Well, I finally tracked down the Empire of Ice and got it in the mail today...here is the unboxing:
Empire of Ice is the 3rd Adventure Pack released and should retail for $19.99. Toys'R'Us has yet to have any Wave 3 shipments here locally...and I figure when they arrive at Toys'R'Us they will get the quantity GameStop, Target, and Walmart have had the past few weeks COMBINED. But keep in mind, Toys'R'Us also charges $24.99 for Triple Packs and Adventure Packs. Your best bet to land the Empire of Ice is to get an employee to feel sorry for you coming in all the time and leaving empty handed...and yes, I'm serious. If that won't work, GameStop.com is the only retailer that actually seems to update their stock regularly.
Walmart's pre-orders closed a long time ago and Toys'R'Us had it listed Sunday (1/30), but sold out by Monday.
For those that don't know, "Wave 3" basically consists of Empire of Ice, Double Trouble, and Cynder. Double Trouble is available in a single pack (never seen one in person yet) and a triple pack that never should have been with Whirlwind and Drill Sergeant. Cynder will eventually be released in a triple pack, but that is months down the road.
I had tried and tried to get Empire of Ice, which was expected to hit January 16th, but actually wound up being spotted and bought in east coast stores on January 12th. I don't think we had one hit town where I am at until 7+ days later.
And when I say there are people that go and buy everything up in the video, that isn't for dramatics. I've had confirmation from managers at GameStop and employees at Target that a band of ladies is running around my town picking up every Skylander they can...clearly these rag-tag ebag pirates don't have jobs or school like the rest of us (hence why I asked SkylandersGame on Twitter to have Activision sell direct...guess who never got a response?).
So one night when I was working my way through the second save file (thanks weapon master gltich!) I stopped and checked stock just for the heck of it...It was like 3 AM and the "Unavailable" from 2 AM switched to "Buy Now." I figured what the heck, hit the button, and now I have Empire of Ice!
And just to help you out I thought that might be a "stock" time for the online offerings....not the case...I've not only monitored Double Trouble and Cynder, but also regular Wave 1 and Wave 2 releases...I've determined it just updates in sync with the programming...You will basically just have to look and hope you get lucky.
Now with all of that completely unnecessary stuff out of the way, let's take a look at the pertinent info (granted, if there wasn't this mad hysteria to buy and resale Skylanders on the black market I would have already done that).
Anyway, Empire of Ice will be Chapter 23 on your console versions of the game. I have no clue why activision released them out of order...but that seems to be about par for them in all honesty.
This looks like a great level...it will be totally unique to the others given it is going to be an ice/snow stage. Slam Bam will only be available in this Adventure Pack and he looks like an awesome character. He is the 3rd Water Element Skylander to be released (Gill Grunt=1, Zap=2, and Wham-Shell will=4). His slogan is fittingly, "Armed and Dangerous" and his story consists of being on a remote glacier where he ice surfed and made sculptures until Kaos destroyed it and sent the blistered berg floating thru Skylands...eventually landing on Eon's Skyland where he was taken in and trained to be a Skylander.
Let's take a look at his card's stats:
-Power: 85
-Armor: 85
-Agility: 40
-Luck: 35
Also included with Empire of Ice is the Sky-Iron Shield and Anvil Rain.
The AP comes with cards and web codes for each item and of course, stickers.
If you have had a hard time finding it, I would suggest you wait until Toys'R'Us gets a shipment...which I think will make availability much more omnipresent. I seriously doubt scalpers are going to waltz in and buy 40-50 $25 Adventure Packs, but then again the way they work in my town I wouldn't be completely shocked if that was the case.
I will keep everyone posted on how things pan out with the local stock as I would like to land one more for a friend's birthday.
If you've got any questions or comments just let me know. I will introduce Slam Bam and play his Heroic Challenge as soon as I can...I'll likely follow that with a recording of Empire of Ice (great time to level up more Skylanders for the coming battle with Kaos!).
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