One of the guilty pleasures that I have had over the years have been seeing the next Skylanders title in action at E3 and this year was no slouch as Skylanders SuperChargers was on the scene and showing off all of the new hardware and story coming to the franchise. This would be the latest from Vicarious Visions that is bringing vehicles to the mix of Skylands and to bring down the Evil Lord Kaos and all of his Doom-machines. If you knew the franchise that explanation of Skylanders SuperChargers would make perfect sense but none the less we have new, or newish, characters and their vehicles that also brings new gameplay and we were on the scene to see what we can expect to be new to the franchise with Skylanders SuperChargers when it launches on September 20^th on the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Wii U, and 3DS.

Right off the bat the first question that seems to be answered for Skylanders SuperChargers is that you have the option to buy the latest portal to link the game to your toys or you can use any of the older ones and still be able to play with the new characters. In fact, the only hang up anyone may still have is if they didn't pick up Trap Team and need to have a way to use the trap keys in Skylanders SuperChargers the new portal has access for this so none of the old toys will be left out but if you don't want to have yet another portal added into the mix you don't have to. In fact, Skylanders SuperChargers is going to be offered digitally for those who don't want to have to buy all of that and just want to focus on the toys and the game; at least the game without the physical copy filling up your gaming rack.

Now that we've covered that, and before we dig into all of the new features, all of your old toys will work for Skylanders SuperChargers so the collection won't go to waste. They will all even be able to link up to the new vehicles if need be but only the SuperChargers will be able to grant added bonuses to the vehicles when in use. This also extends to trapped characters in trap keys. In those instances the keys will offer up a bit of a boost for the vehicle or in some cases grant full on extra attacks based on the character trapped and the elements involved. Not much details was gone into on this but at least Vicarious Visions and Activision are doing what they can to keep everything moving forward in Skylanders SuperChargers unlike other IPs that have gone through a full redesign and hardware changes. No salt here though.

On to the new items here. Obviously the bigger aspect of Skylanders SuperChargers is going to be the new vehicles. At the end of the day that is the new gameplay mechanic that is coming to the game and they all come in ways that you could basically assume here. There are new areas in Skylanders SuperChargers that require your vehicle or a specific vehicle type to progress though the main story as well as special areas. I am pretty sure that the story ones will all revolve around the car shown in the trailers as it is the vehicle that comes with the basic pack but if I understood correctly when it comes to the story progression in Skylanders SuperChargers the game will grant you the needed vehicle so you don't get shafted because you don't have a specific toy or not. It would seem odd and extremely messed up if Activision required you to buy a bunch of toys just to get through the basic story of Skylanders SuperChargers after all.

While the vehicle is considered a character in Skylanders SuperChargers you can still have two other playable characters on the portal at the same time. Player one will operate said vehicle while player two takes up the heavy weapons; at least during the sections in the game that require a vehicle to progress through with your characters. It may look like Skylanders SuperChargers is a solo gameplay now with the vehicle additions but it still keeps to the franchise and can be a co-op thing. I know that was my concern as Skylanders SuperChargers does seem like it would have wanted to continue the parent playing with the kids aspect of the game instead of turning into the basic video game babysitter that many other titles have become over the years. So fret not all of you loyal readers out there.

Lastly, as there haven't been many changes to the normal platforming mechanics to report on, Skylanders SuperChargers allows players to team up their special characters with said vehicles for extra bonuses and exclusive just for that vehicle. Each has its own driver and when pared it gets "SuperCharged" and gains all kinds of stat bonuses that correlate into physical transformations to the in-game vehicle. These are always things that stack onto all of the normal bonuses that you can add to the vehicle through in-game pickups but always take on the newer SuperCharged look. It is the kind of bonus you would expect for when the natural driver is behind the wheel of their own car but it is worth noting as in Skylanders SuperChargers this is also the most badass any of them will ever look so it pays to have the driver match the vehicle.

As with all of the older Skylanders titles the only real gripe that I seem to be able to find about Skylanders SuperChargers right now is the fact that there are going to be more than twenty new character toys with vehicles to purchase and that is just a lot of extra money we need to give Activision to make sure we are getting the best experience for Skylanders SuperChargers. Either way I know I'll be dropping the funds and enjoying myself when the game launches in September. I'll also be sure to keep you all up to date with all things Skylanders SuperChargers as that date looms closer so keep it here to be sure not to miss a thing.