Skylanders: Swap Force PS3 Preview

Swapping at E3
by Angelo M. D’Argenio

Listen up collectors of small, plastic things everywhere. Activision was nice enough to give us a preview of the upcoming Skylanders: Swap Force at E3 this year. We got a quick overview of how the game plays, how the new swap-system works, and what we can expect when the game launches.

First of all, Skylanders fans should be used to the way that Skylanders handles increasing your figures’ abilities. All of a figure’s stats are saved in the figure itself, allowing you to bring your figure to a friend’s house and play with your favorites. Swap Force figures, however, are split into top and bottom halves, and each half has its own abilities. Bottom halves are mostly focused on mobility, giving you the ability to teleport, climb walls, fly, and otherwise get around the world in unique ways. Top halves, on the other hand, are more focused on attacking. Each of the halves will retain their stats independently, allowing you to mix and match to your heart’s content without losing any of your progress.

As you play through the game’s many worlds, you will find areas that require you to take advantage of the game’s swap mechanics. For example, you will encounter certain areas and mini-games that require a specific type of movement to get around. In the demo, we were shown a huge, vertical wall that needed to be scaled using the octopus-style tentacles of a brand-new Swap Force Skylander figure, Washbuckler. Of course, if you aren’t into using this Skylander, just tear off his legs and put them on your favorite torso of choice; any Swap Force figure in your collection will be able to take on the challenge.

There will also be gates in the game that bar your access unless you have a Skylander of the right type. Some of these gates will have two types on them, requiring you to mix and match your Skylander’s parts in order to get through. However, if you don’t have Swap Force figures, you can still get through the gate. Just bring two players into the game, each controlling a Skylander of one of the two types shown on the gate, and the gate will open.

All Skylanders figures will work with Skylanders Swap Force. That includes all core Skylanders and all Skylanders Giants. When Swap Force comes out, 16-new Swap Force figures will be released. Each can be split into a top and bottom half, meaning there will be 256 different combinations that they can combine to create. 16-new, non-detachable core Skylanders will also be released.

As for how the game plays, it’s still the Skylanders you know and love. Someone is spreading crystalized chaos that starts turning all the life throughout the land evil. It’s up to you to take your favorite Skylander into the fray and combat the evil in order to save all of the evil-infected lands. Each area will give Skylanders of a certain type a bonus, once again giving you impetus to mix and match your favorite figures. Are you in a fire area but like controlling a wind Skylander? Just give him some fire legs (or vice versa), and you’ll still get a bonus.

There is one huge, new announcement that the dev team gave us. All Skylanders in the game now have the brand-new ability to jump. Amazing, right? Apparently, fans have been requesting this from the development team for some time now. Jumping will allow the team to create maps that utilize a whole other dimension of space by putting light-platforming elements into normal maps. In addition, it allows them to fiddle with the jump heights of each different Skylander. Giants have short jumps, for example, while smaller critters can jump rather high.

Skylanders Swap Force is totally playable even if you don’t buy a single Swap Force figure. You can bring in any of your old favorites and play the game from beginning to end, no problem. Granted, you won’t gain access to any of the bonus areas, but you’ll still have a great time seeing what this new Skylanders has to offer.