1004 Homestuck.

For the record, both of the girls’ outfits were guessed between the two sites eventually. Jo’s outfit is reminiscent of Glitter the pixie from Kidd Video and Jess is wearing something similar to Aja’s outfit from the episode of Jem titled Last Resorts. Last Resorts is the episode where Jem and Rio wrassle a bear. Yeah, you read that right. They wrassle a bear. I know that last sentence is going to make this one seem insane, but Jem actually had moments of really exceptional writing for the time. Kidd Video was pretty terrible across the board.

They released a new IOS Skylanders game AND a My Little Pony one too. They’re basically facebook games, like Smurfs or what have you. You don’t really play them, you manipulate their world like a zen garden, but that’s about it. Exactly the type of ridiculous tedium that I easily obsess over. You can import Your Skylanders into the one game, which gets you little bonuses, but you still have the option of buying in game currency. One thing both these games share is a completely insane idea of what the value of DLC is. You get virtually nothing for your money. I certainly don’t hate DLC, but a person should be able to purchase every item available for the estimated cost of the game itself, if the game is free, or for almost nothing if they already paid for the game. I shit you not, Princess Celestia costs about $70. Do you know what her powers are in game? Standing there and/or wandering around. That’s it. That’s all this thing is. A few frames of recycled animation with a skin on it. For $70 fucking dollars. It’s insane. There’s no way the development cost percipitates this kind of gouging.

The game functions more or less fine without the premium ponies. Except for the main ones are kind of part of the story and you have to buy 2 of them. Basically the game stalls out after a while if you don’t. And they aren’t cheap. Rarity is about $10. Which is more than a right thinking person would pay for the game. That said, they did a nice job. The actual voice actors did the speaking parts and they didn’t phone it in. The art is true to the show, apart from the ponies looking a little odd in 3d. Really though they translate a lot better than I would have expected. I haven’t gotten far enough to unlock Rainbow Dash, but I hear that she is much more pricey than Rarity. They really should have made the main cast available with in earnable currency. Anything apart from that is fair game in my book. Although I still think the pricing structure is insane, and greedy to the point of obscenity. Considering the fit some people pitched over Derpy you’d think the fans could rise up and get something done about this too, but who knows.

The skylanders game is pretty mercinary too for it’s part, but if you already own the Skylanders it doesn’t make you pay for them. I wouldn’t put doing something like that past Activision. If you buy a Skylander in game it costs about $8. Which makes buying them in game so fucking stupid I can’t imagine anyone ever doing it. Going to the store and buying the toy will cost you ONLY SLIGHTLY MORE and you walk away with a toy that you can use on every platform. There is no reason to EVER buy a Skylander in game. To their credit, if you enter a code from an actual toy in after you buy it in game the game refunds your gems (their currency). But it remembers which ones you buy. OH YEAH, you aren’t getting a bonus from Activision if it gives you a free one and you buy it later. Every so many levels you get a random character for free. I happened to get one I hadn’t already entered in, but it didn’t respin when I entered the code later. I was simply dicked. Not that it matters one way or another. I already have a mountain of the goddamn things, what’s one lost one between… whatever Activision and I are.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy fiddling with these games. I like seeing these little avatars wandering around on their own, and I definitely like gaining bonus stats in the real games. Still, I feel like I’ve paid enough. After buying a certain number of these things I feel like I’ve earned the right to breeze through any other offering Activision trots out. Earned it LITERALY with money. In all honesty I was able to cheat a little. You get a stipend with each Skylander, so I was able to get into building my game world a little faster than usual, but not as much as I feel I should have.

There was also a glitch. My Gill Grunt is trapped in some sort of nether region that he can’t escape from. He’s basically perpetually stuck on a quest, or something. I don’t know exactly how it happened. The problem is that Activision’s support system is shit. So unless they fix it on accident in an update he’s MIA. There’s no option to cancel a quest. There really needs to be a force quit on quests.

Which reminds me of a flaw both games share. It is far too easy to spend the special money. Neither game has a warning when you are about to. it just lets you do it. Because of this I have accidentally spent some of the bonus gems I have accrued because of finger twitching. MLP has the same problem with selling buildings. The sell button has no warning and is right next to the other options. My fingertip is as wide as the space for ALL THREE OPTIONS. Skylanders asks you if you’re sure before you sell something, but they forgot a warning for the in app purchases… (I’m raising my eyebrow so hard you should be able to hear it.) Dick move Activision. It’s one thing to be stupid on accident, but on purpose? Shame.

I have to say, these two games make Smurfs’ Village and Snoopy’s Street Fair seem charitable by comparison. The unabashed greed is almost staggering. Of course that’s not unecpected for either company, I suppose, but there needs to be some backlash on this incredibly first world problem.