Skylanders Giants: Starter Pack (PS3)

Before reading any further, if you are trying to decide between the "starter pack" or the "booster pack" take one major thing in consideration!** The new Portal of Power which comes with the Skylanders Giant's start pack is a USB CONNECTED and DOES NOT require batteries at all and DOES work with the first game too - making it a massive reason to upgrade!!! **I absolutely loved the first game and only stopped playing for ONE simple reason - the batteries kept running out and they have finally fixed this ONE negative aspect of the game.So even if you already own a portal of power from the first game, it is actually good value for money to buy the new starter pack again for Giants because 1) You get 3 new characters 2) You get a portal of power which is USB powered and 3) its actually the same price as the booster pack anyway on Amazon at least.Why they didn't do this in the first place is beyond me?Anyway the game itself...The game works and feels almost exactly like the last one except the odd change and mostly improvements.If you loved the first one like I did, you will love this one even more.- The story is slightly shorter but its still lengthy story campaign.- A new max level of 15 with old and new characters.- More abilities to unlock for old characters.- The ability to choose the difficulty including easy, normal, hard and NIGHTMARE once you complete the game once.- Slightly crisper and nicer graphics.- The in-game movies have been improved a lot visually, but still the lip-syncing is a completely off.- They have removed the shaking of the stick to open boxes and now its just bashing the 'A' button instead.- Now Kaos is a lot less annoying a character to listen to on screen!- The new Giants are beautifully made, just like the previous toys.- The Giants have eyes and certain parts which light up when on the portal.- The new POP actually lights up at the bottom now and again it is now USB connected!!You also have a whole new set of season 2 characters which have orange bases and new stances (but are basically the same existing characters standing differently).They have also added a whole bunch of new features which just improve on the game as a whole.- You can now spend your ingame gold on stuff..... imagine that!!- You can buy hats, challenges and other items so all that gold saved up from the previous game can be used now.- Also *UPDATE AFTER FINISHING THE GAME* the end fight with Kaos is actually well designed, fun and does not drag on and on and on like the first one did! Great improvement!!Skylanders is one a game which is easy to mock and insult because it comes off as an attempt to make money out of kids and parents and yes it is! But it can't be ignored that Skylanders is actually a very well designed, built and thought-out product with a MASSIVE amount of re playability to it.Its all your own personal choice if you choose to buy all the characters, but would maybe buying a new triple pack every month really hurt your pocket? That extends the game lifespan by another month or two a lone every time you get a new set of characters.It works and its great and now that the POP is USB powered there really is nothing I can honestly say is negative about the game.... except if your a parent with kids... I feel sorry for you.

This in its own right is a good game and the quality of the portal and the figurines is good. However the whole Skylanders craze is basically like a subscription to an MMO like World of Warcraft. The kids are always wanting more characters (at £10 a go) and certain parts of the game cannot be accessed without certain characters. If you don't mind the investment (and we have spent close to £100 on it so far) then fair enough, but there are far better games out there for less eg Ratchet and Clank. Although part of the fascintation for kids is peer pressure.Also: there is a Disney version coming out as well as a new "transforming" Skylanders which will no doubt make some of the Giants redundant.

I bought this product after being a big fan of the first game. When I owned the first game I finished it and was left bored with loads of figures doing nothing. I sold the first game after a while as well as all the figures I collected. When the second game came out I thought it would be similar and would be a waste of money. I had some money from Christmas so I decided to get it too see what it was like and I made a great decision. This game has improved so much, you can now replay the game on many different difficulties including a nightmare mode which can be unlocked after completing the game on a different difficulty. You can also use your money to buy things like hats. In the new game you can now use treasure for different things. Some treasure can be used to customize your ship, others get you discount on upgrades. The giants are brilliant they are absolutely massive and can do loads of things normal skylanders cant like throw rocks, pull islands and lift large logs. Giant figures also light up like the special lightcore figure which cost about the same amount as giants but are not as powerful in game. The game is good but if set to a difficulty too high for you can get boring when you have to reset the chapter all the time. You are better off getting the starter pack even if you already have the original game. There is about £10 difference between the sets and you get an extra 2 characters and a wired portal of power. The original portal for ps3 is wireless but because of the new light feature the wireless one would use too much battery power meaning you would have to keep changing your battery. The wire for the new portal is very long and can be used from quite a distance. The controls are very simple and can be used by anyone. The figures for the game remember their experiences and can be used on all different platform. Skylanders giants comes in quite a bulky box and the accessories and figures take quite a lot of space but considering how good the game is I thinks its worth it!! Overall I think skylanders giants is a great game and worth the investments.

When this arrived was exactly as stated and so easy to set up. For the age group it's aimed at the characters and build quality are very good. Child played the games virtually non stop until all 3 levels completed, using extra and different characters changes the games slightly but same format mainly used. Overall good value.

Lovely thank you

Absolute rubbish. The amount I have paid in sky landers, for the cheap portal to stop working every time I play it is unbelievable. I wish I could go back and never have brought any of it. Cheap crappy product that is heavily overpriced

Bought this for my son to play on in summer holidays and although he was limited to playing for an hour a day he had still completed the game in just over a week.

My son seems to enjoy it