Black Friday is over, Cyber Monday is almost done, Regret Tuesday and Overextended Wednesday loom before us and with that, I’m calling this year in releases.
Wait! Gran Turismo 6
comes out this week. Ok, now I’m calling the year. Enjoy the rest of 2013 people, see you in January.
Deals
Lots of ’em. Get cracking.
Finally got my 3DS and picked up Super Mario 3D Land. Trudging along through the first 8 worlds to get to the actual fun part. I really wish they’d give you the option up front to skip to the hard part, but whatever. The levels aren’t terrible, just easy.
Now whether I play Zelda next or Donkey Kong Country is up for grabs. I am getting a puppy on Saturday though…so we’ll see how much time I get for gaming because why play games when I can play with a puppy.
Finished Enemy Within finally; it was a true delight.
Currently juggling Zelda, Mario, Rayman Legends (criminally fun and cheap for WiiU over Black Friday), and Castlevania: LoS finally.
Not likely to finish much until the new year, but I am also not expecting any game purchases until Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze.
Thanks for the year, Brandon. I really appreciate this feature for tracking what’s new out there.
Oh no! My niece and nephew asked for Skylanders for Christmas, and I was hoping to ask Brandon which ones were important.
I know from listening to the podcast that they’ll need one of every element, so I supplemented the Water, Fire, and Life types in the Swap Force Starter Pack with at least one of every other type, plus a Giant character. (Ninjini, since she’s pink and purple which my niece will like.)
Then I saw that the new Swap Force characters also have distinct movement abilities. Climbing and Rocketing are in the box, and two other characters I picked up have Spinning and Speeding. That leaves four additional movement types the kids won’t have.
Does anyone have a sense of how critical the movement types are to progressing and/or having fun in Skylanders Swap Force?
You can always email me at brandon at nohighscores dot com if you ever have questions regarding, well anything. ??
As for Skylanders, in order to do absolutely everything in the game, you need one of every element and one of every movement type. This manifests itself in the game in one of two ways. One, just as how the previous games had elemental gates requiring a Skylander of a particular element to open, Swap Force has gates that require a certain elemental type and a certain movement type. Second, sprinkled through the games are Swap Force challenges for every movement type.
Right now, they have released a Swap Force character of every elemental type except rock and of every movement type but stealth. Wave 3, hopefully out by the end of the year, includes a stealth plant guy and a drill rock guy. If you get those two as well as the two Swap Force characters that come with the game, Magna Charge (tech/speed), Free Ranger (air/spin), Hoot Loop (magic/teleport) and Rattle Shake (undead/bounce) your nice and nephew will not only be able to do everything in the game but also have a pretty nice roster of characters.
One thing to keep in mind in this game is that the different halves of the Swap Force characters level up independently so the cost of buying every move for a Swap Force character is effectively doubled. If they have the eight Swap Force characters I just mentioned, it will keep them busy for quite some time getting enough money to kit them out fully.
Hope this helps!
Yes, very helpful! I didn’t know the gates in Swap Force were keyed to both movement styles *and* elemental types. The good news is that Magna Charge and Free Ranger are exactly the two additional Swap Force characters I picked up, so it’s a relief to hear they were good choices.
Knowing that Hoop Loop, Rattle Shake, and the yet-unreleased Skylanders will fill out a complete set is going to be very useful within the next couple weeks! I’ll probably wait long enough to make sure their interest is holding, but they’ve played Skylanders at friends’ houses and have apparently been pumped about them for weeks.
Is there a good website for tracking when new characters are released? The official Skylanders site seems to be little more than candy wishes and cookie dreams.
Yep, try this one: http://skylanderscharacterlist.com/swap-force-figures/. If you click on the individual pictures you can see if the figures are available yet.
The Swap Force characters I listed are the easiest and quickest way to get every elemental and movement type covered even if the first wave sculpts aren’t as good as the newer/upcoming stuff. I really like the designs of Fire Kraken and Night Shift but unfortunately I had already purchased Rattle Shake and the starter pack so it seemed silly to pay 30 bucks to cover elements and movement types I already had. Ditto for Boom Jet. I don’t see myself obsessively collecting figure this much this time around as I did for Giants unless a sculpt really catches my eye. That being said, when Smoulderdash is released, I’m all over it.
The latest rumor I’ve heard is that Wave 3 is coming out on 12/15. It’s a Sunday, and close to Christmas which would make sense to get parents back out and shopping. In the past, when new Giants were released I’d get an email from Toys R Us telling me to prepare for the toypocalypse so if that happens again I’ll let you know.