I've been following the ongoing adventures of both Giantbomb's Jeff Gerstmann and Levelcapped's Chris Smith in the realm of Skylanders for about a week now. I must admit my intrigue, but my wife knows how to make me look at things from a more logical angle. Sometimes.

My wife is pretty great. She never appears to have much of a sense of humor. Well, for the most part she really doesn’t; at least not one that is in the same classification as mine. She’s one of those people that will, on occasion, not “get” why something is funny and then wants an explanation. Instead, my wife is great because she’s the levelheaded one in our family dynamic. If I would have married someone a little less responsible, I’d be in so much debt right now. But…I would have so much awesome shit around the house.

Last night we took the kids to Target to let them have a look around in the toy isles. We want to get them each one more item for the holidays, but wanted to let them have more say in what that would be. Soon, we got the information we went for and then proceeded to keep looking around the store. I, naturally, made my way over to the video games section to see if anything was on clearance. Before I made it to the game ghetto though, I noticed the large Skylanders display.

For those who aren’t familiar with Skylanders, go read this. It’s a better review anyways.

Alrighty, good? Great, read on:

I called my daughter over to the display, wife in tow, and showed them how you could drop the toys onto the PORTAL OF POWER, instantly swapping out characters in game.

My wife looked puzzled. Thus begins her review of Skylanders:

Me: It’s an action adventure game for kids, but you can buy the characters as toys. You hook up the portal to your game console and then drop a toy onto the portal to use that guy in the game.

Wife: Instead of just letting you choose which character you want to play?

Me: Yeah…… kind of a nice racket, huh?

Wife: Yeah, who came up with that idea?

Me: Activision.

Now I must admit, if I was a young kid, Skylanders would be the COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD, for about a week, maybe a month. But I have to agree with my wife on this one. The absurd waste of money that could take place if you go down the Skylanders path, regardless of how neat the idea is, or how well it’s executed, is a HUGE turn off. It’s not like the toys really do anything outside of the game. They’re just figurines. Seems sort of like a horrible id-

Okay, my wife is gone.

GUYS, YOU CAN BUY TOYS AND PUT YOUR TOYS IN THE VIDEO GAME! SO RAD!

Steve "Slurms" Lichtsinn

Blogger and Podcast host for Multiplaying. All viewpoints in my words whether written or spoken are my own, and do not reflect the views of the community I am a part of. I don't do this for a living, and it shows!