Hi folks! I hope all my Canadian friends are enjoying their Thanksgiving Monday! I’ve had a nice relaxing day myself. Our family has our Thanksgiving supper on the Sunday so as to get all the heavy cooking out of the way and then be able to take it easy the next day before going back to work on Tuesday. My mom tried something new with her gravy this year, adding carrots to the broth for some thickness. It was goooooood.

Skylanders Trap Team came out last weekend. It was my non-pay week, so I chose to hold back and wait for this weekend. I wouldn’t have played much during the week anyway so it’s for the best. I got my drawing all out of the way on Saturday so I had a big part of Sunday and today to play. I have to say, I’m liking it better than Swap Force so far. Vicarious Visions developed Swap Force while Toys for Bob (the developers behind Spyro’s Adventure and Giants) returned for Trap Team and I think it made a difference. The way the swapping worked was impressive, but other than when I wanted to open a Dual Gate by myself, I never used it. The trapping villains feature in Trap Team seems a little more integrated. Even when you’re not using a villain, they interact with you with little snippets of dialogue through the new portal’s speaker, which is fun, though bound to get a little repetitive the longer you play (switch them out frequently to lessen the repeated dialogue).

The story is as light-hearted and fun as ever. They seem to have ditched the Mini Missions in favour of a new Tower Defense game. The new Skystones Smash mini-game is proving more interesting than the previous editions. I haven’t tried any of the Arenas yet since those are traditionally my least-favourite game features. There promises to be plenty of content to keep me busy.

Word of caution, once again there’s a lot to buy this time around. In order to be able to unlock every gate, you’ll need 10 different Trap Masters, one of for each element (Trap Team will introduce two new ones). To be able to play with every villain, you’ll need 11 different trap crystals (again one for each element, and a special one for main baddie Kaos). There are also four adventure sets. Each unlocks an additional level. Though you don’t have to buy them. Simply borrow the game piece from someone who has, and unlock the level.

If you’re a completist though, like I am, then you’re in for some more pain. Excluding variants, there are 18 Trap Masters, (the new elements get one each, while the others each get two) 23 Core Skylanders (the new elements get one each; Earth, Tech and Undead get two each and the remaining elements get three each), 16 Minis (the eight original Sidekicks with new bases and  eight new ones), the four adventure sets and 46 different Trap Crystals. The Trap Crystals hurt the most since they’re currently selling for seven bucks (Canadian) each. I don’t doubt that the chip inside the crystals are costly to produce, but I’m still not thrilled about paying close to the price of a figure for them. I’m not counting the upcoming Eon’s Elite figures as they don’t seem to be tied directly to Trap Team. They dropped the Lightcore line this time around although I feel they missed an opportunity with not adding lights to the Trap Team figures, although if it was to keep the price down, I can live with that.

I will give Toys for Bob this though, based on the character list poster, there are only five characters coming back from previous games (the 8 original Sidekicks were available mostly as promos and this will be the first opportunity for many people to buy them). Of the five returning characters, Gill Grunt is the only one who will have been in all four games. I much prefer getting new characters than old ones in new poses, even if some of the new poses were pretty sweet. I appreciate the lack of double dipping to pad out the character list.

So far, I’ve been using Wildfire, Krypt King and Funny Bone the most. I really like Chopper’s design, but I expected him to be a speedy character and he moves too slow for my taste and doesn’t pack the kind of punch I want if I’m going to be walking around with a slower character. I’m hoping High Five will be the speedster I’m looking for.

I’m playing on the Wii U this time around (previously I played Skylanders on the PS3). This limits the amount of time I can play since I only have the one Wii U gamepad and it requires more frequent recharging than PS3 controllers. This is actually a good thing because it means I can’t spend the entire day playing video games. In theory I can play on the Wii U’s gamepad screen while I’m watching TV so I might be able to get some additional game time during the week.

Anyhoo! That’s all for this week! It’s back to work tomorrow. Have a good week y’all!