We’ve talked about the game itself, and the toys, and now we move on to what I feel is the most impressive part of Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure: the interconnectivity. There are many ways to use your Skylanders besides just playing through the console game itself. The Portal of Power can be connected to a computer, and your figures then imported into the Skylanders: Spyro’s Universe web-based game. This is a combination of a social network and a minigame collection. Players can customize their own personal floating island, with the help of the Skylanders. By visiting the mainland, other players can be met, befriended, and their home islands can be visited. Mini games, one of which is quite similar to Angry Birds, are also available to play, though I was unable to find one that supported co-op in my brief time online.
You can take your Skylanders to a friend’s console and play with no problems at all. Levels, equipment, money, and other stats are saved onto the figure itself. Just drop your level 8 Spyro onto your friend’s Portal of Power, and he’ll pop right in, cowboy hat and all. Incredibly, this works across platforms: your Skylanders won’t care whether you use them on Wii, PS3, or 360. You can even use your Skylanders in the 3DS version of the game, which is totally different than the console versions. This cross-platform compatibility is a brilliant piece of engineering, far different than the norm in this era of timed exclusives and console-specific DLC packs. It’s a natural extension of the drop-in/drop-out co-op we all know and love. I am not aware of any other game that supports cross-platform co-op like this. Using your Skylanders in all these different ways is by far the best part of the entire Skylanders experience.
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is excellent. The Skylanders are fun to play with in and out of game. Being able to use them online, in a friend’s game, or even on the go with the 3DS version is quite impressive. Co-op across systems is unheard of, and here, it is handled flawlessly. It’s a great product, and I suspect it will be an enormous hit with young players and their parents. It is probably the best "kid game" I've ever played, with the possible exception of the Pokemon franchise it was undoubtedly modelled on. If you have young gamer in your life, I recommend picking it up. The youngsters will love it, and you will too.
This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of the game.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Play through the game's single player adventure with a friend. They can bring their own character(s) and jump in at any time.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.