I haven’t played much of it before, but it quickly became clear that Skylanders is a series that is very good at what it does, the question is whether you really want what it does, and the answer may depend on your audience and how much disposable income you have. As a sequel, Trap Team succeeds in adding another layer of gameplay and well, purchases to the proceedings.
The tale Skylanders Trap Team weaves is fairly straightforward but holds its own alongside many other offerings for the E for Everyone crowd these days. The main baddie, Kaos, unleashes the worst villains in the Skylands by destroying Cloudcracker Prison. It’s up to you as the Portal Master to bottle them all back up by using your Trap Masters and Traptanium shards (a new class of Skylander and items you must, ahem, “acquire” from your local retailer) that have fallen back to Earth in the aftermath. It’s actually a quite humorous story, with the other villains taking potshots at Kaos, unappreciative of his efforts and talent. The voice acting features a lot of well known names who perform excellently, and when I was streaming the game for friends the first thing out of everyone’s mouth was “Invader Zim!” at Kaos’ appearance. Patrick Warburton returns as bombastic, self-promoting Flynn, which tickled my Seinfeld-loving funny bone. Still, the villain that steals the show for me is the 4th wall shattering Chompy Mage voiced by Alex Ness (who does a great job with Broccoli Guy as well). Anyway, the point is even though the game is for kids, you’ll have a fun time watching or playing with them as there’s plenty of humor to go around.
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