One of the most unique titles we’ve seen this year, including at E3 2011, is now available at retail, as Activision has begun shipping Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3. The Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure Starter Pack includes the game, three Skylanders action figures, the Portal of Power peripheral, a poster and trading cards — everything you need to experience the game’s unique hybrid of digital and physical play.
If you can’t swing by a retail store, you can order Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure from Amazon by clicking this link: Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure at Amazon.com
Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure is the first game that lets kids bring toys to “digital life” via a peripheral called “the Portal of Power.” The Portal lets kids place a real-world toy (action figure) on a platform and see that character on the screen. The kids can then play as that character, or any number of them that are available for purchase, and even upgrade the characters’ abilities. The toys, which have a memory chip or some other storage mechanism embedded, then “remember” their experiences and upgrades and can therefore travel from the owner’s house to a friend’s — and from one platform to another — to continue the adventure.
Yes, that means any of the supported platforms — Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Mac — can all “play” with one another if one kid has friends who own a different version of the game.
Kids can collect more than 30 characters, each with their own powers and personality; and each expands the gameplay experience. The sinister Portal Master Kaos has cast them out of the Skylands and banished them to earth, where they are frozen and appear to look like toys. But they are very much alive on the inside and only young gamers can free them by placing them on the Portal of Power so they can return to the Skylands and defeat Kaos.
Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure includes a vast single player adventure, co-op gameplay, battle modes, puzzle solving and treasure hunts.
