So, here's the deal with Empire of Ice:
The shield item gives a flat 50% damage reduction while active, and works on traps as well, which is incidentally what made it easy to test. Long-lasting, might come in handy once in a while.
The anvil drop is basically as the name implies, a storm of anvils. They do 20 damage a pop, and although they aren't very accurate, the effect stays active for a lot longer than the ghost swords.
Cossack Hat is found in the main story path through the level.
Santa hat is found behind the Undead gate, and you have to do a skull-catching minigame to get it. Slam Bam is excellent at it.
Slam Bam's Soul Gem is in an ice maze located on the other side of a somewhat-hidden teleporter, near the Undead door.
Empire of Ice, the level, is very short. /cry
Now to Slam Bam as a character...
I quickly ran him down both paths, and I must say, I've got a strong preference for Blizzard Brawler so far.
Glacier Hit seems like it's going to be nice, but it's difficult to aim ice sculptures--they travel in a straight line, not unlike Bone Brambler. Also, the ability requires you to hold the activation button while the trail of ice is active, releasing that button when your ice path is underneath your target to form an ice sculpture on them. If you miss, it will pop as a "defensive" ice sculpture, which is sort of like one of Prism Break's crystals. Since it doesn't activate automatically upon contact, this leaves him prone to frustrating misses even against story mode targets.
Also, he can't spawn ice sculptures immediately next to him (there's about one character's length between him and where you can), which really dulls its usefulness as a repellent in PVP and makes him highly susceptible to other melees--including his own other path.
It's a slow process setting up multiple ice sculptures, even though you can.
With the final upgrade, each hit to a defensive ice sculpture turns chisels the ice, ending up eventually in a sculpture of Slam Bam. Funny little details, right? As a defensive tactic, it's a far cry from Prism Break.
Freezing things IS useful, and the DoT of being in an ice sculpture is 30 as far as I can remember this morning. But it's really hard to freeze other people, who will watch out for it after the first time and start dodging.
As for Blizzard Brawler...
Fully upgraded melee does 38 a hit. X/X/O combo (PS3) causes a forward spin attack not unlike Chop Chop's; does standard melee hits of 38 and travels forward. X/X/Square does 85 on the final hit after a very short charge-up. X/X/X does 58, (EDIT: Nope, it's 76..
) I believe, but I could be wrong about that one. It's either at or above that number, though.
Ice Armor looks nice at least--typical +40 defense buff, but it's not like that doesn't help.
He seems really effective on this path, and is actually somewhat of an anomly--a "slow" brawler melee who travels at a decent pace thanks to his O attack.
Now general notes:
Soul Gem upgrade helps him speed along faster, which is nice. It also puts sunglasses on him... This, I suppose, is what the description means by "increases coolness."
His slide is a relatively short-range charge attack, and does no damage to those it connects with on either path. However, once you get used to it, it's also one of the more maneuverable charges in the game, and capable of both tight cornering, and quick dodges.
Overall, I don't know if Slam Bam threatens to crack the top of the ladder in terms of tiers, but he's definitely stronger and more useful than most; quite likely the game's current best Water champion. I had high hopes for ice sculptures, but they're a bit of a letdown unless there's more to them than I was able to see.
His Heroic Challenge is a fun one. You have to dip yourself in different colors of toxic waste, and use that to destroy smaller canisters of the same color. Not very difficult, yields Elemental Power.
And that's my first impression anyway. Of course we'll play around with it more later.
) I believe, but I could be wrong about that one. It's either at or above that number, though.