Skylanders Trap Team Tablet Starter Pack Review

The Skylanders universe is massive. Inside you'll find a younger audience-oriented gaming world where you're able to play on a console or on your tablet – more so now than ever. With the Skylanders Trap Team Tablet Starter Pack, users are encouraged to tap in with the tablet they already own – an iPad or, in our case, an NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet. Here we get the full version of the Skylanders Trap Team game – the same as you'd play on your console – ready to rock on a portable tablet.

What you're getting in the Tablet Starter Pack box is this portal – which also doubles as a tablet stand – two Skylanders, two traps, and a game controller. Activision gives you everything you need to start playing this game BUT the tablet itself. Even batteries are included for the controller.

With the Tablet version of this game you do not get the disk to play on your home console. Instead you get the controller to play on your tablet – other than that, it's essentially the same game.

The game on tablet truly is console-level great, coming in at 3GB of content just for starters. The further you go – the more the game expands – the more potential for downloads you get. Not paid downloads, mind you – you're playing this game for free.

Above you'll see a very, very short demo of the game as we played it near the beginning. Here we've got both of our basic Skylander figures and we've trapped a sheep villain. Once you trap a villain, you keep it in your "trap" and just like you switch characters with the portal, you place the trap in the keyhole and load them up.

Your kid will know what's going on even if you don't happen to have any idea what all this switching is about. It's really radical for kid – tactile feeling for a digital game. Good times.

The Skylanders line of games – in their tablet form, anyway – are run on the assumption that you'll want to attain additional Skylander figurines to get further in the game. Better figurines, more unique powers, and so forth.

While iPad players will mostly be using the controller included in-box, you can use any Bluetooth controller you wish. For the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet, we're using our SHIELD Wireless Controller – the tablet controller king, of course.

• The game doesn't require the portal, but the portal makes the game more fun.

• The game doesn't require a wireless controller, but the wireless controller makes the game more fun.

• The game doesn't actually require this package at all, but your kid is going to want it – and you'll be happy you made the investment.

If you've got a kid that loves Skylanders, they or you have a tablet, and they don't yet own Skylanders Trap Team, you've got a perfect holiday package on your hands, right here and now. At the time this review is published, Skylanders Trap Team Tablet Starter Pack will cost you $74.99 USD.

Expand with figurines in your Christmas stockings and give them something to do the whole Christmas evening long. That's the way you do it.