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Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure


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Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
PostPosted: Oct 25 2011 12:01 pm Reply with quote Back to top

So this game came out last week for Wii/PS3/360/PC. The initial reviews are pretty strong.

It's a platformer with 32 separate playable characters, including Spyro. The catch is that only 3 are initially playable, and to play as the other 29, you must purchase collectible toys and place them on the Portal of Power peripheral that comes with the game; the game comes with the first three toys. The characters' levels and abilities are saved directed to the figurines.

It's a surprisingly obvious strategy, I'm surprised no one else has tried this before, especially Pokemon. If this game does well commercially, I would if could lead to a rise in more RLC (real loadable content) in place of DLC. It seems like would be highly marketable in 6-12 demographic, and more appealing to parents than DLC.

I will probably pick this up after Christmas.
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taterfyrings
Joined: Sep 25 2009
Location: Bergen, Norway
PostPosted: Oct 25 2011 12:24 pm Reply with quote Back to top

Wow I will definitely NOT get this. I hate all the extra monetizing going on in the video game business right now (even though I acknowledge the need for it). Remember the times when you bought a game and got the complete game? Yeah, that is what I still prefer.
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Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
PostPosted: Oct 25 2011 01:01 pm Reply with quote Back to top

Yeah, I just looked and the 3 packs of extra characters are $20 apiece right now. They'll probably drop dramatically in the next 6 months, but right now it's an extra $200 to get the complete game. Still, as a fan of Z-Bots, I'm still intrigued.

And besides, coming in 2021, Syd Lexia reviews Skylanders! And Babysitting Mama!
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taterfyrings
Joined: Sep 25 2009
Location: Bergen, Norway
PostPosted: Oct 25 2011 03:18 pm Reply with quote Back to top

Haha, looking forward to it!
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Douche McCallister
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Title: DOO-SHAY
Joined: Jan 26 2007
Location: Private Areas
PostPosted: Oct 25 2011 05:05 pm Reply with quote Back to top

Syd Lexia wrote:
And besides, coming in 2021, Syd Lexia reviews Skylanders! And Babysitting Mama!

Will that be the next article? Razz
It's intriguing and I'm wondering how this will play out. It could actually be really awesome if they take this idea and run with it, minus the $20 for 3 characters. Chances are collecting all 32 characters and the game will be a collectors item in the distant future.


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AtmanRyu
Title: The Wandering Dragon
Joined: Jun 25 2009
Location: Atlanta, GA
PostPosted: Oct 26 2011 11:40 am Reply with quote Back to top

Spyro's design gets worse and worse with every new game series...

The other 31 are actually interesting however. Gee, I wonder if they didn't slip Spyro in just to guarantee sales... Rolling Eyes

Other than that, this isn't the first game/collectible toy series to try this. Of course, most of these yielded mixed results from forgettable to just plain bad.
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Sehkmaenzo
Joined: Jun 29 2010
PostPosted: Oct 26 2011 11:53 am Reply with quote Back to top

If all else fails, this will make parents like DLC more. The idea of having 32 little toys cluttering about the house for just /one/ game seems like parent hell to me. Razz
Maybe this is more of an anti-piracy measure? Even if you pirate the game, you still have to get the "action figures", so that's a little bit better.
I do like the idea of raising a character at home and then taking it to a friend's house for some co-op playing. Does this game even have co-op? I should read up on it...
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Lady_Satine
Title: Head of Lexian R&D
Joined: Oct 15 2005
Location: Metro area, Georgia
PostPosted: Dec 30 2011 08:10 am Reply with quote Back to top

From geek.com

One of the more clever things about the rising Skylanders game franchise is the models you need to play the game. Not only does is re-ignite the urge to “collect ‘em all” but it also binds experience and items to the individual models. When graphing calculator tinkerer Brandon Wilson discovered that the Skylanders communicate with the base that comes with the game via RFID, he decided to do a little bit of looking to see how that worked. Like any of his other digital projects, he posted the notes of his existing research on his website. Days later, Wilson was greeted with a letter from Activision demanding he cease all of his research and remove his work immediately.

Too often in the tech sphere does the mighty take down notice get used incorrectly to scare those who behave in a way that a company doesn’t approve. Often times there’s not a real legal leg to stand on, but the fear inspired by the letter is enough to get the content in question removed. Brandon Wilson was greeted at the front door of his home, moments after coming home from work, by a hand-delivered cease and desist letter from Activision’s legal council.

The letter accused Wilson of violating the anti-circumvention provisions section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by attempting to publish data that would allow others to decrypt and circumvent the RFID encryption that protects the data on the Skylanders models. The end result of this, according to Activision, would be to change the stats and equipment of the Skylanders without actually playing the game. Or, potentially, use something a little smarter than a Skylander model to allow the user to switch back and forth between Skylanders they didn’t own.

There’s just one slight problem with the accusation in the DMCA notice: almost every accusation fails to apply to Wilson in any way. In his response to the notice, along with his statement of compliance, Brandon Wilson points out that none of the examples pointed out in the take down notice, including a link to a website where Wilson supposedly published his findings, aren’t his work at all. Wilson continues to note that the only thing he had was a zip file with the file dump from one of the Skylanders, which wasn’t made publicly available and wasn’t announced when it was put on his website.

Despite all of that, Wilson removed the information from his website, and replaced them with the take down notice and his response. Wilson commented that since he replied, he had not heard anything from Activision except their acknowledgment of his compliance. A spokesperson from Activision was not available at the time to comment on this situation.

Read more at brandonw.net


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