Holy Punniness, Batman! Skylanders Giants has been available in stores since late October and is expected to be one of the big items on holiday wishlists. The collection of characters is back for a platformer-shooter mashup made for the entire family.

What comes in the box: Do you already have a portal for your desired platform? If you do, then you can get the portal owner’s pack with Tree Rex and the game. If you don’t have the portal for the platform you want to play on, you can get a starter pack with two additional Skylanders, a portal, and the game. Both also come with a poster of all of the Giants/series 2 characters, trading cards, and stickers (for the characters in the box).

Platforms: I played it on the Xbox 360 , but it is also available for the Wii, 3DS, and PlayStation 3 .

Story: The story is pretty simple. Kaos (the evil guy who is comparable to Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb - and voiced by Richard Horvitz of Invader Zim fame) is back. He goes through a portal and takes over a really big robot. The Skylanders' job is to help Captain Flynn (voiced by Patrick Warburton) put his ship back together and track down Kaos before he can get into too much trouble. Though the story is very simple, the voice acting crew and musical score by Hans Zimmer give the feel of watching a Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

The story is told in 16 chapters that visit different strange lands. Each chapter has achievements to earn.

• Story Goals: If you make it to the end of the chapter without getting stuck you will meet your story goals. They differ chapter-to-chapter.
• Dares: The game sort of taunts you to complete goals such as completing the chapter quickly, getting rid of a certain number of enemy monsters, finding all of the secret areas in the chapter, and not losing any lives.
• Collections: In each chapter several items are hidden but are not necessary to complete the game. Items include: Soul Gems which unlock a special ability for a specific Skylander, Legendary Treasure which is essentially a way to bling-out your ship, hats which improve the stats of the Skylander wearing them, Story Scrolls which give back story for the main characters, Winged Sapphires which lower the cost of purchasing abilities for your Skylanders, treasure chests that hold lovely money, and Luck-o-tron Wheels which can be fed into a machine to increase the amount of health, wealth, experience, and power collected.

Characters: The character figure that comes with both games is Tree Rex. He is a Giant, the newest kind of Skylander. The newly dubbed “Series 1” characters from Skylanders Spyro's Adventure still work in the Giants games along with the other new "Series 2" Skylanders (some new, and some redone old favorites). Giants are very strong and can throw boulders and bust through floors and doors without using a bomb. They also light up on the portal. Another part of the new series of characters is called Lightcore. Other than lighting up when they are put on the portal, I haven’t had an opportunity to see if they do anything special in game.

• Abilities: Each character can purchase abilities to make them hit harder, have special attacks, or fly. The abilities are set up so that you get to choose the path of each character's growth.
• Levels: Every time an enemy monster is destroyed, the character can pick up experience balls. When a character levels up, their health is slightly increased. An individual character can level up to 15.
• Hats: An objective in each chapter is to collect all of the hidden hats. Each hat if worn by a Skylander increases a stat or two.
• Quests: each character has a number of quests, such as defeating a certain number of monsters, eating a large amount of food, or odd things like letting bosses beat you. Completing quests unlocks tophats for that Skylander.

Game play: In this simplified platformer, Skylanders are placed on a portal so you can move through the game completing small tasks, solving puzzles, and fighting enemies. Each Skylander has a type. The new Tree Rex, for example is a Life type. In each area a type of Skylander is announced, "Skylanders of the (insert Life, Magic, Earth, Water, Tech, Death, Air or Fire) are stronger in this area." If you have a Skylander of the type announced, it has bolstered abilities while in that area. Some secret areas that hide treasure require a certain type of Skylander to enter. If you don't have the type, it's okay. The game can still move forward. There is no jumping in the game, meaning that you don’t have to worry too much about falling off the different platforms you visit. You do, however, have to complete little mini-games.

Mini-games: Mini-games are found throughout the story and on the ship that takes you between areas (and chapters).

• SkyStones: The Skylanders collect little square stones with characters on them and thorns on the sides called Skystones. Opponents can be found throughout the story. Sometimes a goal can be accomplished by beating a Skystones opponent; but mostly, it just adds Skystones to the Skylanders’. The game is played on a 3x3 or 4x4 grid.When a Skystone is played, if it has more thorns on the side facing an opponents’ Skystone than the opponents’ stone, the stone changes to that player’s side. Whoever has the most Skystones at the end of the game wins.
• Lock Puzzles: Some special areas that hold treasure are blocked by lock puzzles. These puzzles are unlocked by twisting the gizmo and making the monster fall into the tumblers to unlock them.
• Cannon Game: On the ship, you can climb down into the cannon area to shoot sheep and incoming rockets for money.
• Heroic Challenges: These mini-games are the toughest part of the game in my opinion. Found on the ship, these challenges range from making zombies dance to killing spiders. They are all timed. If the challenges are completed, the rewards increase your Skylander's stats.
• Arena Challenges: It's an arena. Monsters are thrown at your Skylanderin waves. Survive for monetary rewards.

In my opinion: If you have never played a Skylanders game before this is a fantastic stand-alone game. The game comes with the bare-minimum of Skylanders needed to complete the story. Additional Skylanders are needed to complete the additional goals. I prefer this game to the previous game, which I played on the 3DS, because of the lack of needing to jump in Giants. My three-year-old helps play by changing Skylanders when necessary, and driving around the ship between chapters. My six-year-old is on Chapter 6 in easy mode. Since the dialog is both spoken and written on the screen, kids who are still learning to read can learn while enjoying game-play. I have made it through all of the chapters and have unlocked nightmare mode. I am now going through and picking up any goals that were unmet in the first go through, and picking up money to purchase all of the abilities for the Skylanders we own. My husband likes going through the challenges and increasing the Skylanders skills.

I was concerned when I purchased Skylanders Spyro's Adventure that it was a money-sucking franchise. The figurines are so cute and scream, “BUY ME” to kids and parents. You would think that little plastic figures wouldn’t be worth the $7-$20. But they are, and after playing some trading card games that cost a $100 every couple of months to keep up on the newest and best cards, buying a figure and throwing it in an Easter Basket, stocking, or Valentine gift doesn't cost much and eventually you have one of each.

If I have to say something negative about the game, it’s annoying when occasionally the point of view changes from behind the character to beside or in front of the character. But it doesn’t happen often, and not badly enough to throw the controller in disgust. The story is very simple. Also, the graphics are not on the same level as the music score and voice acting. Are these issues enough to make me sorry I bought the game? Absolutely not.

GeekMom approved or “meh”: This game lives up to the hype. It is amazing. It can be found in pretty much any retail establishment right now, including Amazon, and is $78 for a starter pack and $60 for someone who owns a portal for their desired platform. Skylanders figures can be purchased for $7-20 dollars.