Lias and I are back with another look at a Swap Force Arena. Today we play in Shellshocks Curse with Dark Mega Ram Spyro and Zoo Lou. This arena uses the same pit from the previous Arena: Sand-Pit-Fall. But this time it throws a curse cloud into the mix. This makes capturing the food thief, that much more important. Watch and see how we do.
Let us know what you think!
Well, I was in my local Best Buy this afternoon and to my surprise the new Spring Edition Skylanders were on the shelves. There were not very many of them but I quickly grabbed Springtime Trigger Happy, Fryno, and Punk Shock. All of them are in their Easter Egg packaging. This was a little earlier as I was expecting since an earlier leaked web posting at Best Buy indicated that the release date would be April 6th. However, unlike at Target where they put a hard release date of 3/23 in their computer for Nitro Freeze Blade, no one stopped us at Best Buy to take away the characters. Who knows, I may have just been lucky, since they are not yet available online or for in-store pick up. So if you are looking for these new characters give your local Best Buy a call or stop by.
Grilla Drilla is a new Swappable Life Skylander with the Dig ability for Skylanders Swap Force. The bottom half of Grilla Drilla is a large drill while the top part is that of a heavily armored Gorilla. In the game Grilla Drilla actually walks on legs but he can turn them into a drill. He has a mean look on his face and two large metal plated fists ready for action. The lack of any weapon makes you believe that he will be a melee attack character. Even though he looks mean, it’s hard to gauge how well he will perform in battle. Having a large drill bit for legs is cool for his digging ability but that is hardly a way to attack enemies. Just based on his looks he doesn’t appear to be a very useful Skylander.
Grilla Drilla does in fact start with a punch as one of his main attacks. But his punch is not a normal type of a punch. His fist actually has arm drills that spin and deal even more damage when punching. And it is quite the powerful punch. His card shows the maximum 200 for his attacking ability. His secondary attack is to plant a coconut turret by transforming his legs into a drill. As Grilla Drilla starts to get upgrades, his attacks become much more interesting. One of his early upgrades adds the ability to summon a pair of crazy monkeys. These monkeys run across the screen damaging enemies in their path. It’s basically a ranged attack. The turret attack can be upgraded to drop bombs and to gain the ability to plant two turrets at a time. And the punches can be upgraded to have a longer range, making them a good medium ranged attack option.
As a swappable character there are two different upgrade paths to choose, one for his body and one for his legs. The body paths let you focus either on stronger punching where he can use both fists at once, or on upgrading the monkeys to do more damage and to send four out at a time. We chose the monkey path and they do quite a bit of damage when they run across the screen. However, the dual punching fists sound pretty devastating as well. The leg paths both enhance the turret attacks. One path shoots coconut projectiles that explode while the other path turns the turrets into rapid fire banana turrets. Neither seem very useful in a heated battle. To take the time to plant a turret leaves you open for attack and even when the turret has done it’s job. Chances are you will want to move it or replant it, because the battle can quickly move on. And by the time you build up Grilla Drilla all of the way, the punches and monkeys become super powerful and a much quicker and easier decision to use.
Also as a swappable character he has two soul gem abilities. One turns his arm drills into shiny gold allowing punch attacks to do even more damage, and the other adds a thorny defense to the turrets making them very hard for enemies to attack. The turret upgrade is the more interesting upgrade, but the arm drills will be used more often so a little extra power doesn’t hurt.
Grilla Drilla is quite powerful, but I never really found myself using the turret attacks much. It just doesn’t have the power of the monkeys or Grilla Drilla’s amazing punch attack.
| Card Stats | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attack: | 200 | Max Health | 290 | |
| Defense: | 130 | Speed | 43 | |
| Speed: | 70 | Armor | 24 | |
| Luck: | 70 | Critical Hit | 4 | |
| Elemental Power | 25 | |||
| Body Attacks | |||
| Punchy Monkey | Press Attack 1 to punch at nearby enemies. | Free | |
| Monkey Call | Press Attack 3 to summon a pair of crazy monkeys! | 300 Gold | |
| Silverback | Press Attack 1 to unleash punches that deal increased damage. | 800 Gold | |
| Reaching Mandrill | Press Attack 1 to punch at a longer range. | 1000 Gold | |
| Monkey Master Path | |||
| Team Monkey | Monkey Call summons four monkeys at once! | 1500 Gold | |
| King of the Jungle | Monkey Call does increased damage. | 2000 Gold | |
| Drilling Punches Path | |||
| Double Punch | Press Attack 1 three times to attack with both drills. | 1500 Gold | |
| Primate Power | Double Punch does increased damage. | 2000 Gold | |
| Soul Gem Ability | |||
| Ring of the Golden Monkey | Arm Drills become shiny Gold, making punch attacks do extra damage. | 3500 Gold | |
| Leg Attacks | |||
| Planted Turret | Press Attack 2 to plant a coconut turret that attacks nearby enemies. | Free | |
| Explosive Growth | Hold Attack 2 to charge a turret, release to plant a bomb plant that explodes and damages enemies nearby. | 300 Gold | |
| Spreading Like Weeds | Explosive Growth bomb plants will explode into three smaller bombs. | 800 Gold | |
| Nature's Bounty | Press Attack 2 to plant a coconut turret that shoots at nearby enemies. Press Attack 2 again to plant another. | 1000 Gold | |
| Coconut Caretaker Path | |||
| This is Coconuts! | Turret projectiles now explode, causing damage to enemies in a small area. | 1500 Gold | |
| Coconut Mayhem | Coconuts do increased damage. | 2000 Gold | |
| Banana Blaster Path | |||
| Banana Split | Coconut turret upgrades into a rapid shooting Banana turret. | 1500 Gold | |
| Go Bananas! | Bananas do increased damage. | 2000 Gold | |
| Soul Gem Ability | |||
| Adaptive Nature | All plants gain thorns that damage and push back enemies that step on them. | 3500 Gold | |
Here is a Smolderdash Unboxing. We recently picked up the regular Smolderdash for Skylanders Swap Force while searching for new characters. Here is her unboxing and a quick comparison to Lightcore Smolderdash.
Let us know which Smolderdash you like better: the regular or the lightcore version?
While I was playing around on the Xbox 360 dashboard this afternoon I found some Free Swap Force Gamer Pics and a Free 2014 Swap Force Theme. I noticed an advertisement in the “Games” section for Skylanders Swap Force. It turns out that this more than just a common Swap Force commercial. This was promoting some of the newer characters. There are three new character videos to watch called “Short Cuts”. There is one each for Fryno, Slobber Tooth and Fire Kraken. After watching any one of the videos, you will have access to download a set of Swap Force Gamer Pics and the 2014 Swap Force Theme. (What? You didn’t know the Xbox 360 still had themes? Scroll to the bottom of the post for instructions on how to set a theme.) Now you only need to watch one character video to unlock the free downloads, but these videos are very entertaining. We loved them. It begs the question that we’ve been asking for a couple years now. WHERE IS THE SKYLANDERS CARTOON? The animated video’s and trailers that they do have always been pretty awesome. Why there isn’t a cartoon featuring these characters is beyond me. Anyway, I highly suggest you checkout the character videos, and also the Video Gallery. Here you will find some new commercials and one additional “Short Cut” video. You could also probably find these on you tube, if you don’t have an Xbox 360.
Check it out and let us know what you think of the Free Swap Force Gamer Pics and Theme.
For those that don’t know how to access your themes on your Xbox 360. Follow these instructions.
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Here is the Nitro Freeze Blade Unboxing! The Target exclusive Nitro Freeze Blade was released today (3/23) for Swap Force. After having found the character on the shelf the previous day and having the cashier take it away from us and refuse to sell it we were back this morning to pick up what seemed to be only one of two figures that they had. Watch and see if Conner breaks this one as he almost previously broke the original Freeze Blade.
Who do you prefer? Regular Freeze Blade or Nitro Freeze Blade?
Lias and I take on our fifth Arena Battle in Skylanders Swap Force called Sand-Pit-Fall. We must battle enemies while avoiding a large pit in the center of the arena. Watch as I use Zoo Lou and Lias uses Legendary Night Shift. See how we do on our quest to earn three stars!
Let us know what you think of the Sand-Pit-Fall Arena.
It looks like there will be a Swap Force sale at Best Buy starting this Sunday. Based off an ad scan for Best Buy starting 3/23/2014, they will be having a buy one Swap Force character get one 50% off sale. The scan shows the new swappable characters Freeze Blade and Trap Shadow, though it’s unclear if the sale is just for swappable characters or any character in the Swap Force game. Also the starter packs for all systems will be on sale for $54.99.
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As you know, I recently ran into the two new swapable Skylanders: Freeze Blade, and Trap Shadow at a local Toys R Us. After this I searched the web a little bit and caught wind of a bunch of new possible wave 4 Skylander sitings. Most of these centered around Walmarts in different states. So I took to the stores today to do a little reconnaissance and…no luck. No characters, no information. None of the employees had any idea when new Skylanders would arrive. However, judging by the number of sitings from people on reddit, 
in other parts of the country, it’s obvious that we are just weeks, if not days from a wide spread roll out of wave 4 characters. So here are the Swap Force characters that seem to be headed for Wave 4.
Keep in mind that this is still just speculation. More characters could be added should they start showing up on store shelves, in the next couple of weeks. If anything changes, I will update this article.
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Freeze Blade Unboxing! He is another early Wave 4 character to hit store shelves at Toys R Us. He is the second swappable character with the Speed Movement ability to be released. Watch as Conner consistently thinks that he is a girl and….did he break him? Watch to find out!
Let us know what you think!
