Skylanders: Swap Force - Grilla Drilla Score: 84% Developer: Activision Device Type: Accessory

Stats: Grilla Drilla Element: Earth Health: 290 Speed: 43 Armor: 24 Critical Hit: 4 Elemental Power: 25

Attacks: Grilla Drilla starts out with a basic punch attack for his top ("Grilla") half. When you use the power pod, you can buy several upgrades. If you want a secondary attack, you will need to buy the first upgrade, Monkey Call. Yes, it calls monkeys (2 of them) to fight with Grilla Drilla. The monkeys can be very helpful, especially when you’re fighting a group of enemies. The next two upgrades, Silverback and Reaching Mandrill, make you punch harder and faster respectively. After that, you have to choose your upgrade path for the top. The upper path will let you call four monkeys when you buy Team Monkey and will make your monkeys stronger when you buy King of the Jungle. The lower path lets you attack with both fists on the third punch when you buy Double Punch and makes your punches more powerful when you buy Primate Power. Finally, the Soul Gem (which can be found in Iron Jaw Gulch) attack turns your arm drills into gold and makes your punches even more powerful when you buy Rings of the Golden Monkey. Grilla Drilla’s bottom ("Drilla") half starts with a basic drill attack. When you upgrade it and then hold down the attack button, you leave a bomb plant behind that will explode and hurt or kill enemies near it. The second upgrade makes that bomb plant explode into three bombs. The third upgrade, Nature’s Bounty, will let you press the attack button to plant a turret that now shoots coconuts. After those, you will have to decide what you want your turrets to do. The upper path makes the coconuts explode with This is Coconnuts!. Then you can buy Coconut Mayhem which makes the coconuts even more damaging. The lower path changes the coconuts into a rapid fire banana shooter with Banana Split, after which you can buy Go Bananas! to make the bananas more damaging. The Soul Gem ability is called Adaptive Nature. It’s quite helpful as all of your plants become thorny and will repel the enemies, giving you a bit of a barrier.

Features: Series 1 Compatible with: Skylanders: Swap Force

Comments: I love that Grilla Drilla runs very much like a gorilla would. He’s a neat character to play. He is a melee character but you can buy upgrades that will hit enemies at a distance. He’s still never a ranged character, but his abilities do have a bit of range to them. The only flaw I have found with Grilla Drilla is that I find it hard to break close up pots and other objects. It’s as if he misses objects that are too close to him. It’s not a serious problem, but it is a bit frustrating sometimes. As far as I have seen so far though, it is only a problem on smaller pots and objects, not enemies, so it won’t kill you. Grilla Drilla is one of the Swap Force Skylanders with the Dig ability, so he can complete the Dig Zone Challenges. These are probably my least favorite of the challenges, but you will benefit the most on them from having a second player to help you. The second player can freeze the time every so often, which is a huge help! Grilla Drilla is a character that I like to take apart. I’m not a big fan of the bottom half abilities, but I really love the strength of the top half’s punches, so I find that I like to make Grilla Kraken or Grilla Ranger for a much more robust character. Granted, he looks a bit funny with some of the different combinations as the drill base really suits his appearance, but that’s all part of the fun! I recommend seeing what different combinations you can make with Grilla Drilla and enjoy the monkeys!

-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl

Related Links: Game Vortex's Coverage of Skylanders Buy Grilla Drilla at Amazon