What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

So I made a decision on this year's toys to life purchase. We're sticking with Skylanders. Infinity has Star Wars, but the gameplay I saw was still pretty lackluster and my kids aren't quite to where the toy box mode would be much more than a string of "daddy, come help" requests. Lego Dimensions has Doctor Who AND the Wizard of Oz, which almost sold it but I played around with it and it is...just like all of the other Lego games. What a let down, I was really hoping that they would do something else with it but it is more or less exactly the same as the others, but with new characters. We own like eight Lego games. None of which require a $120 starter. None of which we have actually finished. River and Scarlett saw Superchargers at Target and went bananas, so there it is.

I'm a cheapskate about this stuff so this is what I did. On eBay right now, you can get a Wii U starter set WITHOUT Donkey Kong and his car for like $20-$25. People are buying the set, taking the Nintendo stuff out (which also work as Amiibo) and selling them separately. This does leave you with an out-of-the-box unplayable set because you have to have at least one land vehicle, but by the time the buy-two-get-one sales show up around Halloween/toward Christmas I'll still come out way under the $75 retail. We don't get DK, which stinks, but I'll take a $50 savings over him. I'll get us one of each type of vehicle and their pilot and come in under $100 easily.

But I also happened to see that Trap Team starters have already bottomed out on eBay. I got a NIB one, sealed, for $25 shipped. That's ridiculous. Now I'm trawling for under-$10 trap masters and some traps. Traps are stupidly expensive, I thought I'd be able to grab sets for under $10, but that's not the case. We may just be catching blue dudes for a while.

It's like 2014 all over again.

We're picking up Superchargers pretty soon ourselves. I have a gift card we're waiting for and as soon as it shows up we go pick up a starter set and probably one extra vehicle. For me it's mostly about the uniqueness of Skylanders over the other series, I'm not nearly as interested in two different companies smashing together a bunch of properties I know well from other media as I am in what Skylanders has been doing. Which is a world created specifically for this particular game with new characters and a new setting. It feels like a much more vibrant and creative project to me as a result and I like to encourage new IP's anyway. Although I guess Skylanders is getting long in the tooth now.

I thought Trap Team was brilliant.. or at least the Trap part. The way my sons eye's lit up when the Villain got sucked into the trap and suddenly his voice was coming from the portal. They were about 7-10$ per trap here in Canada which is kind of a high price but you could get a complete set that ended up being something like 5$ a piece. I think they're worth it though because unlike a figure you get somewhere between 4 to 8 villains to control per trap... assuming you trap them all. We bought them very slowly and each one was a big deal when it showed up. You don't need the trap when you beat the villain either, you can go to Skylands Academy and stick them in later on. I think we have an extra fire trap hanging around too if you want it.

I'm still playing the Rainbow Six: Siege beta as often as I can. They extended it again until October 4. The game is really cool and if you like tactical shooters I think you'd like it. Smashing a hole in the wall and then shooting someone in the face on the other side is extremely satisfying.

JJ, PM me with a bill for that fire trap, ill take it.

Having played Trap Team, how much of a "deal" are the new light and dark elements? I'm looking at getting 4 trap masters and I have two already that I found at Target on the clearance endcap for no reason (nitro Head Rush and Tuff Luck), but I'm thinking about the light and dark ones for the other two. But they are a little more expensive. Worth it?

So I'm up to 100 hours of Destiny, probably about 70 of which are since TTK came out.

I'm 292 light, I haven't even done the new raid yet. I might have a problem.

Destiny 1.0 was really good. TTK is freaking awesome. It feels like the game has finally arrived with the new update. I don't have 100 hours yet, but I have doubled my hours over the past two weeks. I think I'm around 230 light. I haven't done any of the raids yet but the new strikes, from what I understand, incorporate some of the elements from them. I did one the other day that had all of this kind of stuff that was NOWHERE to be seen in the original release.

I think the biggest change they made is that now, everything you do feels productive and there is always something worth doing or pursuing. It was not like that this time last year. I remember trading the game in and telling the dude at Gamestop "I love it, but I do not have the time to invest in it". Now, they've made the economy much more accommodating and the leveling much more rewarding.

I had been feeling kind of down about having to miss Halo 5 since I don't have and am not buying an Xbone, but this game is, for all intents and purposes, the real Halo 5. And then some.

i'm at 150-160 light or something. I like that I'm always getting cool stuff regardless of what I do now.

My buddy is at 308 light. He's in the top 600 players or something.

It's fun but I never play on my own. There are solo missions that I have to do to unlock new subclass but I'd rather just play Magic Duels Origins when I'm on my own

I have pretty much only played Destiny on my own, except for one mission that required co-op. I don't like playing videogames with other people, even people I know.

Last night I finished the original main story quest, which felt abrupt to me. There are still side things and the expansions to go, but I was like, "really? that was the end?" Part of it is because I guess I wasn't even thinking about it having an end. The storyline is so generic and dull that an actual resolution doesn't seem needed. "Aliens are attacking, go kill them." That's pretty much all it is, so why have an "end" to it?

I wrote in detail about it on my blog . I've played a lot of it and will play more, but there just isn't much "there" there. Another reason the ending felt abrupt to me is that I haven't really felt like I've progressed that much. I know I've gotten better weapons and such, but not much has ever stood in my way anyway. The fact that the scrub monsters level up with me only means that I'm literally fighting the same fights over and over, always with similar results. There just isn't anything pushing me onwards other than inertia.

It's also weird to me in that it has these huge maps with all these little cubbyholes and tunnels and things, but there's little to no reward for exploring them. You *may* find a dead ghost or a chest, but neither of those things is too interesting and there's nothing else. I like exploring, but there's no payoff for straying from where the mission is telling you to go.

Maybe I'm just not playing it right.

You're playing it right! Without THE TAKEN KING, it is a laughably bad story, and abrupt is not the word I would use to describe the "ending" of the vanilla game. It's nonsensical. All this Hive, Taken stuff, Crota rumblings, the Moon is exploding--oh hey thanks for slowing down the newish guys (Vex) kthxbye.

You and I overlap strongly in experience space here. I never played an MMO, have no interest in talking to strangers, and prefer PVE to PVP. Also using vanilla Destiny in a The Taken King world. Shop around for a TTK code (you just need the code, there's nothing on that new disk that you didn't download in that fat ass file the other day) and fire that up. The game is transformed for me. I can access everything. I can finally equip the sweet ass weapons I bought from hairface guy, and I don't die in the Crucible instantaneously. Well, yes, I do, but I might take out them too! Prior to this I was literally emptying a 24-shot clip of a 140 Auto Rifle into a dude as he ran up and sworded me. Crucible was a chore.

If you hold off on The Taken King, I recommend playing the 6v6 Crucible to mimimize your impact--stick with the team as they approach, capture Control points, and mop up guys as they reload after killing your teammates. Every now and then you'll have a grenade or Super that you can use to great effect. I also had a lot of luck going "high" on stuff and shooting down. The radar is not able to detect this well and the opponents sometimes couldn't find me as I killed them. Also, join a faction. Just pick one, it doesn't matter and you'll have access to cool weapons if you decide to got to Taken King.

Other than that, just do Patrols and Strikes. Strikes are great. This is the teamwork-required stuff. I have never spoken to a Strike teammate--so don't sweat that. No one bothers, for the most part. If you see you are paired with Lvl 40s--follow their lead. They know where the strike is, and often jet away on bikes when it launches. Just try to keep up. When on Patrol, just hop around, kill dudes, help folks, and wait for events, get to those and pray other folks show up. I think you get prizes for "Gold" on those, so it's worth it.

I'll cross-post this to the new dedicated thread.

I picked up Lego Dimensions for my wife this past weekend and I have been very pleased with it. The writing is tops as is expected now for the franchise. The Dr. Who level in the base game is fantastic as you encounter the Weeping Angels, Ultramen, and Daleks. The portal works as a second input for solving traps or making sure an attack can strike an enemy. The enemies can also disable a section of the portal during an attack. The mash-ups that take place are good fun, The Joker in Springfield, Two-face on an LotR war elephant in Metropolis, Lex Luthor in the Ninjago universe. The entry cost is steep, but there is quite a bit of content in just the base set. Having extra figs allows you to explore the specific universe of that figure. I picked up Scooby-Doo, Wonder Woman, Wicked Witch from Oz, and Benny the spaceman. As they introduced in Lego DC, when WW flies, the 70s theme song plays and I dig that. A top notch effort that is curtailed only by the price to ride the ride. 8/10

We also plan on getting the Skylanders Superchargers to add to our already monstrous collection of those little bastards.

Michael Barnes wrote: Having played Trap Team, how much of a "deal" are the new light and dark elements? I'm looking at getting 4 trap masters and I have two already that I found at Target on the clearance endcap for no reason (nitro Head Rush and Tuff Luck), but I'm thinking about the light and dark ones for the other two. But they are a little more expensive. Worth it?

There's nothing particularly special about the light and dark trapmasters compared to normal ones really, although they do kick ass, I may be wrong but they seemed abnormally strong. In a game like Skylanders that's not really a positive in my mind. The Spires are cool though, I really liked both of the special levels that came from their respective buildings. The train one is all right too.

PM sent.

The large Skylanders are much stronger than the standard size ones. You are not mistaken. They make the Arena stupid easy. Trigger Happy 4 lyfe!!

My 10yo son is up on his Skylanders stats and he says KnightLight is the strongest Skylander by far (not sure if he's including Giants in there, but maybe) and KnightMare is the fastest by the same margin. CRAZY fast. Too fast for the 4yo to control, we need to swap him out because he can't tell what's going on when he's got that guy. They are fun though. We picked up a bunch of cheap guys at Gamestop (buy 2 get 3 on used Skylanders) and brought in all kinds of dudes from Giants and SwapForce. My son made a spreadsheet to figure out where our elemental/trap gaps are for future gifting reference. Staying a year behind Skylanders releases is totally worth it. Gamestop is buried in these guys from the older games.

My wife has a binder that she keeps all of her Skylander data in.

Jeb is absolutely correct- staying a year behind is the BEST way to handle Skylanders. The prices drop DRAMATICALLY. You can clean up on eBay if you are shrewd. I just got Knight Mare for $7 shipped, I went to $12 for Knight Light and that's about my upper limit. The starter sets in particular PLUMMET in value- Trap Team is about $20-$25...and if you don't get into the figures, that's still a full game right there with enough to play with. Right now, I wouldn't have done Superchargers if I didn't notice that Amiibo collectors were scrapping the starter after taking out DK and his car. But that was $25 for a $75 starter that came out two weeks ago.

But it can go the other way too...the three-packs of the light/dark trap masters and their spires or whatever are way over retail. Some of the rarer figures go up in value rather than down.

Anyway, Superchargers showed up yesterday and I couldn't help myself, I had to try it in advance of Santa Claus. So that meant I had to go buy a land vehicle since it's required, and my DK-stripped set didn't have one. I went to Target and chose the Crypt Crusher and accidentally bought Fiesta (that car's driver), the helicopter that goes with the starter set's Stealth Elf, and the three-pack that has the new Gil Grunt and his sweet ass brass fish submarine. Woops.

Played for about an hour- so far, it's awesome. The driving is handled in a really cool way. You have your guy and your vehicle on the portal, when you get to a vehicle area they hop in. If you have a matched set- like Fiesta and Crypt Crusher- the vehicle is supercharged and has enhanced features. Then it's a free-form driving/combat game. But I found a secret tunnel, and going through opened up- seamlessly- this Mario Kart- like track with a collection goal. It was quite cool. I also found that hillbilly fish dude, who told me I needed a water vehicle to do his challenge- so I put on the sub, it was a full-on water mission with diving and everything.

The vehicles are really neat. They are more toy-like than the statue-like figures- rolling wheels, whirling blades, flipping flippers. No base on them.

Fiesta is probably my favorite character now. He's a Dia de los Muertos-themed one with a sugar skull head, gaucho outfit, sombrero, etc. His main attack is MUSIC, which he blasts from a horn. Secondary is that he summons a skeleton band. Adorable. When he's in the Crypt Crusher, it supercharges and has an accordion for a blower and a giant bass drum for its rear wheel.

The vehicles also have four different upgrade points, so there's a little extra complexity there.

So far so good...