Skylanders Swap Force Wave 3 @ Toys R Us

Yesterday afternoon I went Christmas shopping. Every store was packed. I knew I was going to have issues when my normal parking spot at Target was taken and I had to park some 20 spaces beyond it. Oh, well, I am young.
Skylander Hunting Christmas style. First Target, then another Target, followed by Toys R Us and finally a Wal-Mart. Only Toys R Us had anything good. Since Swap Force launched in October they have been the best at carrying the biggest and widest selection. And probably the best deals.

So I am looking for at the Spryo's Adventure packs, maybe there is a hidden gem of a Darklight Crypt. Or a Boomer or Bash three pack. No such luck. But then as I scanned the shelf I saw a Prism Break with red crystals. Yeah, it stood out. Then is quickly scanned the shelf for more new guys and I found more.

So don't believe the ads or other rumors. You can get them now. I was disappointed I couldn't find the Swappers. I really want to get them. I still have a week to keep searching.

Keep Calm and Swap On.

Skylanders Swap Force: Jolly Bumble Blast variant

Saturday December 7th - Jolly Bumble Blast is out!

I received an email from Game Stop that said he was going to be available, but I forgot about it. There were so many things going on and it was cold. I totally forgot until WSM and G-man went to TRU and found him.
This is the picture she sent me:

Of course only WSM knew that I had already purchased Legendary Bouncer. Now I need to come up with a way to surprise the kids.
But Jolly Bumble Blast was new. So she bought him!

He came home and is awesome. He appears red, green and white in the came. We did a Battle Arena and Ring out with regular and jolly. It was so nice to be able to tell them apart in the game.

Here his is shortly after unboxing. We also did a short video of the unboxing and how he looks in the Collection Vault iOS App. Link will be here as soon as the video posts.

Where is Skylanders Swap Force Wave 3?

Wave 3 should be here before Christmas. I hope. To satisfy the need we picked up Jolly Bumble Blast. Review on him is coming. Stay tuned.

Here are the expected Skylanders to be released in Wave 3. Who will you be getting? Which is your favorite? Leave a comment below.

Spy Rise - Looks awesome! His laser from above attack looks super sweet.	Rubble Rouser - EvanTubeHD unboxed him on a recent Skylanders Boomcast. Finally... Earth Element!
Dune Bug - His attacks look pretty nice and he flies.	Grim Creeper - Regular
Smolderdash - Regular	Windup - He reminds me of the guys from Tower of Time. Maybe I just don't know the backstory.
Platinum Sheep	Sheep Wreck Island - Looks like a Star Gate.
Light Core Countdown - He is the Bomb!	Light Core Whamshell - He's baaack!
HyberBeam Prism Break (series 3) - Crystals are now red but he still kinda stinks.	Phantom Cynder (series 3) - She is a bit translucent. But do I need another Cynder?
Thornhorn Camo - He's baaack too!	Hornblast Whirlwind - My boys like to play as her and heal the other player.

Jade Fire Kraken now available in Skylanders Lost Islands

The weekly update for Lost Islands this week brought us:
1. Tessa - she gives a Mabu population boost of 25% and costs 3000 gems.
2. Jade Fire Kraken - like all Swappers he gives 25% more gold and costs 300 gems.

Or just wait until he is in stores and use the code. I have this thing against paying for something twice. So when will Jade Fire Kraken be in stores? Leave your guess in the comments. I'll guess sometime in March like Jade Flashwing. Green, March, St. Patrick's Day. I see a pattern forming.

If you have the gems to spare and have to have the latest and greatest... Go For It!
Don't forget to leave a comment and tell us how awesome he is.

Legendary Night Shift Hunting

Legendary Zoo Lou

On Sunday, Toys R Us started their slow leak of new Skylanders. This weeks release: Legendary Zoo Lou. Instead of a white "panda," he is a black "panda." Or as Jonev calls him, Blue Zoo Lou. He does have a blue tint but it is like a car paint. Depending on the light it can look blue or black.
Interesting to note that his wand or whatever that thing is in his hand is really gold on the figure. All the artwork we had seen showed it as the dark color. The package show the dark color wand and even Skylanders.com shows the dark color. What's up with that?

We picked him up yesterday along with another new Skylander (that shall remain nameless until December 25th).

I think we should have time to play with him tomorrow and check out if the animals he call are still green. I hope not. That would be awesome if they are gold are black.

Next week the schedule shows that Legendary Night Shift will be released. Of course that will be another purchase. We have a spreadsheet of all the figures and which of the kids get to call each "his or hers" or is it Dads or the entire family. I know... quite nerdy and organized. It truly cuts down on the fighting. So on that spreadsheet, no one claimed Legendary Night Shift. Should be interesting deciding...

How many variants do you have? Which ones? Do you like having to get variants? Do you hate TRU for making them so appealing?
Which variants are left to be released... Enchanted Star Strike, Nitro Freeze Blade and all those that got released on the German site... soccer, spring, jolly, etc...

Wave 2 and Weekend deals

This last week WSD and WSM celebrated a wedding anniversary. Gifts were exchanged and cheesecake was partaken. These kids have the best mom. She bought Lightcore Star Strike for WSD. Then Dad snuck in another Skylander to use the 40% off purchase special happening at Toys R Us (using his lunch money for the week). Lightcore Smolderdash is now part of the collection. Both girl Skylanders. What is up with that? Mom was going to buy WSD 2 shirts as a gift... He asked for a shirt and a Skylander.
Also Grilla Drilla joined the fray on Friday night.

Today is Thing 2's Birthday- he is the big ocho. That is ESPN the Ocho (8) for you gringos. This morning he unwrapped a regular Magna Charge and probably will unwrap another Skylander before the sun goes down, wink, wink.

While at Toys R Us on Saturday for a Lego event. We saw all the Wave 2 Skylanders on the shelf. The boys were going out of their collective minds. A really odd thing about the store is that they placed the Lego event in the Swap Force section. There was barely any room to move with out stepping a little kid filling a bag with lego pieces.
One question kept coming to mind is, "Where are the triple packs?" I want to save a few dollars and get them all at once. I think we will see them show up soon when other stores start selling Wave 2.

GhostRoaster has a nice write up on the Wave 2 release.

Swap Force Unboxing and the natives

Swap Force came out on October 13th. We bought it, then the boys wanted to do an unboxing video. Supposedly it is the new hot thing to do, then post the video to YouTube. Well I didn't want to do a regular unboxing (boring) and came up with this idea. We had so much fun.

 

What a bunch of crazy boys!

No secret codes with Skylanders Dark Edition

Not true. The codes are there you just have to search for them. They are not with the cards and directions. They are not with the mega poster. And it is MEGA! It is bigger than 3 of our 4 children. It's double sided and has the Dark Edition characters on one side and all three posters on the other.

But the codes... Oh yeah they are taped on the inside of the box on a tab by the characters. Depending on which side you open the box you may or may not see them.

Yay! Secret Codes and Stickers Found!

Swap Force is OUT!!!

As of midnight today Skylanders Swap Force is available for purchase. But you already knew that.

WSD (wannabe Skylander Dad) went to a local Toys R Us for the midnight launch. There were about 20 people in line at midnight. WSD picked up his xbox pre-order with a free light core Hex. He also picked up all the characters he set out to buy. The list was documented in the last post. 

Legendary Free Ranger

Legendary Light Core Grim Creeper

Enchanted Hoot Loop

At Walmart the employees knew about Swap Force but did not know if they had recieved any shipments. WSD explained that the game "launched" 30 minutes ago so a good bet would be that they have something. After a radio call to the back the stock guy came out to talk with WSD about what exact character(s) he was looking for. He was super helpful and nice and did not seem put out at all that he was being asked to do random things in the middle of the night. 

Tomorrow will be Gamestop and Target. Maybe even Toys R Us. 

No school or work makes it a great second day after launch. 

SWAP Force Launch: What's the plan?

Saturday nights at our house usually end later than most nights. This Saturday will be no exception, except it will be really late. The "old" Toys R Us, as the kids call it, will be having a midnight launch of Skylanders Swap Force. There may be one near you- check out the list.

I plan to be there to snag the exclusive guys that are only at TRU. You are a true Skylander fan and already know but just in case a newbie happens to read this, here they are:

Legendary Free Ranger	Legendary Light Core Grim Creeper (that guy has a lot of names, must be a nephew of mine)

 

After TRU, there are 4 Walmarts before I get home and I will go to each one if I have to. I'll be looking for Enchanted Hoot Loop. Of course I will be very tired and I hope the first one will be a winner.

Enchanted Hoot Loop

Soon after I plan to pick up Nitro Magna Charge with Rattle Shake at Target. Oh and I can't forget about the Dark Edition at Gamestop.

The Skylander fan community is great. There are so many dedicated fans. One of my favorites to follow is portalflip.com. Portalflip created a Launch Day Survival Guide.  It has all you could need to remember, take, use and plan for launch day... err night.

What is your plan? Where are you going first? TRU? Walmart? What character are excited to get, then play?

Just over 48 hours from now...

Tweet for a chance to win a SWAP Force Starter Pack

The official @SkylandersGame twitter account is hosting a contest as part of SWAPtober or more rightly stated as #SWAPtober.
Everyday you can submit your favorite new SWAP combination, catchphrase of that new swap and included the hash tags #SWAPtober and #skylanders.

For the full rules be sure to checkout bit.ly/GzGcOP

Only one entry per day but I guess you can submit lots of swaps per day. Many people are.

Here is an example we did yesterday.

Today's SWAP of choice: Night Blade "Hit and Run" #SWAPtober #skylanders
— skylander family (@skylanderfam) October 6, 2013

Keep is simple and have fun.

Wal-Mart Pre-Order issues

Today I went to check on an order I had with Wal-Mart, then decided to check the SWAP Force selections. I was blown away with the price increase for Enchanted Hoot Loop and the Magic Three Pack. This is of course an error by the store but it doesn't make me want to pre-order at this moment. Hopefully they correct it soon.

 

I plan on being at a Wal-Mart at midnight October 13th maybe the in-store Hoot Loop will cost less. ;)

 

I did double check any settings that may have caused the currency to change. I didn't find anything. Notice that the Wii Starter Pack has the proper price...? Weird.

 

Swap Force mania has taken over

With less than two weeks to go all we can think about is Swap Force.

• Who will be available?
• Who will we buy first?
• Which kid gets which character? (we sorted that out with a round robin selection/draft)
• Which store are we going to first?

As a WSD (wannabe Skylander Dad) I have been hitting the online shopping sites hard looking for hints of which characters will be out first. I think we have seen enough to have a good idea of what the expect in 12 days. Search for Swap Force at Target.com, Walmart.com, Amazon.com, Gamestop.com, BestBuy.com has a few with prices.

• Dark Edition Starter Pack at GameStop
• Regular Edition Starter Pack for all current consoles at pretty much any store that is worth anything. (PS4 and Xbox One coming later this year)
• Nintendo 3DS Starter Pack with different characters (Rattle Shake, Free Ranger and Volcanic Eruptor)
• Adventure Pack - Pop Thorn, Tower of Time, Battle Hammer and Sky Diamond
• Battle Pack - Bumble Blast, Knockout Terrafin and the Fiery Forge
• LIGHTCORE HEX... Finally!
• Swappers (Individual)
• Free Ranger
• Hoot Loop
• Enchanted Hoot Loop (only at Wal-Mart)
• Magna Charge
• Rattle Shake
• Swapper Two Packs
• Nitro Magna Charge and Rattle Shake (only at Target)
• Nitro Magna Charge and Free Ranger (only at Target)
• Three Packs **All characters in three packs are available individually also except Star Strike, but maybe we have seen the package.
• Magic Three Pack from Wal-Mart - Spyro, Pop Fizz and Star Strike
• Eruptor, Slobbertooth, Pop Fizz
• Spryo, Chill, Zoo Lou
• Lightcore Characters
• Flashwing
• Grim Creeper
• Smolderdash
• Star Strike
• Warnado
• New Characters
• Countdown
• Roller Brawl
• Slobbertooth
• Zoo Lou
• Returning Characters
• Blizzard Chill
• Lava Barf Eruptor
• Mega Ram Spyro
• Super Gulp Pop Fizz
• Legendary Characters at Toys R Us
• Lightcore Grim Creeper
• Free Ranger (how will that work with swapping- will we have to say legendary before the name: Legendary Free Buckler?)
• Guide Books
• Swap Force Guide Book
• Swap Force Collectors Edition Guide Book

Some other locations to check/double check:

• Portalflip.com
• Youtube.com/theskylanderboy

Skylander Repair Shop

The kids really like to play with the Skylander figures and not always when the Xbox is on. They carry them around. They divide them in groups by element, sometimes by size or color.
So they get bumped around. One time Crusher even fell from the second floor to the hard tile floor below. Well he survived... kind of. His orange base fell off but snuggly reattaches and he still works in the game.
Other casualties:
Terrafins Arm. I have super glued this thin 3 times. He is a favorite so he gets toted around the house. I expect the most recent fix to come undone soon.

Chop Chop's Arm. I super glued his arm twice but the brake is a very weird angle and it doesn't stay. Also the plastic is very smooth so the glue doesn't have much to grip on. I don't even know where the arm is now.

Molten Hot Dog's Tail. Hot Dog is our daughters figure. She latched on to him because his is cute dog. His tail broke off a few weeks after unboxing. I glued it once and it stuck. I wish all my fixes were like this dog rear end.


Do you have any Skylander figures that have broken? How have you fixed them? What works best?

We Are Loyal to Skylanders First

First, we are loyal Skylanders fans. We are going out of our minds with all the recent Swap Force announcements and pre-ordering. But that doesn't mean we can't try other things, especially to compare so we can make intelligent comments and express ourselves with knowledge and confidence.

Do you remember that scene in E.T. when the kids hid him in the closet with the stuffed animals and the mother looked in and couldn't find anything wrong? Below is our interpretation of that. The WSK had a fun time arranging the figures to get them just right.

Who do you see?

This could also be a Sesame Street segment: One of these kids is doing his own thing. One of these kids is not like the others.

More about the comparison later.

Swap Force Xbox Achievements

So many outlets are putting out little nuggets of info about SWAP Force that it only keeps getting harder to wait. 

We play on the Xbox 360 so when I heard that Xbox 360 achievements had posted the list for SWAP Force I had to check them out. 

Some may say, "Big deal. I have the another console. So this doesn't apply to me." Oh but it does. It tells us so much info. Like number of levels. Different ways to play a level. 

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/skylanders-swap-force/achievements/

Level Names...

1. Mount Cloudbreak
2. Cascade Glade
3. Mudwater Hollow
4. Rampant Ruins
5. Jungle Rumble
6. Iron Jaw Gulch
7. Motleyville
8. Twisty Tunnels
9. Serpent's Peak
10. Boney Islands
11. Winter Keep
12. Frostfest Mountains
13. Mesmeralda's Show
14. Fantasm Forest
15. Kaos' Fortress
16. Motherly Mayhem (Does the image show Kaos' Mom?)
17. Cloudbreak Core

Game Play variations:
Time Attack Levels
Score Mode Levels
Bonus Missions

Solo Survival (One player battles through waves of enemies, like Brocks Challenges)
Team Survival (Two players battle through waves of enemies)
Rival (Two players battle through wave of enemies but there will be a score and the higher score wins)
Battle Arena (Two players, Player vs Player... Arena Rumble)
Ring Out (Two players attempt to knock each other out of the arena)

Poster Update

After yesterday's revealing Swap Force Poster. It was time to update my homemade version. Now we know the elements of the remaining 4 figures and who the last life element is... surprise! It's Camo!!!

The thing that puzzles me still is that poster from yesterday left off at least 3 figures. Terrafin, Warnado and Whamshell (represented by his Series 1 pose below). The real Whamshell Series 2 has no been seen yet so it could be removed. We have seen the LC Warnado figure but nothing official so it could be removed. But we have seen Knockout Terrafin. You can preorder him right now. So why wasn't he on that poster? I don't have the answer. Does anyone out there? The WSK are starting to ask questions.

Wait was that poster made up and we all fell for it?

This is my creation I have pulled together from random sources around the internet.

Here is another version, just a different background.

Ok, one more with a smaller logo and the catchphrase or slogan.

The Ones That Didn't Make It

Forgotten ones. Castaways. Outcasts. Exiles. Refugees. Shunned. Not picked to play the game.

Whatever you call them there are a few Skylanders that didn't make the cut and didn't make it into Skylanders Swap Force. Here they are in no particular order. Photos below are from our collection of Skylanders figures.

1. Slam Bam
2. Wrecking Ball
3. Zap
4. Shroomboom
5. Lightening Rod
6. Sonic Boom
7. Zook
8. Stumpsmash
9. Hex
10. Fright Rider
11. Drobot :(
12. Drill Sargent
13. Double Trouble
14. Ignitor
15. Flameslinger
16. Bash (never found him in a store)   :(

Wrecking Ball	Double Trouble	Slam Bam	Zap
Lightening Rod	Sonic Boom	Ignitor	Flameslinger
Hex	Fright Rider	Drobot	Drill Sargent
Zook	Stumpsmash	Shroomboom	Bash

Shroomboom and Fright Rider are special disappointments as they were only Series 1 guys, new to Giants, and they didn't make the cut. Well, if there is any silver lining for these figures it is that there are some Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Series 1 figures that are coming back for Swap Force. Namely Warnado, Camo and Whamshell. 

But to these guys... See you later. Maybe we'll play you later after the swapping excitement wears off.