Teach Me: Skylanders, Disney Infiniti, and now Lego Dimensions

First of all my initial reaction to these collectible physical item games is this:

I'm fine with DLC, add-ons, and other stuff. But now they've added a physical item that my young child must keep account of (and will probably lose) in order to play the game. Screw you game companies, screw you.

But now my son has seen the world of Skylanders thanks to a neighbor, and now I must address his pleas for the game. This does NOT mean I am buying it, I just told the family I would research it. Our Wii is on its last leg so a WiiU is probably in our future (the Wii made it seven years, I ain't even mad). I'm heavily invested in Nintendo, so I'm not interested in the XBOX or PS4.

Do you HAVE to buy the extras in order to enjoy the game? It looks like I'll have to shell out $70 just to get started in any of them. I'm wondering if Craigslist may be the best way to save money on the extras, or maybe Goodwill if they just get classified as random action figures.

Right now my son and I are working on completing several of the Lego Wii games, and he has full run of my vintage Nintendo collection (NES, SNES, N64). I also have an emulator set up on our family computer that plays almost any vintage system, so we are a gaming household. I just don't want to get sucked into a gaming experience that requires spending $$$ to actually enjoy.

It must suck for kids to learn that videogames have mostly turned into a cash-extracting Skinner box. Long gone are the good ol' days when in-game power and progress were bought with skill instead of cash. And by good ol' days I mean, like, before 2005 or so.

In fact that's a big part of what made videogames fun, they were highly meritocratic. If you were the best RC car driver you could win in RC Pro-Am on the NES, even if IRL nobody's Radio Shack bargain-bin specials were a match for the rich kid's gas-powered car (Hey, are gas-powered RCs still faster than electric?)

Now the rich kid can buy the gas-powered car DLC in the game...bye bye escapism!

Just pony up and get it. My kids (ages 11, 7, 7) have Skylanders and Disney Infiniti...in fact they're playing Infiniti as I type this. Yes, there is some buy in cost, but just teach your kids to take care of the characters. We bought a $2 plastic bin from Wal-Mart and each of our kids treats those bins like a treasure chest. The characters are often on sale buy one/get one, so it's not all that expensive. We've got several hundred dollars into the games, but at the same time, they've gotten tons of use, so it's money well spent. If you want to save, GameStop now carries used characters, but I'd still say go new and let your kid build his own "world".

Hell, you have the advantage of coming into it late, after the games have been out a while. My kids first got into Skylanders a few years back, not long after it came out. The release of a new character was sometimes like a gold rush. You couldn't find one anywhere, unless you wanted to pay triple price from Ebay scumbags. I recall combing many a Wal-Mart shelf looking for a specific character. Now they're easy to find.

Don't get me started on Amiibo...

GameboyRMH wrote: It must suck for kids to learn that videogames have mostly turned into a cash-extracting Skinner box. Long gone are the good ol' days when in-game power and progress were bought with skill instead of cash. And by good ol' days I mean, like, before 2005 or so. In fact that's a big part of what made videogames fun, they were highly meritocratic. If you were the best RC car driver you could win in RC Pro-Am on the NES, even if IRL nobody's Radio Shack bargain-bin specials were a match for the rich kid's gas-powered car (Hey, are gas-powered RCs still faster than electric?) Now the rich kid can buy the gas-powered car DLC in the game...bye bye escapism!

While I won't defend the terrible pay to win system, old games mostly required skill to mask the fact that they were 20 minutes long. Not to say I don't have a huge soft spot for classic games but they had their own pitfalls.

If you hold out you can find an Infinity/Skylanders starter set for really cheap. I recently picked up a PS3 Disney set for $20 new. As mentioned, figures are also on sale and clearance very frequently. The Wii U is backwards compatible with the Wii so you can probably get away with using a Wii set, though I'd definitely verify that. The bases are also mostly compatible between systems so you might be able to grab a cheap PS3 set for example and then just purchase the game itself for the Wii U, once again I'd double check before purchasing.

I'm one of those Ebay scumbags. I've never dabbled in flipping Skylanders and such but if I can flip something I find in the store I most definitely will. That's why I'm currently sitting on 90 Lego Tiger mini sets I got on Easter clearance.

If you're getting a Wii U go ahead and snag Mario Kart 8, it's crazy fun to play with the kids.

Buy a used set from some poor schmuck on CL and let them take the majority of the financial hit. That's what I did for my son...it worked great for 6 months until he beat the old games and the new one came out...

I have heard about it from my two little ones. I am not giving in to buy this crap. They have plenty of toys and don't need useless fancy electronic gadgets to play a game.

Not gonna do it- I spend enough on hot wheels and mario and disney cars toys and nerf and nintendo DS and Xbox and Wii.... and I won't even talk about what his toys cost.

I may cruise CraigsList for a few used sets. Frankly, I haven't been on the leading edge of gaming in a decade. Even on Steam I only play old games. The smart play here may be to pick up a used Wii version of Skylanders and run it until the Wii actually dies. I won't lie, I kind of want a WiiU, but as long as the Wii keeps chugging along I can't toss it. Even after the CD drive motor dies I'll still keep it around since it is hacked and can play my backups from a USB drive.

If you're like me, about the time the kids have all the characters for about 8 bucks a pop, on average, they will lose interest in the game and never play it again. LOL.

So here's how things have gone so far. My wife scored a copy of Skylanders Trap Team at Target for $15 for the Wii. It also includes a digital download of the game for WiiU, so when we upgrade we are covered. I then scored a Skylanders Giants starter pack for WiiU on Amazon for $12, which includes three figures that sell for more than $12 on the used market. We then picked up a triple pack of Trap Team figures for $9 on Amazon.

My son was with my wife when she bought the Trap Team Starter pack, and announced to him that he must do chores around the house to EARN enough money to pay her back. It took about two months but he earned it last week. The Skylander Giants and extra character packs will either be from Santa, or used as additional incentives.

So far the game is pretty fun and I'm happy with how it plays. I've played a few hours with him on co-op mode and even I get a kick out of it. Each character has upgrades and two upgrade paths, so you can choose the one that matches your playing style. It seems fairly simple too, so I may try to get our three year old son involved so he and big brother can play together.

I'm going to cruise the local Goodwill stores and hopefully score a few more figures. Apparently used is the way to go on these, and since we are starting late I should be able to score them fairly cheaply.

I've already decided that we are getting a WiiU soon, but I'm waiting on the Black Friday deals to see how I'm going to do it. I can get a refurb WiiU for $200 ($225 with a game) but it looks like a new unit with two games may be one sale for $250 (it includes Splatoon and Smash Brothers).

Word of warning: unlike the previous games that were the same across all gaming platforms the new superchargers series is hobbled on the original wii, but still costs the same as the other versions.

bgkast wrote: Word of warning: unlike the previous games that were the same across all gaming platforms the new superchargers series is hobbled on the original wii, but still costs the same as the other versions.

Thanks for the heads up. I wasn't going to touch Superchargers until we work through Giants, Swap Force, and Trap Team. It just looks like Mario Kart anyway. I've got Mario Kart: Double Dash set up on my Mac with Gamecube controllers so I think that will hold us for now.

Mrs. Duke and I bought LEGO Dimensions and are working our way through it. We are big LEGO fans and have played through all the previous movie game sets 100% (Star Wars, Harry Potter, various DC Comics / Batman, Marvel Heroes, Pirates of the Caribbean, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park / World, LEGO Movie, LOTR / Hobbit, more?), at about $40 a pop, which is pretty typical modern console game price. We're also waiting for LEGO Marvel Avengers.

Yeah, Dimensions is kind of a ripoff, but also kind of not. The starter game itself is about $100 and has about the same number of levels as one of the other previous games, with no further investment. It comes with the game base and some characters. You can play all the way through the story line with the characters it gives you, but you will not get 100% of the extras (minikits, gold bricks, the usual in-game collectibles) without buying some additional characters.

in addition to the main story line, which runs through a level dedicated to each "world", there is an Adventure World for each flavor, which is kind of like the hub worlds in the previous games. That's where you find gold bricks, red bricks, races, and other challenges. You need a physical character from each of those worlds to enter the adventure worlds. You can buy "fun packs" for each world at about $15 each, which include several characters and accessories in both minifig and game format. Some worlds also have "level packs", which give you a play-through level as well as access to the adventure world. These are about $30. Some of them are pretty large. For instance, the Dr. Who level we just played last night was more than 90 minutes long for the first pass, and like all the LEGO games, will require several passes through in order to find at solve all the puzzles. And that's without the extra play involved in the related adventure hub.

The game board itself offers some additional interaction. You can use it to move different characters in and out of the game. Play in the Lord of the Rings world as Homer Simpson? No problem. Drive Doc's DeLorean as Batman? Sure. There are also puzzles that require you to move the characters around the board to teleport them or escape traps or unlock doors. It's fun and interesting, but not world-rocking.

So, yes, it's a money grab, and we resisted for a while before buying it. We'll undoubtedly be a few hundred dollars into it before all is said and done. But we'll also probably get a couple hundred hours of gameplay out of it. If you like the LEGO videogames and will play through them to completion, it's worth it. But if you'll get bored, it's the expensive way to play.