Skylanders Giants Starter Pack - Nintendo Wii

Skylanders Giants is an excellent game because of all the different characters! The game is shorter than Spyro's Adventure and have no water area the water skylanders can swim but in exchange they have elemental areas which in my personal opinion is not as good as having water areas since some skylanders have upgrades that do with water areas.( such as stump smash...... )Some of my personal favorite skylanders and the paths I have the most fun with are ( every skylander's ability I am talking about might one of his or her upgrades ):Fire :Eruptor - Volcanor because the eruption attack and defeat all enemies around youHot Head - both path are good and he's got a cool soul gem abilityWater :Gill Grunt - Water Weaver since his soul gem and Wow-Pow is almost the same attack as the other pathSlam Bam - Blizzard Brawler because he gets super strong in that pathTech :Trigger Happy - Golden Frenzy because the great distance protect you from getting hitSproket : Gearhead because you can just build turret, go away, and they will defeat your enemy automaticallyLife :Stealth Elf - Pook Blade Saint because she's got excellent speed and is the strongest in close-distance battle, her floating sword are cool and powerfulStump Smash - Smash `N' Bash because this path is strong and his Wow-Pow give the power of the other path, even though his soul gem is completely useless in Skylander Giants since there isn't one single water areaShroomboom - Barrier Boost since this path is much more better than the other path in my opinionTree Rex - Treefolk Charger since he get super strong in this path if you know how to use it properlyAir :Sonic Boom - Medea Griffin since in this path the babies does a lot of damageWhirlwind - Ultimate Rainbower because the rainbows is very cool and beautiful but she's certainly not that strong......Jet-Vac - Vac-Packeteer because it is a good way collect items and increase your speedSwarm - Wasp Stormer because the transform into bugs ability is very cool and useful, the figure itself is very nice looking, too.Earth :Terrafin - Sandhog since he is the only skylander so far that can dig underground, while underground he can pick up power-ups and damage enemiesPrism Break - Crystaleer since he will get more useful attack and an armor in this pathBash - Pulver Dragon since in this path he can smash his enemies quickly and roll aroundFlashwing - Super Shards because in this path she has a very useful way to heal herself and do damage to multiple enemiesMagic :Pop Fizz - Best of the Beast because his potion power is already strong enough so he just need to improve the time transform into beast formNinjini - Ancient Djinn Magic because in bottle shooting missiles are cool and she have great statUndead :Ghost Roaster - Fear Eater because you can avoid bigger damage and does more damage to enemies the skull charge is very strong alreadyHex - Bone Crafter since it is way better than the other path, you can just make walls of bone and shoot out skull rainsChop Chop - Vampiric Warrior since the Wow-Pow give him similar effect as the other path and this path give him excellent attacksCynder - Both path are very good but if you have Lightning Rod pick the Shadowdancer pathAll the Skylanders above are ones that I really like and I do enjoy them. P.S. the characters I didn't list might just mean I don't have them or I don't like them as much as this.

Ok, I am the type of person that researches everything before I buy it and read every review, so I want to be helpful to parents like myself who are new to this whole Skylanders thing. First of all let me say that it is actually a pretty cute game and my 6 year old daughter is completely in love with it. That being said, let me answer some of the questions I had when I started looking into it.Is it too violent for a young child? While there is a lot of sword play and shooting of lasers and things like that, there is no blood or gore. The bad guys (some of which may look a little creepy for some young children) just disappear when you defeat them leaving jewels in their place for you to collect. My daughter can be a little sensitive about that stuff sometimes but it never bothered her with this game. And one thing I like for kids is that when your character is defeated in a battle, it doesn't "die" or "lose a life" like in other games. It simply "needs to rest" and you can switch to a different character to continue playing.Should I get Giants or Spyros adventure? Well, all of the figures work on the Giants game, but only the older ones work on the Spyro game. We were better off getting the Giants one so we wouldn't have to worry whether the figures will work with the game or not.Should we get it for the Wii or for the 3ds? While the thought of being able to bring the game with her and not having to dominate the tv was nice, from what I have seen, the Wii game does more. I believe, though I could be wrong, that on the ds you can only play with two different characters per game where on the Wii, you can switch between any at any time.Will it get expensive? Probably. The figures range in price and can add up because, of course, my daughter wants to collect them all. But it can be a good lesson in saving money. And by the way, of course, some figures are "rare" and hard to find, but patience pays off! Don't spend ridiculous amounts of money for one character on a website when, if you are lucky, you can get the same thing at a store for a lot less. The Ninjini character is selling here for more than $30, but we just happened to come across it at a popular toy store for $15. Hint: find out what day of the week the store gets its shipment in!Is it good for girls as well as boys? Absolutely! It is not really very girly, but many of the characters are girls! It is kind of nice to have strong female characters in a video game who are not overly sexy and half naked. There is nothing inappropriate about the female characters at all.Overall, we are very happy with this game! My daughter wants to play it a lot! She has already beaten the whole game but loves to go back and replay it and try to find all the things she missed. I do wish it was a little longer perhaps, but other than that, I have no problem with it. And my daughter loves to play with the figures as just plain toys when she isn't playing the video game. Nice for her to make up her own adventures!

This is a great gift for anyone who is a Skylanders fan and has a Wii!!!