My local Best Buy and Targets have tons of traps (individual, rarely do I see the 3 or 8 packs -- and of course no Kaos traps at all).

I finally saw the Light & Dark expansions at a more remote Target yesterday. Thought both looked good, but the Light one looked cooler. I figure they'll become more available soon enough and I'll wait for a Buy 2, Get 1 Free deal or at least for GCU. Between Skylanders, the ever expanding (and never empty) Disney Infinity section and the new Amiibos, there's precious little shelf space for actual games at Target these days.

There are an abundance of Infinity figures. Either they manufacture more and keep up with demand or there isn't as much demand as there is for Skylanders. Best Buy had a huge supply of Infinity last night but just a handful of Amiibos and a sparse supply of Skylanders.

As far as shelf space goes, Target is the best here even though the selection right now is rather slim. They have all the Trap Team regular Wave 1 & 2 figures in stock, both regular expansions and 2 or 3 Trap Masters, and Nitro Krypt King has been sold out since before BF. The amount of space for Skylanders is triple that for Infinity. I don't recall seeing the Amiibos but I'm sure they have at least a few. Between BB, WM, and Target - Target has the best selection of games and gaming supplies.

I'll agree that out of BB, WM and Target, Target is the best. Wal-mart, at least around here, is a joke when it comes to these things. But I think Toys R Us devotes the most shelf space to it around here. I've been in several stores where they have a section in the front and a section in the game section for these. The problem is that they never can seem to get rid of Giants and Swap Force, so those are all taking up space too.

^The closest TRU is over 70 miles away from me so I have to use on-line or have my son check - but he's 12 hrs. away so has to ship stuff or wait until they come for a visit (roughly quarterly). We go see him on occasion and I visited their TRU the last time we were there. They have almost double the space Target has but at the time I was looking for Swap Force and all they had was Giants and Spyro's Adventures in abundance. I keep hearing rumour that we might be getting one but so far it's only rumour.

Decker, I will try to get that trap off as soon as possible. I had to work at school yesterday so I was unable to go to the post office. Kaos shall reign soon enough!

I was able to finish off the nightmare mode last night and finally get the platinum on this game. The cool thing is that you can login the second player at the very end of each chapter and both players and profiles will get the trophies related to whatever you just completed. I was able to get some of the hardest trophies for my wife's account by having my daughter play under her name at the very end of chapters.

You know... by now I'd have thought they might make the expansion level pack levels just a bit longer and/or complicated. It seems somewhat expensive to pay ~$9 for a level (imputed cost based on regular purchase price of included figures/bonus items) that's completed in ~20 minutes. It seems to me they should lower the price of these by at least $5. The imputed level cost for the regular starter is ~$1/level (assuming ~$15 portal cost). Yeah, I know there's a unlock item that would probably go for ~$6 if it was sold without a level attached. They still feel more of a money grab than the figures.

I'm also somewhat disappointed they didn't include the Swap Force levels in Trap Team as they did the Spyro's Adventures ones in Giants (which was also rather disappointing as they were not new) - of course Giants didn't have its own independent levels.

I guess I really should be somewhat miffed they've not just included *all* prior levels in each new game as there's nothing needed other than the minimal code and a figure check to unlock them. Of course that means they'd have to try to keep some of the more hard to find ones (Darklight Crypt specifically) in production so people wouldn't get pissed about locked areas that are practically impossible to open.

Cool! Thanks.

I have a regular Kaos Trap! My grandson was out shopping with his Great Grandmother and called excitedly after walking out of BB that he'd found 2 Kaos Traps and a Tech Hand - but GG wouldn't let him get them! I told him to get both Kaos Traps "just in case" (he indicated he didn't want one as he has a Dark Kaos Trap but I was hedging my bets) and the Tech Trap but had to talk to GG and confirm I'd cover the cost before she'd go back to BB and let him get 'em. By the time he'd left, called, got confirmation, and got back there was only 1 Kaos Trap left. So my OCD gets the Kaos Trap and he gets the Tech Trap he's been wanting. In spite of my OCD wanting to keep it, I'll probably give that Kaos Trap to his sister - she likes it better because it's smaller and "cute" - go figure...

He told me this morning on the way to school that BB had *lots* of figures and traps. So at least *one* store here is fairly well stocked. He also told me the pre-loaded Light Rocket Trap he purchased a couple of weeks back was from Gamestop *not* Target. So it really is a GS exclusive as advertised.

There are a *few* copies of various *new* Swap Force Dark Edition starters available on Amazon from 3rd party vendors *but* fulfilled by Amazon.

X-Box 360 - $34.99 (currently 1 left at this price but there are a couple of vendors at the $39.99 price point)
Wii - $39.99 (listing indicates the vendor has at least 30 copies)

I picked up a Wii edition earlier today for $34.99 but that vendor sold out. This is a great price to just pick up the figures in the set and even better if you don't already own a copy.

Kaos arrived today. My son was appropriately psyched. Thank you so much Shea, that was truly awesome of you.

So when in the game do you trap Kaos? I assume it's not right at the end, at least I hope not.

Yep, you trap Kaos at the end but having him makes subsequent playthroughs as well as the Kaos Challenge and the Arenas much easier.

You mean you didn't pre-load Kaos for him!?!?

My grandson says the traps don't have to be in the trap holder and will work just fine if you lay them on the portal. He also says you can load Kaos into multiple Kaos Traps if you have them. I've tested neither... yet... I've teased him about loading Kaos into my Kaos Trap for me (he's "beat" the game and captured Kaos) but then will follow that with a "but that'd be cheating."

I would but I didn't want to open the trap before I mailed it off. I should have asked.

It's fine. Let the little guy struggle a little in the final boss battle. He complains when he beats these games too fast anyway.

The final boss in this one is really a huge pain in the rear. You knock off a chunk of his health to be forced to watch him get 25% back and he does that twice before he finally starts the descent towards defeat. Also, he has an array of attacks that only someone with a high level of energy or hyperactivity will be able to dodge at a high clip. Tell him to have about 20-25 Skylanders ready to go when he steps into the final battle. Now, once he returns to the final battle with Kaos in his trap then he should be able to knock him out using Kaos only. That is what I did on the nightmare mode. I could imagine that the final boss fight in the nightmare mode would have knocked off at least 40 of my figures if I had to go about it with Kaos.

^Another strategy is to have lots of traps ready. When you use a villain you apparently don't get hurt by attacks so use the villain until just before it switches you back to the Skylander and do a quick swap to another villain for the next big wave of stuff to dodge. I did this on one of the bosses as a test and the villain wasn't affected by anything the boss did - laser beams just went right through without the trapped villain taking damage while he kept on attacking and taking away health from the boss. So far I've found several of the trapped villains have some pretty lethal attacks.

When you use a villain you don't get hurt but rather your available time as that villain is shaved a bit each time rather than taking damage. So, you can go from having a villain for one minute to being depleted in seconds by taking high damage.

^I didn't notice that part - what i was using lasted quite a while, or at least *seemed* to... Then again, the Boss I was battling may not have had that lethal of a attack. Hmmm.... I need to do more "testing" eh?

Kaos' attacks, at least on hard and nightmare, take a nice chunk each time they hit you. I had to play the game once on each to get a couple of the trophies.

Gamestop currently has Kaos Traps in 3 different *three* packs of traps. They're going for $17.97 each and *only* available online. The least expensive shipping option is $3.49.

Kaos, Earth, Water
Kaos, Magic, Water
Kaos, Life, Water

*One* of the stores here shows to have "Low Stock" on the Kaos Trap itself and many others are now getting them in stock - BUT it's not available by itself online.

Amazon has regularly had the Water Trap for $3.49 and most stores here have Water Traps. It looks like those might have been overproduced since it's also in each of those special packs. I also get the impression they're slightly overstocked on Earth, Magic, and Life Traps since Kaos is only available in those 3 packs and they're using Kaos Traps to clear out other overstocked inventory.

My son got his male babysitter to help him and he defeated Kaos last night. He tells me it was REALLY hard and that Kaos killed a LOT of his Skylanders. Anyway, he's got him trapped now

If anyone is interested in getting a copy the document I created in word to catalog your Skylanders then send me a private message with your email and I will send it to you. I have my figures organized by element and game they are from then it contains information like the figure's level and what power ups each one has. Here is a portion of my Air element page:

AIR

Spyro's Adventure:
Lightning Rod Level 7 Fully Upgraded Top
Sonic Boom Level 3 Not Complete
Warnado Level 10 Fully Upgraded Top
Whirlwind Level 10 Fully Upgraded Top

Skylanders gets a shout out in American Sniper. Maybe not the most expected of cross-promotions, but still pretty cool.

If anyone is interested in getting a copy of a Skylanders collection catalog document that I made in word then message me your email. I spent quite a bit of time putting together these pages of our collection but it makes it easier to know what we have, the levels they are and if they need any upgrades. I have been plowing my newest figures through the hardest difficulty of the Kaos challenge and leveling up brand new figures from level 1 to 20 in about 30 minutes. The only bad part is that you don't make much money during the individual stages in the challenge. Here is a portion of my document: