This one's more for the kids and the obsessive collectors... the next instalment in Activision's Skylander franchise has been revealed.
Core gameplay will be familiar but the big feature this year is imagination! Is that cheesy or exciting? The key is you'll be able to create your own character from a whole raft of collectible parts.
There will also be 10 Sensei characters plus 11 former villains to collect, they act as masters to the apprentice "imaginators" that players will create. They look set to unlock some nice extras and each have an assigned element and battle class, such as brawler, knight or bow slinger.
Skylanders games have generally been quality, well polished adventures with plenty of character, I think that despite being a yearly Activision franchise with an added gimmick, those gimmicks actually keep things interesting and handily give you more toys to spend (too much) money on.
I want to like the idea of creating unique characters but I'm pretty sure this is what Lego games have been doing for years with the option to make custom characters..
I'm a little apprehensive this time round, my son's interest is waning and I thought creating virtual characters would be a good time to reduce the number of needed/optional toys. However it seems you need a "creation crystal" to save a character of the same element and you can only store one character on each crystal, already the big draw of this game is massively restricted by accessories and pay walls. Infinite possibilities but you'll need to pay out for each creation you want to save. There's plenty of time for me to be proved wrong, but what do you think? Is this new twist enough to get you interested, or is it a step too far?
