A new Skylanders game released for the iOS today called Skylanders Cloud Patrol. We absolutely love all things Skylanders, so it was an easy decision for us to drop $0.99 to give it a try.
The premise of the game is very simple: Shoot trolls from the turret of your airship. The gameplay is fast and furious as you tap or swipe (for combos) trolls to fire your turret. You can also break crates and projectiles the trolls have launched toward you for bonuses. Careful — if you shoot a spikey bomb or shield you will get an instant game over. I enjoy the responsive, accurate, and simplistic shooting mechanics and there’s just the right amount of extras to make things interesting.
From what I can tell, it appears the levels are randomly generated to promote replayability in an otherwise slightly repetitive game. Cloud Patrol is one of those ‘never-ending’ games where you simply try to set new high scores and see how far you can go.
An achievement system is used to gain experience and increase your Skylander’s level. When you rank up, you are awarded gems, a highly coveted currency.
Like most iOS games, Skylanders: Cloud Patrol has in-app purchases. You can buy gems with real money, and use those gems to unlock Skylanders (for use in Cloud Patrol only) that you do not otherwise own. You can use the gold that you earn in-game (or buy gold with gems, which I don’t recommend at all) to upgrade magical items (used to increase score modifiers, slow gameplay, etc).
Keeping with Skylanders tradition, you can import your very own Skylanders that you own, from any version, into the game by inputting the number on the barcode that came with your particular figure. Activating them in-game gives you unfettered access and essentially ups the value of the app. The universal compatibility of the Skylanders franchise is easily the best feature.
My complaints are minimal. The biggest complaint I have is that the scenery doesn’t change. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure has snow, forest, grassy, pirate, etc. I would like to see them added into Cloud Patrol for free, but I suspect they will be an in-app purchase somewhere down the line. Second, I can’t tell what the different Skylanders do to change the game if anything at all. Maybe they bring with them certain magic items?
Activision’s Skylanders page shows two more “Coming soon” panels indicating that this is but the first of hopefully many more quality Skylanders titles. I definitely think Cloud Patrol is worth the small investment because of the ‘see how far I can get’ gameplay, but even more worthwhile if you’re an avid Skylanders fan.
Pros: Addictive fast-paced ‘never-ending’ gameplay, Skylanders compatibility
Cons: Skylanders themselves do not change the gameplay, Only one scenery location
Worth $0.99? Absolutely.
I might have to leave my wife to play Skylanders.
I can’t wait until mmorpg’s figure out how cool the basic idea would be.
Very cool. I had no idea this existed. I need to snag it. Thanks for the heads up.
the gems are hard to get, for 7 days i got 0 of them, i’ve unlocked 5 skylanders and i think the game is forcing me to buy thru app in purchase, sorry, no bonus
I get plenty of gems. You simply have to complete the achievements, and most of them are very straight forward like shoot a certain number of sheep or hit hats.
[…] Giants came out recently, and already there are more games in the works.  Activision released Skylanders: Cloud Patrol earlier this year, and we found it to be a decent game for the iOS platform. However, it lacked […]