darkSpyro

The lineup for the next wave of Skyanders has been detailed thanks to Amazon.de (but unfortunately no exact release date). For brand new characters you'll be able to find Double Trouble, Cynder, and Slam Bam. You will also apparently be able to find the previously exclusive characters Whirlwind and Drill Sergeant for wider purchase.


You will be able to get them in the following combinations:

A Triple Pack containing Whirlwind, Drill Sergeant and Double Trouble.
Single Packs of Cynder, Double Trouble, Whirlwind, Drill Sergeant.
And the Adventure Pack "Empire of Ice" with Slam Bam.

As for release date, a German catalogue gives them a vague "January" release date but who knows?

To round off the otherwise finished for ages walkthrough for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure I have added a guide to the spooky themed Darklight Crypt Adventure Pack.

Now all we need to do is wait for the Empire of Ice and Dragon's Peak Adventure Packs to be released... whenever that'll be.

Merry Christmas!

The second wave of characters for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is about to appear. Wrecking Ball, Dino-Rang, and Hex are the new Skylanders being introduced this time around. They're released next week on Tuesday November 15th (NA) and Friday the 18th of November Saturday the 10th of December (EU), you should also be able to find the Adventure Pack "Darklight Crypt" in more places.


You might even get lucky and be able to find them early, as one poster on NeoGAF seems to have done.

UPDATE: As well as the individual packs you'll also be able to find them in two new triple character packs.

One containing: Stealth Elf, Wrecking Ball, and Sonic Boom
The other: Hex, Zap, and Dino-Rang

UPDATE 2: Looks like the European date has been moved backwards to December.

It's now been two weeks since the release of the game so I am beginning to post my brand new walkthrough for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. The first four chapters of the game are now up with more to come in the days ahead.


It should be able to assist with any spots that you're stuck in and help make it clear exactly which element types you need for each of the collectables.

As many of us draw ever closer to the release of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure this weekend (already available in Australia) the web component of the game has appeared at Skylanders: Spyro's Universe. Here you can play several mini-games and wander about trying to level your characters up and build and upgrade your own little Skylands lair that you can keep all of your characters in.

A few new forum additions today. It's been requested a few times so you can now go into your settings and mark all posts as read, this will completely get rid of all your current unread markers (both yellow and grey).

There's also now an option to slightly highlight the topic creator in a topic, it's automatically been turned on but if you don't like it you can go into your settings and turn it right back off again.

And I've also added a counter to the birthday section of the settings page to let you know how many times you can modify it before getting locked out. Blanking it out no longer counts as a use.

There's only one week left to go until Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is released, so here's an advert depicting the beginning of the story:

As part of the run up to the launch of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure in just a few weeks time the official Skylanders Youtube channel has posted two new commercials for the game. Check them out below.

The official Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure website has updated and revealed the names of all the remaining Skylanders. If the poster earlier this week wasn't big enough for you then here they all are...



Thanks go to Aura24 for spotting the update.

To help promote the release of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, Activision and Nickelodeon are teaming up to tour Europe with a set of special events.

The tour kicks off in Liverpool this weekend on the 10th and 11th of September before moving to London for the 17th and 18th. After that it's headed to France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Spain.

For those who can't make it to the events, the tour's website still has an interesting addition; the poster depicting all 32 Skylanders is finally at a size where you can see all of the remaining characters, including one you might not have been expecting.


Cynder.

The folks over at Xbox360Achievements.org have posted the full list of the Xbox 360 achievements for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. They all seem fairly straightforward and it looks like only one requires a specific Skylander; and that's one included in the box.

The trophies for the PlayStation 3 version are likely to be identical.

The recent gamescom in Germany brought with it a whole new selection of images, videos and biographies for many of the characters of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.



In the Skylanders gallery you can find ten new console screenshots, four new 3DS screenshots and fifteen new short videos including ones focusing on some of lesser seen characters such as Dark Spyro and Sonic Boom.

You can also read the short back-stories to many of the Skylanders in their Guidebook profiles.

The official Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure twitter account has posted a brand new trailer for the game.


A lot of the footage is from the previous E3 trailer but there are a few new bits in there including two previously unseen Skylanders; Dino-rang and Zook.

GameTrailers.com have two new videos showing a couple of chunks of gameplay from the Wii and 3DS versions of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.


The characters they use have some levelled up abilities so you can see the progress that you can make while playing each individual character.



And in another video, this time from One of Swords, you're shown the same Stealth Elf being used on the Wii and then on the 3DS.

This week has seen a few new articles on the Nintendo 3DS version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. First up is a post on USA Today which has a couple of images, then there's a preview at Nintendojo with a couple more screenshots.


And finally COIN-OP.TV have a video featuring the Lead Designer of the 3DS version, Jonathan Mintz.

Kotaku brings us the first actual footage of the Nintendo 3DS version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure from this year's San Diego Comic-Con.


The video focuses on the process involved with using the unique Portal of Power for the 3DS as it works a little differently than on the consoles.

GoNintendo have today posted a brand new set of screens that will probably seem eerily familiar... but they're new nonetheless. They've also got the finalised boxart for the North American release for the Nintendo systems as well as a poster that you can print out and colour in if you feel the need to.

And Joystiq has a few more that GoNintendo neglected to post.

Amazon.co.uk and CentreSoft have today revealed the names and pictures of the set of individual characters that will be available at release. So here's what you'll be able to get Day 1.

In the console and PC starter packs:



In the 3DS starter pack:



Individually or as a pack of three:



Individually or as a pack of three:



Individually or as a pack of three:



Individually:



There are also special Adventure Packs which contain a set of themed items and a character. In one called "Pirate Seas" you can get Terrafin along with some pirate themed items that will enhance your game.



And in another called "Darklight Crypt" you can get Ghost Roaster.



Thanks go to Okaps in the forum for spotting this.
Update: Added Darklight Crypt from Cdiscount, thanks go to Aura24 for that.

With E3 underway the hands-on articles are appearing.

Quote: Joystiq

"We spent about six months on a variety of different directions with Spyro," says Reiche, "and to Activision's credit, they just kept saying more innovative, do something new, more innovative, and they gave us the time and the budget to really seek out what was our dream."

Quote: ars technica

You can bring your toy to a friend's house to share loot and play with your powerful character, and there will also be arenas included in the game so you can pit your characters against each other in battle. The toys themselves are well sculpted, have bright paint jobs, and look great on display.

Quote: Co-optimus

There's environmental puzzles to solve and enemies to kill as well as plenty of items to collect. Little trinkets like a hat for your character can increase your strength or other abilities.

As well as new videos from ScrewAttack and GameTrailers.

COIN-OP.TV have a video interview with Jeff Poffenbarger of Toys for Bob, and there's some gameplay footage in there too - complete with the user interface.


Thanks go to Razz for spotting it.

GameSpot have their E3 2011 preview up for Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, worth noting is the mention of toys other than characters. Like a pirate ship.


You can find a whole host of new screenshots, photographs, and character trailers in the gallery.

Some thought it would never happen, others were more positive, others yet didn't even care in the slightest, but darkSpyro has finally turned the ripe old age of seven.

Although the previous couple of years have been a bit quiet, with Skylanders on the horizon hopefully this one will be just a little bit more eventful.

The day before E3 and a brand new trailer has been released. It shows off a whole load of the new Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure characters including the new villain Kaos.


You can also find a downloadable version of the trailer in the Skylanders gallery here at darkSpyro.

Several pieces of (possible placeholder) boxart and five new screenshots of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure have turned up at Amazon.com. If the release date is also accurate then you can expect the game out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC, and the Nintendo 3DS on September 27th 2011.



Toys R Us also have the boxart and a bit more detailed descriptions of the contents of the Starter Packs which will include the game (obviously), the Portal of Power, 3 figures (Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy), poster, 3 trading cards, a sticker sheet, and 3 web codes. Hence the large shape of the box.

And IGN have uploaded three new videos showcasing Spyro, Trigger Happy, and Gill Grunt.

Thanks go to Aura24 for spotting the screens and SpyroPurple for spotting the videos.

If for some strange reason you were in doubt of Spyro's presence at this year's E3 then doubt no more.

Game Informer have received a teaser in the form of the Skylanders Spyro toy. E3 2011 starts on Tuesday next week, so not long left now.

French gaming website Nintendo Difference have put up an interview with Activision's Jared Yeager about Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. It should help to clear up a few questions about the game and their plans for it.

Quote: Nintendo Difference

ND: Don't you feel that the game will lose some of its personality, as Spyro is now just one of many playable characters?

JY: No I don't think so, because we keep very true to Spyro's origins, and his abilities and play style that people have experienced in the past. There's everything you'd expect Spyro to be able to do, we want to make sure we do it right. You don't just do something because you can, you've got to be smart about it and be able to do it right, and make sure that you're pleasing the fanbase and yourself as a gamer and somebody who likes to enjoy toys. We believe we've definitely done Spyro justice.

Also check out the link for a few large photos of the Spyro, Gill Grunt, Eruptor, and Trigger Happy toys.

Today is finally the launch of the new look for darkSpyro. It's been five years since the last one so hope you like it!

As before, registered users can alter a few things such as the region for the row of game links, the design of the background behind the logo, and the background colour of the gems.

Please report any problems you have with the redesign so I can fix them as soon as possible. Thanks!

Activision have finally revealed their plans for Spyro, and those plans are in the form of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. USA Today have the details of this new direction for the franchise.


This is apparently the "innovative new universe" that "will bring the world of toys, video games and the Internet together in an unprecedented way" that Activision recently mentioned in their Financial Results. Which means the game is likely unrelated to any previous Spyro games and you'll be using various real world action figures from a set of more than 30 characters to interact with the game in some manner.

No platforms are mentioned specifically other than "multiple systems as well as computers, handhelds and phones" but earlier rumours suggested Wii and DS as candidates. They also give a release date of "this fall".

Thanks go to Aura24 for finding the article.

It seems the forum is getting a bit bloated, to combat this I am having to make some policy changes to the way older posts are handled. From now on, in the off topic section, older topics will be deleted instead of locked and all topics forum wide will be limited to 2500 posts. Apologies if this has suddenly closed your topic.

I will also be bringing in a storage cap to the private message system and a cap on the number of guestbook posts that can be kept, but that will take a little longer to implement.