Head to any Toys R Us and take a look at their video game section and look for the large space where the Skylanders figures should be and you will see a trail of utter decimation. In talking to a Toys R Us employee, we were told that the only day the Skylanders’ rack isn’t empty is the day deliveries come in. And by end of that day, it is already down to half of its stock. So, it’s no surprise that Activision will be officially unveiling the follow-up to Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure at Toy Fair in New York City next week with Skylanders Giants.

With promises of eight brand new regular Skylanders and eight completely new Giant Skylanders that also light up when close to the Portal of Power, it looks like the creators are going to have a ton of fun expanding on the Skylanders universe.

Skylanders Giants builds upon the breakthrough fundamentals of the first game-merging the physical and virtual realms with an innovative line of cross-platform toy figures that have “brains,” which players everywhere can magically bring to life in the world of Skylands. This next installment of the franchise features a variety of new characters, new challenges, a thrilling new story-driven adventure, and advanced integration across console, handheld, mobile and online:

Going Big: Skylanders Giants introduces eight new highly collectible figures that are more than twice the size of the main skylanders cast in both physical and virtual form. Their in-game powers and abilities reflect their colossal scale.

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Just when you thought Activision had filled your shelves with enough little plastic figures for Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure, they release a third wave of these collectible interactive toys. Now available are the Cynder and Double Trouble individual blister packs as well as the Empire of Ice Adventure Pack which features a new playable level to the game, the character Slam Bam and two new in game items (including a very familiar looking shield).

Check out the screens and videos for all three new characters below.

Cynder

Volts And Lightning!

Element: Undead

Primary Attack: Spectral Lightning

Secondary Attack: Shadow Dash

Upgrades include:

• Cynder Flight
• Black Lightning
• Shadow Reach

Bio: While just an egg, Cynder was stolen by the henchmen of an evil dragon named Malefor and raised to do his bidding. For years, she spread fear throughout the land until she was defeated by Spyro the dragon and freed from the grip of Malefor. But dark powers still flow through her, and despite her desire to make amends for her past, most Skylanders try to keep a safe distance… just in case.

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One thing we’ve learned is there are too many games and too little time to play them all. This also means there isn’t even enough time to give all of them awards, but we try our best. Today we take a look at both the most time consuming efforts of the past year as well as give some awards for games that deserve some notable mentions as well.

Game Most Likely to Consume Your Life: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Two Hundred and Fifty Hours. By most estimates, this is how long it’ll take an average player to explore MOST of the content of Skyrim. To give some perspective, if the average person works a 40 hour a week job, Skyrim would take six and a quarter full work weeks to complete. Now, we realize that most gamers work jobs outside of the gaming industry and cannot devote a full forty hours a week to a single game.

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Yesterday we took a look at Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Capcom, Dark Souls and Portal 2. Today, we have a whole second set of awards to be given out for the best (and worst) of 2011.

Game That Shouldn’t Have Taken Nearly As Long to Come Out: Duke Nukem Forever

What happened in the time span since Duke Nukem Forever began development?

The entire Presidential run of George W. Bush.

This writer’s entire high school and college career.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and The Clone Wars were all released in theaters.

The XBox was released and ended its lifecycle.

Activision released 7 proper Call of Duty titles.

Lost.

A child born when development started would have grown to be a teenager.

The list goes on and on…

And the worst part is, after all that wait… Duke Nukem Forever wasn’t very good when it did finally come out. What was considered controversial when the game began production is pretty tame by comparison to what people are enjoying in gaming now and the humor comes off as sophomoric instead of clever.

While we can understand the desire to release a passion project to finally let it see the light of day, sometimes it is better to let it enjoy a quiet death with some dignity instead of coming out guns blazing as a failure.

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Check out the latest episode of the Bitcast with JC and WallE as they explore the world of gaming. In the news, the two reflect on the Grand Theft Auto V launch trailer and recap their predictions from the last episode and see who did better. Also discussed are the November 8th PSN releases of Crono Cross, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI.

In the Topic of the Week section, the Bitcast takes a look at the Free to Play gaming model which is becoming more and more prevelent in gaming today. The two discuss both the merits and concerns of the concept, look at how it has been implemented in existing titles and talk about what it can have in store for the future.

In their Now Playing, WallE has a throwback moment as he looks back at the original Uncharted for the PS3. JC expands further on his time with his review for Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure.

What can a series do after destroying Washington DC? Attacking New York City, Paris and London might be a good way to kick things off. Russian Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov is at it again with his master plan in full effect. After sending the world to the brink of chaos two years ago in Modern Warfare 2, Makarov is back as he kicks off the third world war. Captain John “Soap” MacTavish and SAS Captain John Price must come together again to stop him in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

To say Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the most anticipated game of all time may sound like hyperbole but after what happened with Call of Duty: Black Ops, the game that people expected would sell less than Modern Warfare 2, the level of hype behind this title is unreal.

After its predecessor set worldwide entertainment sales figures, the rest of the video game world has its sights set on Call of Duty’s spot at the top. Even its closest competitor, Battlefield 3 has directly stated its intentions with a tag line to their advertising campaign trying to knock Call of Duty down a peg.

Take a peek below at the trailer for what could be again the biggest entertainment launch in history on November 8th for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and PC.

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What is the one thing that has been missing from both the recent Transformers game reboot with War for Cybertron and the Michael Bay film franchise? Ponder that for a moment.

Last summer kicked off with Transformers: War for Cybertron, a return to the much heralded Transformers original G1 continuity. And we all know that for purists of a series, continuity is everything. Players got to take on the roles of both the Autobots and Decepticons as their civil war ripped all of Cybertron apart. The rise of Optimus Prime and the decent of Starscream were both key story elements as well as the Autobots being brought down to their weakest moments before the story ended in somewhat of a cliffhanger of the fate of the world.

This summer, High Moon Studios had to step back from the series and put out the Transformers: Dark of the Moon tie-in game, which while good for movie game standards, it was no War for Cybertron. Thankfully, the folks at Activision and High Moon Studios have heard the cry of Transformer fanboys world wide and are continuing with the story we have been hungering for over the past year.

At New York Comic Con, Activision released the first trailer for the game with only this statement:

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Last year, Beenox took a drastic departure from the Spider-Man video game experience by not only taking the open world sandbox enviroment out of play, but also for the first time creating a game that had multiple Spider-Men at the player’s fingertips with Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.

This year’s iteration of the Spider-Man franchise brings a different experience as well. While the Spider-Men in Shattered Dimensions all shared a common goal, their actions were independent of each other.

Now, in Spider-Man: Edge of Time both Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 must work together to save the past as well as the future from a mad scientist who has interfered with the time stream by causing the death of Spider-Man.

Gameplay:

Much like the previous Spider-Man title, Spider-Man: Edge of Time focuses on contained levels instead of a free roaming city. The story is kept fairly on rails with little room for full exploration, though there are hidden collectibles that can be used to upgrade the powers of both Spider-Man and his 2099 counterpart throughout the game. As a result, the focus on much of the game revolves around combat.

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It’s been year since the release of a quality X-Men title. Not since X-Men Legends and its sequel has there really been a game that captured the essence of Marvel’s band of merry mutants, especially with the pitiful movie tie-in titles that have been released.

When X-Men: Destiny was announced by Activision and Silicon Knights, the makers of Too Human, players hoped their prayers would be answered as they would get to experience what it was like for an emerging mutant caught between the turmoil of the X-Men, Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants and the humans who seek to end the “mutant menace”.

Instead, what they got was a half handed execution that feels like a franchise cash-in rushed out in order to hit the holiday game season before the larger releases like Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3.

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When looking back at the most truly terrifying moments in film in the last thirty years, some can be found in both Alien and its sequel Aliens. Though the series started to focus more on action than horror in its later iterations, no one can say the first time they saw Sigorney Weaver face to face with a xenomorph that it wasn’t a horrifying experience.

The Alien franchise has always had a home in video games with everything from side scrolling adventures on the NES to the much acclaimed first person shooter Aliens vs. Predator titles on PC in 1999. SEGA is now bringing out two new Aliens titles over the coming months. The most prominent of the two comes in the form of Aliens: Colonial Marines for PC, XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Aliens: Colonial Marines has been a subject of much discussion in the video game world. At one point, there was a game set to release in 2002 entitled Aliens: Colonial Marines which ended up being canceled. Later, SEGA revived the name with a new development team and concept, slating it for a 2009 release. It would end up being delayed for about three years in favor of development of the updated Aliens vs. Predators title which came out to mixed reviews.

Now, Aliens: Colonial Marines looks like it is finally set to come out in 2012 from Gearbox Software. Gearbox is the team that put together the Opposing Force and Blue Shift expansions for the original Half-Life and most recently released the now infamous Duke Nukem Forever.

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