darkSpyro

Just in time for a last minute dash before Christmas, the release of the third wave of Skylanders: Giants toys is imminent in the United States. Unfortunately it doesn't actually appear to have any brand new characters unless you skipped the first Battle Pack.

What it does have is the LightCore version of Shroomboom, a single pack release of Series 2 Cynder, the regular Series 2 releases of Eruptor and Prism Break (they're not LightCore so they do have their Wow Pows this time), the regular Series 2 Stealth Elf and the debut of a Series 2 Lightning Rod.



And, according to advertisements, January 9th is when the Scorpion Striker Battle Pack with Hot Dog (and Series 2 Zap) is released. In the US it will be a one month exclusive for GameStop before becoming available at other retailers too.

Now that Skylanders: Giants has been released I have begun writing my Skylanders Giants Walkthrough. So far the first five chapters have been covered to help you find all those missing items and collectables.


More will be posted each day so it should be complete very soon.

With about a month to go, the official Skylanders: Giants website has been updated with videos and screenshots all of the brand new characters as well as all of the reposed old characters. You can also find all of the new origin stories to learn a little more about the new additions before deciding which ones to buy in the future.


It also reveals several new versions of some of the characters, like the new Legendary editions of Slam Bam, Ignitor, Jet-Vac, Stealth Elf, Chill, and Bouncer as well as different looking skins for a few more both new and old.

And finally after months of teasing, the last remaining new Skylander characters for Skylanders: Giants have been revealed. Thanks to wescade on JeuxVideo we now have clearer, high resolution images of all the new Giants and Skylanders as well as all of the Series 2 reposes and the LightCores.

For the Giants we have:



And for new the regular sized Skylanders:



You can check out the full sized photos of the poster to see the reposed originals as well as the LightCore poses. Water+Tech, Earth+Magic, Fire+Undead, Life+Air.

In other Giants news, the full list of Xbox 360 Achievements was recently posted so you can get an idea of what you'll be doing in the final game.

For a limited time the iPhone/iPad game Skylanders: Cloud Patrol is completely free. You've only got until the 13th of August so hurry!

It looks like Activision are once again taking the Skylanders on a tour of Europe. It apparently starts this Saturday, the 11th of August, in the Birmingham Bullring. Further dates and locations are detailed below.



Quote: Toy World

The tour will offer fans multiple ways to get to know their favourite Skylanders, and a first look at Skylanders Giants, the new addition to the franchise set to come to homes this Autumn.

The Skylanders Spyro's Adventure Arena Tour kicks off in the UK on Saturday 11th August, making a first appearance at Birmingham's Bullring Centre before heading down to London for family festival LolliBop from 17-19th August. It will then travel to the Destination Jeux festival in France (22nd-23rd August), Breman and Centro in Germany (25th August and 31st/1st September), Stockholm (7-8th September), Milan (15-16th September), Madrid (22nd-23rd September), and Paris (29th September), before a final stopover in the Netherlands (6-7th October).

All of the Skylanders Spyro's Adventure Tour arenas will offer fans multiple gameplay opportunities, as well as a wealth of other interactive and entertaining activities.

See the official website for more details as well as a few games to play.

Hopefully you'll all have been following the discussion in the Skylanders: Giants forum but if not then never fear, here is a roundup of some of the new videos and information for the upcoming game.

First up is the game's latest trailer, this features four brand new Skylanders (Jet-Vac, Pop Fizz, Tree Rex, Bouncer) and showcases a whole selection of others in a brief glimpse at the end.



Then we have loads of interviews with folk from Toys for Bob. G4TV has one, Coin-op TV did one, then there's one from ClevverGames, another by Machinima and one more on ScrewAttack.

For gameplay GameSpot have a vignette for the new Tech Giant Bouncer and XGNEntertainment have one for the Life Giant Tree Rex. Coin-op TV demonstrate a few of Tree Rex's moves and FanBoltGaming have posted almost ten minutes of a level playing as several different characters throughout. Wired too get their hands on the giants to play with for a short while. And the official Skylanders Facebook account has some exclusive gameplay footage too.

One of Swords brings a bit more info too, one thing is that the developer for the 3DS version appears to have switched from Vicarious Visions to n-Space. He also posted the prices for the Starter Pack ($74.99), the Portal Owner Pack ($59.99), a Giant ($14.99), a LightCore Skylander ($11.99), and a standard Skylander ($9.99).

The main four new Skylanders featured at E3 were:





You can see some screenshots of them in the gallery. A few other Skylanders have also made an appearance at E3 including an Earth Giant named Crusher and a Life Skylander called Shroomboom.

Your original toys from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure will be able to level up to the new cap of 15 in Giants but only the new reposed "Series 2" versions with an orange base will be able to make use of their new "Wow Pow" powers.

The game is due out this October on the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and 3DS.

Oh and it's also the eighth anniversary of darkSpyro today, so yay for that.

I forgot to post it before but I recently completed my walkthrough to the console version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure with the expansion level Dragon's Peak. I have also now finished off the 3DS guide to the same adventure pack.


And with E3 2012 just next week (June 5th-7th), expect news about the upcoming sequel, Skylanders: Giants, some time soon.

The source of the much rumoured pets has finally been revealed: starting in July to get them in North America you'll be buying Frito-Lay multipacks. How you'll get them in other parts of the world is currently unknown.

These "Skylanders Sidekicks" work in-game just like the Magic Items that you get with Adventure Packs and they'll follow your Skylanders around like a pet.


Their names are "Whisper Elf", "Trigger Snappy", "Gill Runt", and "Terrabite".

Now that Wave 4 has been released it's nearly time for those last three Skylanders to make their appearance. The final wave consists of Camo, Warnado and Wham-Shell.


The new packs you'll be seeing are:

• Triple Pack: Warnado, Camo, Ignitor
  
• Single Pack: Warnado
  
• Single Pack: Camo
  
• Single Pack: Wham-Shell
  

And the Toys R Us exclusivity of Dragon's Peak should finish towards the end of April.

Barring any surprises, that wraps up the release schedule for Skylanders until October when Giants is released.

Just to let you know, the new limits mentioned in the previous news post have now been activated. The PM Inbox is now limited to 500, the Sent folder only records the last 100 PMs sent, and Guestbooks are trimmed to the 500 newest posts.

And as a reminder, if your inbox is still over 500 messages on the 1st of May the oldest messages will be deleted to reduce you to 500.

A brand new Skylanders game for the iPhone/iPad, called Skylanders: Cloud Patrol, has been released in the Canadian iTunes.

Quote: iTunes

Join TRIGGER HAPPY and the rest of the SKYLANDERS as they patrol the Skylands for escaped trolls! Grab your favorite Skylander and take to the skies in your flying gunship to put those troublesome trolls in their place - Skylanders style.

Look out for it soon on your own local internets.

Hopefully you've all found all of wave three! No? Oh. Well here comes Wave Four! Wired confirms that Wave 4 will be made up of Zook, Lightning Rod, and Sunburn. Sunburn of course being found in the Dragon's Peak Adventure Pack.


Toys R Us have also recently released the fourth Legendary Skylander, Legendary Trigger Happy, as well as an increase in stock of the other three Legendaries.

Here's the make up of the new products:

• Triple Pack: Zook, Lightning Rod, Cynder
  
• Single Pack: Zook
  
• Single Pack: Lightning Rod
  
• Single Pack: Legendary Trigger Happy
  
• Adventure Pack: Dragon's Peak
  

Legendary Trigger Happy is a permanent Toys R Us exclusive while Dragon's Peak will only be a Toys R Us exclusive for 30 days, after that it should become more widely available.

Update: Wave 4 also contains the single pack of Ignitor.

Early last year I mentioned that I was planning on adding in new limits to guestbook sizes and the number of Private Messages you can store, these will finally start to go into effect from April 1st. Here are the details:

Guestbooks will have a maximum number of posts, that number will be 500. This limit will function simply by new posts pushing out old ones when your guestbook reaches the maximum, there is no micro management required. Of course you will still be able to delete individual messages as well as wipe out the entire lot in one go if you want to.

The Private Messaging function will too be given a new limit, you will be able to store up to 500 PMs in your inbox and you will only be able to see your last 100 sent messages. If your inbox is full you will stop receiving new PMs until you reduce the number to below the limit again. A counter will appear in your inbox from today but the actual restrictions will not take effect until April 1st, meaning that for the moment you can still use the PM system as normal even if you are way over 500.

To help manage this a new feature for PMs goes live today that lets you "bookmark" a message which will then be viewable in the Bookmarks folder, these messages will still count towards your inbox limit but are protected from accidental deletion. To delete a bookmarked message you must first unbookmark it. This feature can also be used to protect individual sent messages from being removed, again these saved messages will still count as part of your 100 limit but will not be automatically deleted like the other sent messages. There is also a new delete button that can clear out your entire inbox (except bookmarked messages).

If you are at or above the 500 PM limit on April 1st you will simply be unable to receive new messages, but if you are still above it on the 1st of May your inbox will be reduced to the newest 500 messages. Sent messages will be truncated on April 1st. The process will of course take into account any bookmarks you've made when doing so.

The slightly delayed walkthrough for the Nintendo 3DS version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is finally complete.


It includes all five worlds as well as all three currently released Adventure Packs.

I've also just recently added the walkthrough for the console version of the Empire of Ice Adventure Pack.

The Wall Street Journal has the first details of the newly announced sequel; Skylanders Giants. Set to be released this Autumn the game will add eight new toys that are said to be more than twice the size of the original characters as well as eight more normal sized Skylanders.

Activision will debut the new game at the International Toy Fair that runs February 12th-15th, just like they did with Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure last year.


They have also confirmed that all of the current Skylanders will work just fine with the sequel, so you'll have plenty of time to stock up and prepare to continue your adventures.

Until then we've still got Camo, Legendary Trigger Happy, Lightning Rod, Sunburn, Warnado, Wham-Shell, and Zook to even be released.