Imaginators lets kids create their own crazy monsters
Kids these days sure have a lot of characters to play with, whether they’re into superheroes, Star Wars or classics like Barbie and G.I. Joe. But their most memorable imaginary friends are the ones they make up on their own — say, aliens made of Legos or exotic dinosaurs created with crayons and paper.
Skylanders, Activision’s sixyear-old universe of crazily diverse critters, seems particularly well-suited to children who aspire to make their own monsters. And Skylanders Imaginators (for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) allows just that.
If classic Skylanders like the pirate octopus Wash Buckler and the reptilian Rattle Shake give you nightmares, wait until you see what the kids come up with.
Imaginator creation takes just a few minutes.
After booting up the game, you place a crystal on the portal attached to your console.
The crystal determines your elemental type — say, fire, water or magic — but everything else is up to you. You can choose one of 10 battle classes, like brawler, sorcerer or ninja. You can build a Skylander from dozens of heads,
torsos, limbs, headgear and other accessories. You can name it and give it a catchphrase. (My go-to guy is an undead skeleton with an eyeball for a head. His name is Stinky and his catchphrase is “Unleash the bananas.”)
Activision is going all-in with the build-a-monster creation concept, offering a separate mobile app called Skylanders Creator. It includes all the character design functions, as well as allowing you to order T-shirts, trading cards and even 3-D figurines of your favourite beasts.
Imaginators also introduces an entirely new type of character, the Master Sensei.
These creatures are not just unusually strong, they also enhance the skills of Imaginators of the same element.
Given all this — not to mention an animated series coming soon to Netflix — the video game itself could get lost in the shuffle.
Not to worry: Imaginators is the best game yet in the series, with more places to explore, more enemies to battle and more varied puzzles to solve.