Goldberg74

The Short Cuts are hilarious...

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DVDChris

Really well done.

Goldberg74

I'm just waiting for them to announce a syndicated cartoon series.

dsa_shea

Or a movie.

Gambit

Finally received my special edition Gill Grunt from TRU after much back and forth with their customer service. Was thinking of saving it, but since they mailed it in a padded envelope, the box got a bit crushed, so may as well just open it and give it to the kids.

In other Skylanders news, Frito-Lay's new promotion is a contest where you can name a new character in the next Skylanders game. And you get a $100,000 scholarship as well.

http://fritolayskylanders.young-america.com/home

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101443167

Goldberg74

Saw the new promo on bags at my local HEB grocery store.

SunMonkey

I assume this will be for the next game coming out in the fall, right?

Gambit

In case you haven't seen, Freeze Blade and Trap Shadow were released and available at Toys R Us. Saw a bunch of them today at the store, haven't seen it posted online yet.

Goldberg74

I got the email... and I wish they still had a sale going on these.

Krayzie

Where is the Jade Fire Kraken? They skipped chinese new year and they're apparently skipping st pattys day as well...

Gambit

The next McDonald's Happy Meal promotion will be Skylanders Swap Force. Looks like it will contain the following:
Prism Break, Rattle Shake, Chompie, Freeze Blade, Wash Buckler, Free Ranger, Magna Charge, and Eruptor.

Gambit

Saw an article that was guessing it is probably going to be released for summer, in August. It seems like Springtime Trigger Happy and Kickin Countdown will be released before then.

BobO'Link

Fryno and Scratch are currently available at WM for shipping to home or store.

Goldberg74

The Sheep Wreck Island Adventure Pack is $15.99 at Amazon right now. It'll be back in stock on 3/22 and will charge your card when it ships.

Edit to add: Seems like the Swap Force adventure/battle packs are $15.99 at TRU this week and Amazon is just pricematching.

Edit to add something else: It OOS and now up to $32+... ouch.

Deftones

so i bought the cheap swap force set from amazon a few weeks ago. i'll probably be giving this to my son for easter. how does this compare to disney infinity? he's 4.5 and is pretty dang good at that game, so i figure he could probably do well with this. i assume this is pretty similar in gameplay, right?

Krayzie

Yeah, it's just a beat em up game with figures. We haven't played enough swap force yet but the original had some puzzles that he might not be able to figure out. I think my daughter has been playing skylanders since she was about 3/4.

BobO'Link

We do not have and have never played Infinity but based on what I've seen and read I'd say they are somewhat similar initially.

My granddaughter was ~5 when the first Skylanders came out and did OK. She's not much of a gamer of that type and needed some help but would run around beating up the bad guys. The puzzles were sometimes a challenge for her. My grandson was 7 and caught on very quickly.

Skylanders is more of a "dungeon crawl" type game. It has lots of areas to explore. Some areas require a specific character type to unlock, which can be annoying if you don't have at least *one* of every element and special ability.

I play with my grandson regularly on all three Skylanders games and we have a great time. He has a tendency to just barrel through levels while I explore every nook and cranny looking for hidden stuff. I think our main problem now is that having all available characters for all three games the challenge is a bit less. If a character "dies" there's always another, powerful, character to take its place. It doesn't help that characters in Swap Force seem to level up far more rapidly than in the first two games. I think I'm going to start limiting us to 1 of each element for a game session to restore some of the challenge.

Goldberg74

At my local Walmart they have a ton of Lightcore Enchanted Star Strikes.

BobO'Link

^I didn't see *anything* new at the larger of our 2 stores yesterday AM. I'll check the other tomorrow after my Target run for their new exclusives...

dsa_shea

I was finally able to snag a "used" Scarlet Ninjini through Amazon Warehouse deals. If anyone is looking it says that they have six left.

Gambit

I thought Scarlet Ninjini's would end up being rare, but I see tons of them in the stores all the time. Didn't think anyone would have a hard time tracking one down.

dsa_shea

I have never seen one in any stores. During the one week where the stores where I live had them we were in Los Angeles. Once I came back Toys R Us had already sold out of their lot and I was never able to get one from anywhere else and I looked extensively. I just wasn't willing to pay an average of 25 dollars through Amazon or Ebay for one. However, this one cost me less than 10 bucks.

BobO'Link

Same here. I purchased one from Amazon Germany right before they came out in the US thinking it would be very hard to come by. Fortunately that only cost an extra ~$5.

You can still order Scarlet Ninjini from WM, either individually or in a package with another Giant (with Gnarly Tree Rex - another I thought would be "rare" or Pumpkin Eye Brawl for $26 or with Lightcore Eruptor for $22). I've seen one in stores as recently as a few weeks ago - both WM and Target.

Goldberg74

Target has Scarlet Ninjini online for $14.99 + s&h.

BobO'Link

I picked up a couple of Nitro Freeze Blade this morning at Target. I arrived about a half hour after opening. As has become typical with their store exclusives I had to ask and wait for someone to go find them. There was no sign of the individual Nitro Magna Charge figures or any other new figures. Since there was only one person in Electronics (and I interrupted his stocking work) I didn't ask him to look for anything else.

Went by both WM stores after that and came up empty handed. Neither had a Lightcore Enchanted Star Strike although one had a couple of the non-enchanted variety. There were *no* new figures of any type at either store.

But... the weekly Best Buy ad shows Trap Shadow and Freeze Blade plus they are having a Buy 1 get the 2nd at 50% off sale on *all* Swap Force figures. They are all sold out on line and the product locator shows no store within 100 miles to have any in stock. Looks like I'll be going by sometime this week just in case but based on their track record don't expect to find anything.