Like the Skylanders, the Giants were banished to Earth in little figurines that come to life when you place them on the Portal of Power®. Skylanders Giants features lots of hidden and secret areas and, while it maintains the elemental zones of the first game, it has ramped up the theme in each. Gameplay also remains the same. As a bonus, Skylanders both old and new have a new level cap of 15!
This wouldn’t be a new Skylanders game without new Skylanders! Activision is launching three new types of Skylanders with Skylanders Giants:
The Giants which (shockingly!) are larger also have super powers. Tree-Rex, a Life Giant, was shown picking up a boulder and hurling it at enemies. Some, if not all, of the Giants light up when placed on the Portal.
Lightcore™ Skylanders have special Lightcore™ powers and also light up when placed on the Portal.
There are also new Series 2 Skylanders that come with a new “Wow Pow” upgrade to their attacks along with the aforementioned level cap. While the Skylanders themselves work on either game the “Wow Pow” upgrade and level cap are only available in Giants.
There will also be new Skylanders released alongside Skylanders Giants totaling 40 new ones! Some are re-released with powers such as Prism Break while others are new like Pop-Fizz. Pop-Fizz is a magic character that uses potions (soda) to turn into a wild character as he attacks. The new and old characters will work in both Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure as well as Giants.
Skylanders Giants maintains the cross-platform play of the original by saving your characters information in the toy itself. Speaking of play-Giants includes adventure mode, vs mode and a new mode called Ring Out. Ring Out is what it sounds like with your goal being to knock your opponent out of the ring.
Skylanders Giants is published by Activision and is due to release in October 2012.
EDIT: Here are some show floor photos for Skylanders Giants from ElektraFi
