and made from soft, hard-wearing plastic, unlikely to break easily. Compared to other figures such as Gormiti, their use in the game actually means they are pretty good value for money.

Yes, if you went and bought everything in one go, it would be fantastically expensive, but get the game and add extra figures as pocket money treats or rewards, and they are doubly good, a new toy, and a whole new experience in the game.

This could easily have been an exploitative, pester power money making scheme, but the creators have invested time, care and effort into making sure it is not.