PAX Prime: First Impressions—Skylanders SuperChargers Racing (3DS)

First, we have to give serious props to the Skylanders team at PAX Prime. They were ultra-enthusiastic, incredibly friendly, and absolute all-stars when it came to interacting with the kids who visited their booth. When I came by to chat with them about Skylanders SuperChargers Racing, they were really gracious as I spoke about my disappointment with Trap Team (I learned after the fact that they’d worked on it…) and were thrilled to show me the demo for the new game and discuss how it worked. Part of me wondered where they got all their energy from. Another part of me wondered how much energy they’d have left by Monday at 6pm…but, anyway.

One important aspect before diving into Skylanders SuperChargers is that the 3DS version of the game—with Racing tacked onto the SuperChargers title—is vastly different from the Wii U version (which was not demoing at PAX). On the 3DS, players exclusively race their Skylanders in what is essentially a Skylander version of Mario Kart. That’s not a bad thing, really, and you still get to place your Skylanders in-game—and at the demo booth were a number of the new prototypes for the upcoming figures. They looked great, especially the amiibo tie-ins.

I had the chance to play through an “air” race in local multiplayer, where I soared through a course and shot at a lot of things, including my opponents. The control scheme was inverted for this demo—which I always find to be a challenge—but the demo team was convinced that I’d get used to it after playing through a few times. I’d prefer to change the controls, but after a few times through the course it did become easier. There were sections along the course that you needed to fly into in order to obtain a boost or bonus, and it was a challenge to get a handle on the controls to be able to do that at first.

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Essentially, Skylanders SuperChargers Racing is Mario Kart with a lot more weapons. Although I’d have to play through a few more courses to really get a handle on what the environments are like, it’s a fun idea to be playing land, sea and sky races with your figures, and there are many weapons and boosts to keep the challenge rolling.

And if enthusiasm could sell games, the demo team would move copies with their very minds—but unfortunately, it’s going to remain to be seen whether a racing-only 3DS version of the new Skylanders game is what the kids want.

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Micah
Author: Micah View all posts by
Micah has been playing games since his first pong machine, and has been writing for as long as he could grip a pencil and not drool on the paper. So, for about a week.

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