Years ago, in a pre-internet age, people would play chess by mail, one move at a time separated by the time it took for letters to travel back and forth. The same principle is in play with Robot Entertainment’s new Hero Academy which offers chess-like fantasy gameplay taken one turn at a time.

The Parent Perspective

Hero Academy would be appropriate for a teen audience, due to the light cartoonish fantasy violence and the heavy amount of slow-paced strategic gameplay required. The official rating is 9+, but the cut off point for this game is really going to be determined by your level of interest in the style of play.

The most important thing that parents should know about Hero Academy is that it is entirely a multiplayer game, with the opportunity to play with either friends or random strangers. With text chat available in-game, parents should definitely keep tabs on their children’s online interactions.

While the initial download is free, Hero Academy also features many add-ons available through microtransactions, with the promise of many more to come. Some of the paid additions have little impact on the game, but additional character sets, including the first extra set of Dark Elves that also removes ads from the game, sit somewhere been useful and borderline necessary.

The Review

There are two things that are absolutely essential to enjoying Hero Academy: friends and patience. Sure, you can get by with little to none of either, but that only scratches the surface of the game. Instead, if you have friends to play with, and the patience to learn the game and handle the unusual multiplayer, there’s a lot to like in Hero Academy.

The GamerPops Recommendation

Hero Academy is an interesting, and largely effective fantasy chess-like game. It’s not for gamers seeking fast-paced action, but the back and forth nature should definitely find an appreciative audience. As a free download, Hero Academy is worth at least checking out, and it certainly feels like the game, if successful, will be supported by extensive but inexpensive add-ons.

A review copy was provided to GamerPops.

Tony Gonzalez, the future Hall of Fame TE, is the star of Padworx Digital Media’s new line of Jolly Blast Sports Adventure titles, which help teach children about sports, healthy activity and nutrition. Mixing storytelling with games and information, these apps look to potentially be a great complement to more standard games, and a great way to encourage our young Blastronauts to be active. Check out Coach Tony’s introduction below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first app, Jolly Blast Soccer, is available now in the iTunes App Store, and is free through the Super Bowl.

Everything old is new again, as the old adage says, and nowhere is that more true that in toys. As children of the 80s and 90s are having their own kids, more and more toy lines are being relaunched, and we are sharing our old favorites with own our kids. Gogo’s Crazy Bones are one toyline taking advantage of the nostalgia, and Gamemill is bringing the little guys to the DS in a new title developed by Black Lantern Studios.

Gogo’s Crazy Bones, available in March, includes more than 30 Gogos to collect in the game, each with its own look, personality and abilities. Gamers can take part in a number of different games with their collected Gogos across several environments, unlocking new rewards as they progress through more than 70 puzzles.

The next wave of Skylanders are upon us, which is great for gamers, and terrible for parents’ wallets. New in this wave are Cynder, Double Trouble, and Slam Bam, who is part of the Empire of Ice adventure pack. These new figures are now available at retail, and you can find bios, images, and videos below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cynder
Volts And Lightning!

Element:  Undead

Primary Attack:   Spectral Lightning
Secondary Attack:  Shadow Dash

Upgrades include: 

• Cynder Flight
• Black Lightning
• Shadow Reach

Bio:  While just an egg, Cynder was stolen by the henchmen of an evil dragon named Malefor and raised to do his bidding.  For years, she spread fear throughout the land until she was defeated by Spyro the dragon and freed from the grip of Malefor.  But dark powers still flow through her, and despite her desire to make amends for her past, most Skylanders try to keep a safe distance… just in case.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Double Trouble
Boom Shock-A-Laka!

Element:  Magic

Primary Attack:  Eldritch Beam
Secondary Attack:  Conjure Exploding Double

Upgrades include:

• Summon Magic Bomb
• Arcane Eldritch Beam
• Magical Cataclysm

Bio:  Double Trouble was an adept spellcaster.  On an expedition to find exotic ingredients for his potions, he traveled in search of a rare lily that was said to multiply the power of any spell.  So thrilled was he when he found it, Double Trouble instantly ate the plant and performed a spell.  Suddenly, there was a loud pop… then another… and another – until Double Trouble was surrounded by exact copies of himself.  As it turned out, he had misunderstood the details about exactly what would multiply.  But it didn’t matter, for he quickly realized the clones were delightful companions… never mind that they were only half his size and would explode on contact.

Slam Bam
Armed And Dangerous!

Element:  Water

Primary Attack:  Yeti Fists
Secondary Attack:  Ice Prison

Upgrades include:

• Arctic Explosion
• Yeti Ice Shoe Slide
• Ice Knuckles

Bio:  Slam Bam lived alone on a floating glacier in a remote region of Skylands, where he spent his time ice surfing, eating snow cones, and sculpting amazing ice statues.  It was a peaceful life, until Kaos destroyed the glacier, stranding Slam Bam on an iceberg that drifted through the skies for days.  He awoke on Eon’s Island, where he was taken in and trained to become a Skylander.  Now his ice sculptures serve as a frosty prison for any evil-doer.

You don’t have to get all Field of Dreams, but there’s something about baseball that just says family. Whether its throwing the ball around in the yard, sitting in the bleachers and watching a game live, or picking up a couple of controllers and playing your favourite baseball game, that’s something that instinctively feels like a father/son or father/daughter activity.

Which is a nice lead in to the annual baseball video game season, including MLB 2K12, showcasing the reigning AL MVP & Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander. Ahead of its release in March, 2K Sports has released a quick teaser trailer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wii U for the holidays

Nintendo announced this week that the Wii U (or whatever it will end up being called) will be released world wide for the 2012 holiday season. They also announced an improved online service called The Nintendo Network. Between the console and the online offering, Nintendo look to be setting themselves up nicely… for 2006. High def visuals, surround sound, robust online service, these are all things that Sony and Microsoft have had in their consoles for years now already. It really feels like Nintendo is only now just catching up to the others, right around the time for them to be stepping up their consoles in the next couple of years. What they’re banking on, just like they did with the underpowered Wii, is the Wii U Controller. Like they gambled (and won, for a few years anyways) on motion controls on a technically inferior console, they’re now going to bank on the possibilities that the unique controller with its large interactive screen provides for.

There are still questions though. We don’t know if it’ll only be one controller per system due to technical limitations. That will limit it to being used in single-player experiences and games like Chase Mii where one person uses the Wii U controller while everyone else uses Wii Remotes. What about third party support? It will help that the Wii U will have the same capabilities as the current generation of platforms (I have a hard time putting the Wii in the Seventh Generation with the PS3 and Xbox 360). And Nintendo’s stubborn refusal (to this point) to put any onboard storage in the Wii U is still concerning.

When we first saw the Wii U at E3, we saw quite a bit to be excited about. But with time to digest everything, and with subsequent rumours of development issues (don’t forget, it was thought at the time we might get the Wii U before E3 2012, which isn’t happening now) and many unanswered questions this late in the development cycle, it’s been hard to keep that level of excitement. We’re basically saying a lot of “meh” right now, and “meh” is not what Nintendo need to bring. Hopefully they can build up some buzz over the course of 2012, answer some of the lingering questions, learn from the mistakes of the 3DS launch, and deliver a big wow factor for Christmas. They’re going to need something, because with Nintendo’s recent troubles, one starts to get the feeling this is a make or break release for The Big N.

One final spooky parallel. The Sega Dreamcast also featured a display on its controller (sure, it was tiny and in black and white, but it had the capability). It was the last console Sega ever made.

PS Vita coming soon

Speaking of consoles, we should start to see a lot of PS Vita hype as it nears its North American release date of February 22nd. Those of you with the cash and overwhelming desire can also get the First Edition bundles a week early on the 15th. Sony’s bringing what looks to be an impressive launch lineup of titles for the system and there’s quite a bit of early buzz for the handheld. Can full blown handhelds still find a place in an iPhone and Android world? Can it find an audience among the core gamers and the younger crowd? Will the latter find the system too imposing, and will Sony and friends be providing enough titles to entice the family gamer? A quick look at the launch lineup shows a handful of kid-friendly titles like Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Little Deviants, a BEN10 game, and others, so there’s some hope there.

As Larry noted early in the week, EA is jumping on the Skylanders bandwagon with a line of Mass Effect figures that will have built in DLC, and now comes word that Nintendo is adopting the same technology in some form. According to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, the Wii U tablet will feature the same near field communication (NFC) technology that Skylanders employs, opening up new opportunities for added game functionality:

Already by now, the Wii U is known for its new controller with a screen, among other features.  For this controller, please be advised that we have decided to install a NFC function.

As many of you know, NFC is the acronym for Near Field Communication, which is a set of standards to establish radio communication in close proximity. The NFC I’m referring to here is the noncontact NFC standard that is compatible with FeliCa and MIFARE, and is expected to be widely used around the world in the near future.

By installing this functionality, it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data via noncontact NFC and to expand the new play format in the video game world. Adoption of this functionality will enable various other possibilities such as using it as a means of making micropayments.

If done well, this could potentially be a difference maker for the Wii U, which will really have to rely on gimmicks and quirky ideas to hold its own against the existing strength of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, without even thinking about the next iteration of those consoles.

But obviously, just looking at the specific Skylanders model, that could easily quite easily replicated by Nintendo for any of its main franchises, including Mario Party, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Which, for parents, should be both curious and potentially scary. Just imagine a Super Smash Bros where you have to buy each of the multitude of characters just to play the game.

I’d imagine we’ll get plenty more on this and other features of the Wii U at E3 this year, and we’ll look forward to getting hands on with the device again.

Pint Sized is a new feature on GamerPops where Managing Editor Jeff Peeters gives his random thoughts on recent gaming events, usually with a kid and family slant, in a shorter-than-feature-length format. Questions and comments? You can e-mail him at jeff.peeters@gamerpops.com.

THQ

It’s unfortunate to see that THQ is getting out of the licensed kids game business and focusing on core titles. It’s always nice to have lots of options for kids and families to play, and with a major publisher getting out of the game, it will likely result in fewer gaming options. Sure, some licenses might get picked up by somebody else (SpongeBob comes to mind), but likely not up to the level of what THQ had. Now, many of these games were more about the license than about the game, so perhaps that was part of the issue. And then there’s the disappointing sales of the UDraw Tablet, a great idea that didn’t catch hold enough and was made worse by the disaster that was its launch on the 360 and PS3, which lasted maybe a few weeks before they gave up on it. Call it mismanagement, call it a “refocusing”, but the bottom line is that the overall market for family gaming just got smaller, which isn’t good news.

The Dry Season

It’s that time of year. The dry post-Christmas season where very few games come out. It’s nice in that it gives us some time to catch up on games we got for Christmas, but it’s not so nice in that it doesn’t give us a whole lot to talk about. That should change soon, though. In the next couple of months, there are some fun looking titles coming down the pipe to look forward to. Double Fine Happy Action Theatre, coming February 1st, will feature mini/micro-game craziness, will be a downloadable Xbox Live title and will use Kinect. Plus, it’s from the same folks who brought us Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. Also coming soon is another promising Kinect game, Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure, coming March 20th. It’s going to give you and your kids a chance to jump into scenes from popular Pixar films and play them out. Cars and Toy Story alone will intrigue my kids, but you’ll also play The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Up. Let’s see if the controls can hold up. And my kids will be looking forward to Mario Party 9 on March 11th. Mario Party 8 and Wii Party were excellent titles, and I expect no less from MP9.

Play Time

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is almost overwhelming in what it offers. Maybe they tried too hard, but the experience is still excellent. It’s one of those games that I could play for two to three hours and not progress the story one bit. With all the peripheral quests and activities, it’s a perfect sandbox game, especially if you’re more of a thinking gamer vs. pure run and gun action. I love the stealth, strategy, and history of the game. And with all the multitasking and events going on, it’s a great mental exercise, too bad the violence makes it inappropriate until you get to late teens.

Skylanders was one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises of 2011, successfully mixing video games and action figures in a way that we’ve never seen before on a console. GamerPops had the opportunity to chat with Alex Ness, Producer and Chief-Of-Staff at Toys for Bob, the creators of Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, to gain some insight into the background of Activision’s latest hit franchise. Hope you enjoy the interview, and be sure to check out our review.

Click here to view the embedded video.

GamerPops:  From practically the moment it was announced, Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure seemed like a brilliant concept that was either going to soar or to crash and burn. How does it feel now that the critical and consumer reaction seems to have validated all the work that went into Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure?

Alex Ness:  It is wonderful and surreal and more wonderful.  We really did put a lot into both the game and toys.  So we really, really love getting positive reviews and sales figures but honestly, the greatest thing in the world is when we see someone like that boy, Malcolm Peeters, in a video you have posted on your very website introducing and describing all of his Skylanders.  Or hearing parents describe playing with their child and both of them really enjoying the experience so much together.  Or hearing non-parent hardcore gamers tell us that although they shouldn’t even be playing, let alone be addicted to a game like Skylanders, they really love it and can’t wait for the next wave of toys to come out.  Basically, just witnessing real people who have been affected by Skylanders in some significant way feels great.  That’s the kind of thing we dreamed of when we made this thing and it’s just so incredible to see it coming true.

GP:  There really isn’t a template for creating something like Skylanders on a console. Where did the concept come from? How difficult was it to make that a reality?

AN:   About 3 years ago, Activision had asked us to try and come up with a very Wii-centric concept for a game.  Something that not only was for the Wii console but really looked and felt like it was really made for the Wii.  And not just that it used a motion-sensitive controller but had that Nintendo kind of aesthetic and sense of wonder and feel that is generally so high-quality.  We took a step back and asked ourselves what, above all else, the Wii represents?  On a very basic level, the console introduced a brand new way to play video games and that was also what we loved most about it.  We decided that is what our new concept should do as well – introduce a new way to play games.  A bunch of ideas came out of that basic paradigm but the one we liked the most had to do with toys.  All of us grew up playing with toys, and in a deeper sense, they almost represent childhood more than just about anything else.  Since we often imagined our toys interacting with these different fantasy worlds, it suddenly became pretty clear – what if we could bring toys to life in a video game?

Now, we could have put all of this into a nice PowerPoint presentation or something and Activision probably would have put the kibosh on that idea pretty quickly.  But we lucked out.  Our lead character guy, I-Wei Huang, just happens to be able to make figurines out of clay and paint them and make them look really nice.  Then one of our engineers, Robert Leyland, is a serious electronics wiz and he was able to build our first prototype of the Portal of Power and make them work with I-Wei’s figures.  So when we originally pitched it to Activision, instead of telling them about this idea, we showed it to them.  That made all the difference.  It was a lot more impressive than any PowerPoint presentation (no offense, PowerPoint) and we had Activision’s support from the get-go.

GP:  What was the process behind creating each Skylander character?  Did the ideas originate with the game team, the toy team, or was it a mix of the two?

AN:  The creative part of the toy team actually is the game team over here and all ideas originated from them.  Besides I-Wei, our studio head has had a lot of experience creating characters, going all the way back to his days at TSR making Dungeons & Dragons.  Since he’s also my boss, I guess I should say his name – Paul Reiche III.  What a guy!  Anyway, Paul and I-Wei worked very closely together to come up with the concepts for every single one of our characters.  Then we would present these concepts to a group at Activision and luckily, there were some good, creative minds on that side too.  One of our marketing guys, John Coyne, had just come over from Bakugan and knew a lot about toys.  Even our CEO, Eric Hirshberg, was heavily involved in the process too.  Together we were able to come to a consensus and finalize the look of all the Skylanders toys.

But again, that’s just the look.  There are a lot of other factors that go into making our Skylanders toys.  I have to give tons of the credit to our character gameplay designers, our animators, and our audio team.  Everyone worked so hard to really bring each Skylander to life and make them interesting and fun and powerful in their own unique way.  Especially since we are selling these guys as toys, we wanted to make sure that players really felt like they were getting a great value with each one.

GP:  How did the inclusion of Spyro come about? He has a modest amount of recognition with some fans at best, but he wasn’t exactly a household name with the game’s target audience, and his own line of titles had pretty much dried up.

AN:  We all liked the character of Spyro, as well as the franchise’s unique charm.  While Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure is not a Spyro game, per se, we did want to really to create a world not dissimilar to the Spyro games, particularly the early ones that had a similar kind of charm and blend of fantasy and adventure.  We also thought it would be cool to have a familiar face in there as one of the Skylanders, even if not necessarily familiar to the target audience as you mention.  We liked the idea of reintroducing that character to kids too young to have maybe played one of those older Spyro titles.

GP:  What’s in the near future for Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure?  We know there are still more toys waiting to be released, but can we expect DLC?  Or any new characters to be introduced? Chase and collectors variants?

AN:   Well we’ve got 2 more waves of toys coming out so that’s another 12 Skylanders plus 2 adventure packs.  There are some different collector’s edition Skylanders being randomly introduced into the toy packs as well.  Have you seen any of these things?  Then there might be a couple of surprises coming down the road, but of course, I’m not allowed to talk about them yet, as they would cease to be surprises.

GP:  How connected will future toys be to the game? Will Skylanders toys always connect to a game, or will we see the toy line expand into articulated figures and playsets that exist on their own without the interactivity?

AN:   I honestly don’t know what the future holds but I do know that the main tenet of the Skylanders franchise is to make games that support toys.  The toy should always be at the absolute core of the gameplay experience.  So while I’m not sure about your idea of toys that don’t connect to a game, I’ll say that I really could never see things going the other way around, i.e. making a game without the toys.  That just wouldn’t be Skylanders.

GP:  There are a couple of red flags that we identified with Skylanders, and they both relate to money and value. At minimum, Skylanders is $70 for the console edition (very reasonable price considering the included figures and the portal), but up to $120-$130 for the optimal experience with all eight elements, and higher still with extra characters. When you’re developing a game like this, how difficult is it to balance the needs of the game and respect for the player with the need to have a fully developed toy line?

AN:  To tell you the honest-to-goodness truth, when we were making Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure we didn’t see it as just making a single title like other single titles we’ve made.  We tried to make it more than a single game so that if you were to only buy the starter pack, you could not only finish the adventure portion of Skylanders but also have a full-game experience, and I really think we delivered on that.  Even without those optional areas, I believe the main path of our game is pretty big, and it takes a while to see all of it.

But then, if a player wants to experience some additional content, they can do so by purchasing more toys for their collection.  For $8.00 you can buy an extra Skylander toy and get access to the toy’s elemental area (which are some of my favorite parts of the game), you get an extra Heroic Challenge level that all of your Skylanders can play, you get a new, fun, distinct character, and lastly, you get a high-quality toy.  I’ve seen toys that aren’t as nice as ours, both from a subjective opinion and from a technical standpoint (paint operations, etc.) that cost as much, or more, and don’t work in a video game!  We made sure we made toys with really good value because we were (and are) sensitive to the things you mention.  Many of us are parents, and all of us are gamers, so we pushed ourselves harder than ever to keep our customers from feeling ripped off in any way.

They say imitation is the best form of flattery. If that’s the case then Activision should be flattered to know that EA and Bioware loved their video game/toy combination found in Skylanders so much that they decided to incorporate it into their upcoming Mass Effect 3. That’s right, if you order one of the upcoming action figures (please, they are never dolls) based on Mass Effect 3 you will get a download code for PC or Xbox 360 that will unlock new weapons, new items, and even new characters!

This is a little different than the Skylanders concept, as most of the extra content will still come from traditional sources like Xbox Live and Playstation Network and not the toy store, but the base idea is there. Buy a toy, get some virtual goods to go with it. In Mass Effect’s case, there are 8 total figures, each selling for $20, and each one has randomized codes inserted, meaning you can’t just go out and buy the extras you want. While some people may grumble that you will have to spend close to $160 to get all the extras, I think this is a great idea. Just because we are adults doesn’t mean we should miss out on all the action figure/video game fun! Now if they would only do this with Transformers…