Whittling down all of the year’s releases down to 50 is a difficult – some might say futile – task. The point of today’s challenges are to give editors a reason to spend time with a game that they might not ordinarily play. I can’t think of a better game for our annual Top 50 Challenge than Skylanders: Trap Team. Reiner and I have both played it (he actually reviewed it for us), but it’s a blind spot on the rest of the staffer’s rear-view mirror. I get it; it’s geared toward younger players, and if you don’t have kids, it can be difficult to justify the time (and obvious monetary) investment. And that’s a shame.
Learn more about the Game Informer Fight For The Top 50 Challenge 2014 here.
I’ve had a lot of fun with the Skylanders series over the years, and our family’s collection has expanded to an embarrassingly large pile. My kids have grown attached to characters like Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy, bringing those first-wave characters with them from release to release. I get a kick out of the co-op play, which is reminiscent of a mashup of Ratchet & Clank and the Lego games. I also appreciate how Activision has diligently worked to ensure that older characters keep pace with their shiny new counterparts, adding new animations and abilities to them as each installment comes out.
I won’t pretend to argue that the series is flawless. I thought Giants was disappointing, both as a concept and as a toy line, and the introduction of light-core figures still baffles me. I wish the co-op allowed more distance between players. And if I never push another turtle again, I’ll be completely content. For all those annoyances, the mix of charm, adventure, and nicely tuned difficulty keeps me coming back.
Skylanders: Trap Team does a lot of things right. The concept of trapping bosses is clever, and it’s also a clever concession to people who are getting burned out on buying more and more figures. Once you have an elemental trap, you can suck up certain enemies of that type and add them to your library. You can swap them out at will, eliminating the need for a dedicated library of new characters over and above the traditional product lines of new faces. It’s also a remarkably nice-looking game, particularly on new-gen consoles. Swap Force’s cutscenes showed off the potential of Pixar-like games on the new hardware, and the in-game quality of Trap Team approaches that benchmark.
Ultimately, however, it’s all about the game itself. Trap Team is a huge, highly polished adventure that’s earned its spot on our top 50. Now I just need another supporter in my corner.
The Top 50 Challenge
Joe accepted my challenge, which surprised me. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon, and he wasn’t high on my list of editors who I thought would jump at the chance to play the game. I made a point of walking past his desk several times throughout the day, and I didn’t hear any cursing or the sounds of toys being thrown against the wall. That’s a victory, right? I’m really excited to hear his thoughts on the game. Maybe he’ll ruin his marriage by spending all of his family’s money on collectable toys! Fun!
Joe was given one day to play Skylanders: Trap Team. Come back tomorrow at 9 a.m. Central to read his impressions and see if it’ll get his support for Game Informer’s Top 50 Games of the Year.