Activision wants parents and kids to be clear on how their new Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure video game works. To help get the point across, they’ve just released a new ‘Bring Your Toys to Life’ trailer which you can enjoy below.
Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure was the first game I checked out at E3 this past June and was quite surprised by how simple yet functional the premise is. Rather than saving a character’s attributes within a game save slot on a gaming console, the attributes are downloaded into a toy representation of the character. This toy can then be carried from one console with the game to another and take all of that character’s leveled-up attributes with it.
There are three components to make this little trick work. First is the obvious game disc. Second is the character toy, of which there will be many different ones to choose from at launch with more being made available to purchase separately over time. Last is the Portal of Power, a little rock structure that plugs into the console and lights up when a character toy is placed on it. With a second or two, that character appears in the game and is ready to jump into action.
Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure is up against stiff competition in the kids gaming landscape with Pokemon currently dominating the “collect them all ” field. It’s a neat concept that should be a strong seller heading into the holidays once awareness of what it can do grows. If anything, it marks the return of Spyro the Dragon to the gaming world after a lengthy hiatus.
Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure will be available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, 3DS, PC, Mac and mobile devices on October 16, 2011.
Click here to pre-order the Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure starter pack on the platform of your choice at Amazon.com.