Sky landers: gather and educate me please

[TSSDNCOP]

Do I need a Wii or can I download an App on an Ipad?

What do the figures do? Are the like Angry Bird telepods where you can portal them into a games.

Am I opening a can of worms where the lid should be kept well and truly closed?

as far as I know, you can only get the game on the normal consoles e.g. Playstation, xbox, wii or DS (3ds maybe?)

You need a portal and the game and some characters - the characters you place on the portal are the ones you use in the game.

you can use all the characters from the the older games in the newer ones but not back the other way. i.e. new characters don't work on the older versions of the game.

There is a mobile app but it doesn't have the functionality of the wii/ps version. You can get the original Skylanders game quite cheaply now. Skylanders and S Giants use the sameportal but annoyingly you have to have a different one for Swapforce.

There are 3 mobile apps, Skylanders Lost Islands, which is a build-a-village type game, Skylanders cloud patrol, which is a shooting trolls game and Skylanders battlegrounds which is more of a conventional game.

You can get a mobile starter pack (currently £17 on amazon) which comes with a code to download the Battlegrounds game, 3 figures, a treasure chest and a portal which will transport the skylanders into the games but once they are in the portal isn't needed for mobile games- you could also just use the codes which come with the skylander figures to put them into the game instead of buying the portal set.

Alternatively you can buy the game for a console, which is a much more in-depth game and loads of fun. They are great games and my boys love the figures.

The thing is we don't have a console of any sort.

Until now DS has been content with the Ipad and totally into Angry Birds. Now, 23 sodding days before Christmas this new fangledness has entered our lives.

Could I get away with the App plus some figures for now, maybe buy a games console for his birthday?

Yes, I reckon you could. The Lost Islands and Cloud patrol were free apps when I downloaded them, though they may charge now. The mobile starter pack is for iPod/ipad and is good value with 3 figures for £17, as they are normally £8+ each. The figures can be used on all platforms so if you did later get a console they will work on that game too. Swap force figures don't work with the Cloud Patrol game at the moment but they do work with Lost Islands.

If you don't have a console, don't start with Skylanders! It's not a beginners' game so I'd get a console with something like Mario Kart to begin with and then move onto skylanders (if you get a wii, you need a nunchuck to play it too).

I'm sure you could do the mobile apps now (I was thinking of Battlegrounds - you don't need the mobile portal to play Cloud Patrol or Lost Islands). The more figures you have, the better the games are (there are 7 (I think) different elements so ideally you need one from each) but I actually like that if you have family that want present ideas because the figures are lowish cost and you can buy them over time

Then that sounds like a plan for the short term.

I'm trying to delay full on games consoles for as long as possible. I can police an a ipad far easier.

Thank you for your advice