When you think of mobile gaming, it typically never truly lives up to its console counterpart. Mobile/tablet platforms are for casual gaming, where Angry Birds fly around and Flappy Birds struggle to avoid pipes. When you think of games on tablets, it’s typically not close to being console quality. That is the hard and fast truth of the tablet and mobile gaming situation…right?
That notion can be thrown right the heck out the window with the tablet version of Skylanders Trap Team. The game is the exact same, at least in the actual gameplay, as its PlayStation and Xbox counterparts. How it’s played is quite different, and in some respects a bit better. So, let’s get right into it, shall we?
The first big thing you’ll notice is that there are no wires with this sucker. The portal is completely wireless and the controller that is firmly embedded (and detachable) is also wireless. The tablet that you’re using for the game can be placed in a nice padded slit on the left side of the portal. I reviewed this game on an iPad mini and it felt as stable and normal as can be. It was like an old Interact (you probably don’t remember that company) screen from the early 2000s that attached to a consoles, except a bit easier to see and use.
For reference, here is a list of tablets compatible with the tablet version of Skylanders Trap Team:
– Kindle Fire HD (2014)
– Kindle Fire HDX (2014)
– iPad 3rd Generation, 4th Generation, iPad Air, iPad Mini Retina
– Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro
– Samsung Galaxy Tab S
– Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Once the iPad Mini was intact, I easily launched the Trap Team application and got started with my second adventure with the Trap Team (my first was with PlayStation 3, here is the PlayStation 4 review from Kevin Hudson, if you want to check out the gameplay breakdown).
Now, a few things were noticeably different when playing this game. First, the portal and controller required AAA batteries to operate. When I was initially putting the batteries into both, I grumbled a bit about how the batteries were going to go dead well before my second charge of the iPad mini. I am happy to inform you that the battery life is still going and I’m on my fourth charge of the iPad. The batteries might be on the verge of dying, but as of right now, as I’m writing this review, that is not the case. Also, the iPad mini holds a pretty strong charge, at least two hours before it gets dangerously low. That should give you some indication of how long the batteries are lasting and how the power consumption is going with the controller and portal.
Once the game gets started, the adventure itself is the same as it was on the console version of the game. You get several different ways to play the game, which include the main story, the Kaos Doom Challenge mode and mini games scattered through out. Upgrading and leveling up is the same, as well as using old Skylanders — it’s the exact same game. The initial game, as I mentioned above and in my previous review, is the same across the board. Think about how nice it is to finally have something on a tablet that mimics a new game on consoles in 2014. That is pretty impressive, but there are a couple of caveats that will remind you how good you have it on a console.
The biggest caveat is that when you introduce new Skylanders to the tablet version the game has to download the Skylander into the device. That usually takes about 30 seconds to happen, but once it’s there, it’s there for good (unless you wipe the tablet). I experienced this with multiple Skylanders and while it wasn’t a true burden, it certainly did slow things down a little bit. I was still very impressed by what Skylanders could get in on the action in the tablet version of Trap Teams, though. As I stated above, the older Skylanders work fine with this version. My series 2 dragon (picture below) played just as well with the tablet Trap Team as it did with my PlayStation 3 version.
Now, the other tiny drag to this version of Trap Team is the loading time between stages. The processing power, graphics capability and RAM packed into tablets is simply no match for a gaming console, at least at this stage of the game. You will find about 30-45 seconds of loading time between levels. If you can understand and appreciate the fact that you’re playing on a mobile/tablet device, then you might be able to forgive this, as you should.
The wait time and batteries are probably the biggest downers of this release. Honestly speaking, they aren’t that bad in hindsight. You could have gotten a dumbed-down game of Trap Team on the tablet that might have been just a fraction of the game you get with the consoles, but you get the whole enchilada instead. I can wait 30-45 seconds to play the same game on the go, wireless to boot. That wireless part is huge, by the way, as parents will rejoice over this on long car rides. You can just prop the tablet, portal and controller anywhere. Tables, beds, car seats — anywhere. That is a huge deal. You kid-less gamers out there can’t appreciate it that much, but for us parents, that means the world. That means car rides to Maryland can be full of talkative traps instead of screaming kids. I honestly will take that any day of the week.
*SIGH*…*AHEM*
Getting off my parenting soapbox and back to the game review, an impressive feature about the tablet version of Trap Team is how your trinkets/hats gained in the console version can follow you into the tablet version. For example, my favorite Skylander in Trap Team, Jawbreaker, won a bird hat in the PlayStation 3 version. I used him at the beginning of the tablet version of the game and immediately after putting him on the portal, his bird hat came with him. That doesn’t seem like much, but the fact you transfer your trinkets on your characters, without having to win them all over again, is brilliant. Sure, I still had to go through the same levels, but the little things I obtained along the way in the PS3 version came with me to the tablet version. Neat stuff.
All in all, outside of just the batteries, load times and wireless-ness of the Trap Team tablet game, the same gameplay from the console version is still intact. You don’t miss one beat between the two, which is fantastic. This might be a good start for the rest of the gaming world to consider porting console games over to the tablet world. It may not work as smoothly as the console version, but the fact that it does work makes it worth the trouble. Now, I have Trap Team on the go. I like that a lot.
On the presentation side of things, Trap Team takes a bit of visual hit on the tablet version. You can see some frames drop in cutscenes (not as smooth) and some enemies slow when too many things are happening on the screen at once. I’m sure it varies from device to device, but the iPad mini I was using should have had enough power to see these things through a bit. It didn’t at times, so the game suffers a bit. When I say ‘lots of enemies on the screen’, I mean tons of them, so you won’t run into this too often, but it does happen.
As for the nitty-gritty details, the textures, models and overall environments look and feel the same, though you can see some graininess in the picture because of compression. Again, if you can step back and realize that you’re on a tablet, then maybe you can forgive it. For me, it wasn’t a big deal when compression imperfections cropped up. I’m just floored that this type of quality game can make it to a tablet. It’s incredibly impressive to see in action.
In the audio category of this game, I miss the speaker in the portal that the PlayStation 3 version had built into it. One of the coolest parts of the PS3 version of Trap Team was when you could trap a fallen enemy and hear their spiraling screams from screen down to the portal. Equally as cool is how the portal speaker makes the villain seem so separated from the action that is happening on the screen. When the trapped villain yammers out of that speaker, and the trap lights up with every word, it created this sense of cool gaming ambience that gave Trap Team a bit more personality. That is sadly not built into the tablet version of the Trap Team portal. In hindsight, it’s no big deal, as it doesn’t affect the gameplay, but for me it sheds a bit of personality from the way the game interacts and works. It seems like a petty complaint, but it was a cool thing to listen to on the PS3 side. I will give a bit of a break because the exclusion is probably due to battery life, but it is something I greatly miss on the tablet.
So is this game fun? The portability of it and the fact that it’s the same game from the console version is pretty cool. That makes it fun enough to look beyond the small imperfections that come with it. My daughters played this version of the game to death while I was writing. They propped the iPad mini and portal up on the kitchen table and just absolutely had a blast with the game. Seeing that gives me credible evidence that all my gaming complaints are just that — mine. This game was made with a younger gaming audience in mind and the visual proof of its success is written all over their faces. It’s not a perfect game by any means, and at least by my definition and expectations, but the gamers who are going to play it seem to think it’s fun.