It's been more than two years since Spyro last spread his wings. One of the best games on the original PlayStation, Spyro moved through the various consoles with mixed results. That's whyActivision has decided to wipe his slate clean and start anew. In development at Toys for Bob, the only thing Skylanders Spyro's Adventure has in common with previous Spyro games is that it features a purple dragon. 
The goal with this new game is to merge physical toys and video games in a way that's never been done before by giving the toys the ability to remember anything and everything that's gone on in the game. So, the toy essentially becomes a physical manifestation of the in-game character, storing level, stats, and any customization the player has chosen to do. Toys for Bob studio head Paul Reiche III calls them "toys with brains," and said he and his team wanted to really push toys into the future.
Here's how it works. When sold at retail, the game will come bundled with a special "Portal" peripheral as well as three different character figurines. The Portal plugs into the game console, and when players place a figurine on the portal, that character appears in the game. As long as the figurine remains on the portal, it saves everything the player does in the game. The player can then take the figurine to a friend's house and pull the character into his friend's game, complete with all the details and stats he accomplished in his own game. The use of the toys is less of a gimmick than in some other games because the fact that the characters are tiny frozen figurines is weaved into the game's mythology.
Additional figurines (more than 30 total) will be sold separately. Each of them will represent a different character, and all of them will play differently in the game. Players can switch characters on the fly by simply placing a different figurine on the portal. And from what I saw, the transition was instantaneous. In addition, the prototypes of the figurines I was shown looked pretty cool. They stand about 2-3 inches tall and feature colorful, creative designs. Since Activision expects them to retail for $10 or less, they seem to be good quality for the price.
While the toy angle seems cool, the actual gameplay is a little bit more of a question mark. During my demo, I didn't actually get to the play Skylanders, but what I saw appeared to be a pretty standard third-person adventure game with plenty of enemies to take out and some puzzles to solve along the way. It looked OK, but I didn't see anything that really impressed me. Skylanders will feature both cooperative and competitive multiplayer, with the player vs. player looking to hold the most promise, as it will require strategy in selecting which characters to use against your opponent, as well as leveling them up.
It's also promising that Skylanders has already been in development for two and a half years, an unheard of amount of time for a game aimed at kids. And the story is being written by Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, who wrote the Toy Story film. Reiche also told me we can expect the same caliber from the voice cast, though no names have been announced. If Skylanders can live up to the creativity of the toys, then Spyro may be making a triumphant return this fall.
Source:http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/114/1149117p1.html
I loved the orginal spyro on PS1 but i am no way going to get this or buy into any thing activison peripheral based games. The concept sounds okay but in order to get the full experience you have to foke out around 250+ dollars extra. But looking at it, this is something i can see nintendo doing with pokemon and abusing the hell out of it, picture 100s of pokemon and the only way to collect them all is to buy the toys.
Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong
