Product Review

The fourth incarnation of Activision's hugely popular game/toy hybrid, Skylanders Trap Team finds gamers capturing and controlling villains for the first time. The evil mastermind Kaos has blown up Cloudcracker Prison, scattering its inmates across the Skylands, and players must use the magic material Traptanium to harness elemental powers, capture the criminals, and turn them into forces for good. As always, gamers place their toys on a special portal and then control characters through 3D worlds with a mix of combat, platforming, puzzle solving, and RPG-style progression. Trap Team introduces more than 60 characters, led by the new villain-capturing Trap Masters, and the new Traptanium Portal includes a speaker and a slot where players can place elemental traps to store defeated villains and turn them into heroes. Gamers can then unleash those powerful heroes for short periods of time, take advantage of all their unique skills and attacks, and join forces with Skylanders from every game in the series. Trap Team also introduces miniature versions of the characters from the first Skylanders game, and adds a new card battling mini-game came called Skystones Smash.