Kids' stuff?

This weekend we have two absolutely huge releases more geared towards the younger crowd, but certainly with their share of older fans as well. First up, the latest in the Skylanders series, Swapforce. Of course the king of the collectable action figure game hill has some seriously stiff competition from the recently released Disney Infinity. Granted kids will want want they want, but Skylanders seem like less of a heartless cash grab-though you may need to buy a few extra characters to experience everything the game has to offer, you can play the whole game to completion from the start and the characters can interact without needing to buy "sets" (also no power discs, which see, like a huge scam to me). The edge Infinity offers is in its' iconic characters and wider variety, but at least from the reviews I've seen, Skylanders more concentrated Diablo-lite  gameplay is the better offering so far for those who care how good the game actually is. My wife got me the last release, Giants, for Christmas, and it had it's hooks in me for a couple months. I could certainly myself getting back into it for this new release, but given that I'd have to pay for a new portal and probably would want to get some new figures as well, I'll probably wait til my backlog is a little lighter, maybe even invest in a next-gen version if I have one of the newer consoles by the time I get around to it.

As big as Skylanders is, it may be overshadowed by the far more affordable collect-a-thon that is Pokemon X and Y, the first Pokemon game for the 3DS. It features a long overdue graphical overaul, which will allow for more dynamic battles and minigames to build up your Pokemon so as to offer a little more variety than just battling over and over again. Of course battling other Pokemon is still the core so the question is will it feel entertaining? You are probably either in one of two camps here-That this is the same Pokemon you've loved for the last 20 years; or it's the same Pokemon for the last 20 years and you're just bored with it. I fall a little more into the second camp, but I've been looking for a good excuse to upgrade to a 3DS XL and a bundle that came with a free copy of the latest Pokemon would certainly entice me, so hopefully Nintendo will put one out come Christmastime.

That's really all for today, my next post will most likely be Monday or Tuesday.