Dave's Star Wars Transformers Rant: Wave 1 Darth Vader to TIE Advanced General Grievous to Wheel Bike Obi-Wan Kenobi to Jedi Starfighter Luke Skywalker to X-Wing Fighter [Got Luke Skywalker Jan 11.] Note that Luke Skywalker (who is on the co-sells of all the packages) is reputed to be added as a running change, a sort of Wave 1.5. The P/N's on the three above end in 200, 300 and 400 respectively, so it looks to me that they weren't initially intended for the first shipment, they were just the ones that are ready first. 100 was probably Luke. [Later note: yep.] As far as I can tell, given previews of a half dozen or so figures beyond the four I've mentioned so far, all of these are at the same price point. Until and unless I hear differently of an official size class, I'll just call these "Standard", on the grounds that we may eventually see bigger ones if the line does well. (Hm, Han and Chewie combining to make the Millennium Falcon?) [Later note: Whaddya know, there's pics at Toyfair UK of a Han/Chewie combiner Millennium Falcon.] This is the first serious extension of the Transformers brand into another property since the Animorphs line...which is not the best of antecedents, to be honest. But I think this is a slightly more promising start. Since Star Wars swings a slightly bigger stick than Animorphs, expect these toys to be in the Star Wars part of the toy aisle, not the Transformers section. [Later note: I'm told that with the exception of Grievous, these are about the same scale as the Action Fleet line of Star Wars vehicles.] CAPSULES Darth Vader: Suffers from stability issues in vehicle mode and proportion problems in robot mode, but a decent toy, if a bit overpriced. Mildly recommended. $14.97 at Wal-Mart. General Grievous: It looks nice in both modes, but is a frustrating, fragile piece of Bantha pudu otherwise. Limbs keep falling off, it's actually painful to transform unless you use tools, there's nowhere to stably store two of the three lightsabers, etc. Neutral, since it's possible to figure out how to work around most of these glaring defects. $14.97 at Wal-Mart. Obi-Wan Kenobi: Rock solid vehicle mode, fairly simple transformation, stable if long-torso'ed robot mode. Recommended. $14.97 at Wal-Mart. Luke Skywalker: Looks good in both modes, but unstable (stuff comes apart, but does not actually fall off). Good transformation, at least. Mildly recommended. $14.97 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Packaging: Blister cards in a sort of inverted keystone shape, truncated at the corners to be an irregular octagon. The top and bottom edges of the blister are glued to the front of the car in the same way as Deluxe Cybertron packaging. The left, right and bottom corners are taped to the back of the card, kinda like Japanese blister cards (i.e. Microman or the Galaxy Force Basics), but since the top and bottom are glued, you have to do some cutting or ripping. The card itself is thin corrugated cardboard, not simple cardstock. The bubble is mostly rounded at the front, making it hard to stack these. There's an indent at the top with the Star Wars logo on a card sandwiched between the inner and outer bubbles. There's a raised bit at the bottom front with the Transformers logo, and below that the name of the individual toy and its altmode. The inner blister has the vehicle mode in a sort of action pose (firing the missiles in the case of the ones without limbs). Right above the TF logo, the inner blister holds the small pilot figure. On the right side and right front of the blister is the robot mode character art...it's clear they're using the same artist(s) as on Cybertron, since there's an over-airbrushed look to the art. On the left of the bubble is a nifty little gimmick: a plastic disk on an axle set into an indent on the bubble. The disk can be spun around, and inside is a piece of cardboard with the robot mode photo on one side and the vehicle mode photo on the other. Around the indent is a label reading "SPIN DISK" and "VEHICLE TO MECH MODE". Removing the disk requires cutting, as it seems to be glued together to avoid it falling out in transit. And it's not exactly sturdy plastic suitable for separate display. At the hook area on front is a list of contents unique to the figure, and the small parts warning. Behind the vehicle on the card front is a sort of fire and lightning explosion. On the back of the card are photos of both modes, the techspec stuff (not set up as a separable card, though), some common-to-all copy, the logos and co-sells for the other three toys (all in vehicle mode). The bio note bits lead off with the name in large font, then two bullet points about the modes and weapons, and then techspecs (replacing Fireblast with Firepower and Skill with Force Knowledge, but otherwise Transformers style and order. I will be abbreviating them FRP and FOR). Under the photos is a brief bio note. Upper left copy: "GET READY TO BLAST INTO HYPERSPACE! THE STAR WARS TRANSFORMERS have arrived at a galaxy near you." Upper right copy: "Careful, your sensors can deceive you. These classic Star Wars vehicles are MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE! Your favorite heroes and villains collide in this awesome collection of mode-changing figures that you'll find to be full of surprises." On the bottom of the blister is a red panel with the UPC and legal info, flanked by gray panels with the faction symbols (Empire, Separatist and Republic...presumably Luke's package has the Rebel logo). The instructions are on non-glossy paper, one-sided in black line work with pink/red for emphasis on the bits that are being transformed. Rather than use twist-ties, these toys are held in with rubber bands that are secured with little cruved H-shaped pieces of plastic behind the bubble. No cutting or twisting needed, just disengage the rubber band from one side of the H and pull through. The lightsaber missiles are also held in with rubber bands, just no H's. DARTH VADER * Converts from Advanced TIE Fighter mode to Jedi-crushing, Sith Lord * 2 launching projectile lightsabers As a sinister Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader is on a mission to crush the Rebellion and bring young Luke Skywalker before the Emperor. Using the power of the dark side, Vader changes into his Advanced TIE Fighter mode and combs the galaxy for Skywalker, destroying all Rebel ships, pirate fleets and asteroids that get in his way. STR 10 INT 10 SPD 8 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRP 9 FOR 10 Avg 9.625 The odd comma in the first bullet point is theirs, as is the uncapitalized Dark Side. And what's his weird thing against asteroids? :) Well, at least he's not cutting down telephone poles. With telephone-pole sized lightsabers. LightCABERs. There's 8 H-connector things holding rubber bands that secure the toy in the package. Pilot Figure: 33mm tall and made from all black plastic. There's a square base molded into the feet, and his cape hangs straight down to avoid taking up too much space. Silver and red details are painted on the chest and belt. The figure bends at the hips, bending down about 65-70 degrees total. The arms are joined inside the torso, so they can both raise or lower at the same time. To fit it in the cockpit in vehicle mode, bend it as far as it'll go and stick behind the cockpit window. In robot mode, it's intended to just rattle around in the hollow chest, but can stay in its vehicle mode location. Vehicle Mode: This is the classic TIE Advanced that Darth Vader flies at the end of the original Star Wars movie, with the bent solar panels and the bulky chunk of engine power behind the cockpit bubble. The panels are 4.75" (12cm) long, the core part is 3.5" (9cm) long, and the whole thing is 4.25" (11cm) wide. The panels are 2.75" (7cm) tall. There's a few bits here and there that deviate from "show accuracy", mostly joints. The main color is a sort of blue-gray, with black paint on the solar panels. There's some light gray accents on the roof hatch. The pie-slice front window is colorless clear plastic. There's red paint on the blaster barrels flanking the cockpit. The underside has a lot of Vader suit detailing, but it doesn't look too bad. Stability is...so-so. It all holds together firmly on multiple pegs, but there's some wiggle room. The solar panels can wiggle about ten degrees either way rotating on their supports (along the axis running from right to left), and fifteen to twenty degrees either way on a sideways wobble (along the front to back axis). No appreciable wobble along the vertical axis. The right panel doesn't stay together very well, unfortunately, being designed to separate into cloak bits. Makes it look like battle damage, a lightly shredded panel. Sticking out from the sides are two nicely camoflaged buttons, one on each side, to trigger the missile launchers. And the really clever bit is that the lightsabers are the missiles, firing hilt first. The clear red plastic of the blades looks like a thrust trail for the missiles. Thus, the whole Beam Saber issue that Gundam toys deal with by just having the blades separate and store somewhere off the toy is solved elegantly. The total length of the sabers is about 3.5" (9cm). Transformation: The rear engine chunk becomes legs in a way that strongly reminds me of Dirt Boss's transform. The arms are pretty simple, just a matter of sliding some bits around and making the hands come out. The head is stored inside the back of the cockpit and locks very solidly into place onto the front window. The right panel plugs onto the back as a cloak, the left one onto the left arm as a shield (in fact, you don't really have to remove it at all during transformation if you're careful, although leaving it fully plugged onto the arm sacrifices some poseability). It's kinda hard to put the lightsaber into the left hand with the shield in place, though. Robot Mode: Okay, before anything else, I'll point out the glaring weakness. The head is too high up by about a centimeter. The toy almost looks better without the head, as a squat dome-headed drone. A secondary weakness is that the lightsabers fire backwards...useful for anyone trying to sneak up on him, I suppose. 7.5" (19cm) tall, which is into the Voyager height range, but it lacks the heft of most Voyagers. The limbs are all kinda simplistic and rectangular in cross-section, with big forearm chunks for the backwards firing missile launchers. Most of the stuff visible from the front is in proper Vader colors, with his chest box being clear plastic with controls painted on it...a secondary cockpit window, I suppose. The shoulders are universal joints with a few extra hinges from transformation. The elbows are hinges, with a swivel just below the elbow so that the whole forearm can rotate. The wrists also rotate. The hands are kinda dumb looking, neither a proper hand nor a simple block fist with peg hole, and it's kinda hard to get the sabers into the hands. But they're very stable once inserted. The hips are ball joints, and kinda loose (this is, of course, fixable with nail polish topcoat). Each thigh has a swivel just above the knee. The knees are hinges and the toes are also on transformation hinges. The lack of heel spurs or other ankle articulation hurts stable standing pose options, especially since the hips are oddly limited and the figure is back-heavy with the cloak (swinging the shield forward can compensate for this, though). The waist doesn't turn, but the head has a normal human range of turning motion. Overall: A decent toy. Floppier than I'd like, and the head position hurts the looks. But the transformation is easy to perform without being overly simplistic, and everything does hold together. GENERAL GRIEVOUS * Converts from Wheel Bike mode to Jedi-Battling, Droid Army Commander * 2 launching projectile lightsabers The much-feared General Grievous has trained with the evil Count Dooku in the art of lightaber combat. Using unorthodox fighting methods, such as a furious multiple-lightsaber assault, Grievous has managed to cut down several Jedi Knights. Now, Grievous changes into wheel bike mode to engage and destroy Obi-Wan Kenobi and the remaining Jedi. STR 8 INT 10 SPD 10 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRP 9 FOR 5 Avg 9 Vader CRUSHES Jedi, Grievous merely BATTLES them. Take that, Jackobot come lately! :) One H holds the pilot in place, with a rubber band so short I ended up just cutting it. 7 more hold in the vehicle, and despite taking pains to not have it happen, I ended up with limb bits popping off all over as I removed the toy from the blister. Some of the joints require very little force at all to pop off. Finally, the second bullet point is incorrect. The toy comes with three sabers, but only one of them launches. The other two look kind of like Vader's and Kenobi's sabers, but will not lock properly into those launchers. Pilot Figure: 33mm tall and made of white plastic, with a base piece connecting the feet. There's a lot of gunmetal paint on it, plus red eyeslits. The base is too narrow (front-to-back) to really let the figure stand well. It bends at the waist, going all the way into "bend over and iss your skidplate goodbye" position. The arms do not move. Vehicle Mode: It's the wheel bike from Episode III, but scaled up to several times as large (it's almost half the size of the vehicle toy intended for the 3.75" figure...to the scale of the pilot, the central wheel is about 20 feet tall). The central wheel is about 3.5" (9cm) in diameter if you ignore the spikes. In a stable four-legged pose, it's about 8" (20cm) long in total, although the legs can be stretched out farther than that. It's mostly light gray plastic with red and black paint accents, but the shins of the legs are tan plastic with brown paint. Each leg has a ball joint "shoulder", two knee hinges, an ankle hinge, and the claw at the end of the leg has a hinged "thumb" joint. In addition, each has a swivel joint (between the two knees on the front legs, between the hip and the upper knee on the rear legs) that snaps together like a K'Nex man's swivel joints. Unfortunately, both the ball shoulders and these swivels pop apart with almost no provocation. The ball joints may just be bad quality control, and something I might be able to fix. But the very design of the swivels ensures they're a weak point. Other joints include the swivel on the control chair, and the hinge on its yoke, so you can put Grievous-the-pilot in and close the yoke down to lock him in place. The gun is pegged on (fairly loosely) and can traverse up and down. The central part is a launchable red-bladed lightsaber, which has the notch and groove bits seen on most toy missiles. So it doesn't really look as lightsabery as those of the other two toys. There is no place to store the non-launchable lightsabers (one blue, one green) in this mode. [Later correction: there's holes in the piece that connects the robot back to the backpack that seem to be intended for lightsaber storage. Oddly, the instructions don't mention these, and the picture on the package only shows one stored...and if you don't know it's already there, it's rather inobvious.] It should almost go without saying, but the wheel does not roll, nor do the legs fold away as tightly as in the movie. It generally looks pretty good, once you get it into a pose that it doesn't sag out of. The big Grievous head is visible between the wheel halves at front, but not blatantly so. Transformation: Frustrating and painful (there's lots of little spikes all over the wheel part). Bits fall off way too easily, while others require excessive force (especially going back to vehicle mode. The transformation is pretty much just taking half the wheel and folding it back and inside th eother half, then adjusting the limbs. And putting them back on. Repeatedly. There's a few other panels that turn the wheel mass into a closed backpack of sorts and reposition the control chair. When going back to vehicle mode, I strongly recommend prying the backpack apart with a knife rather than trying to do it all by hand. And generally it's not quite so bad after the third try or so, once you've figured out all the boobytraps. [Later note: as people keep emailing me, you need to press the hips together and fold the shoulderpads down in robot mode. This isn't in the instructions, but didn't seem inobvious enough to comment on.] Robot Mode: Gauging the height is tricky, because Grievous is not supposed to stand up straight-legged (and would fall over backwards if he tried). In a reasonably stable crouch in which his vehicle mode "shins" rest on his backpack to keep him from sagging, he's about 5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, 6" (15cm) at the backpack. He literally has more joints than he can make good use of. The limbs are as poseable (and poppable) as in vehicle mode, and he gets several hinge joints in his claw hands. Which, like all too many Lucasdroid hands, are spindly and useless when scaled down to toy size. The joints are just barely stiff enough to let him hold his lightsabers, but even tapping the saber will cause it to come loose and fall out. The wheel section backpack is huge, so it's a good thing that he's supposed to hunch over...he doesn't really have a choice. Unlike the other two toys, his pilot is out in the open, so you get the weird sight of a little Grievous sitting on the backpack of the big one. Master Blaster, eh? Overall: Okay, this is the best looking of the three, especially in robot mode. And once you learn to avoid all the many ways to break it apart, there's some pretty cool poses available. But the sheer frustration caused by that learning curve counts strongly against it...my initial Capsule was "Avoid", to give you some idea (I moderated it later). OBI-WAN KENOBI * Converts from Jedi Starfighter mode to fearless Jedi Master * 2 launching projectile lightsabers Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi has a bad feeling about this. His mission is to track down and eliminate General Grievous, the much-feared leader of the Separatist droid army. Obi-Wan summons the Force to change into Jedi figher mode and flies across the galaxy to battle his enemy in a duel for the ages! STR 10 INT 10 SPD 8 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRP 9 FOR 10 Avg 9.625 The pilot figure is actually in a separate blister chunk that rests between the main toy and the outer bubble. Only two H's are needed to hold the toy in, although each holds onto two rubber bands. The picture on the cardback is incorrectly transformed, leaving his wings out like angel wings, rather than pegging them together as a cape. Pilot Figure: A shorty at only 31mm, he has the same small base standing issues as Grievous. Made of very light tan plastic with decent paint applications (not as good as a Star Wars collectible minis game paint job, but not horrible either). Same poseability as the Vader minifig. The front of his tunic seems intended to form a peg to seat him more solidly in the cockpit, but it doesn't work, and he rattles around. Poster putty to the rescue! Vehicle Mode: This is a very stable mode, everything locked into place well and no wiggling. Even if it didn't transform, this would be a solid $10 mini-vehicle toy. The gray plastic feels nice and solid, with good paint apps of maroon, silver and tan, plus white on the astromech droid (which is not removable). The attack foils open up, although it can be a bit tricky if you have sort nails like I do. The landing gear doesn't completely stow, but it locks in both up and down position quite firmly. The cockpit opens, and the lightsaber missiles fire if you touch the tech greeble panels on the wing leading edges. There are pegs on the wing tops, one of which is for transformation, the other I suppose is for symmetry (the droid keeps you from being able to swap wings and use the peg next to it). The whole thing is 6.75" (17cm) long and has a wingspan of 6.5" (16.5cm). Transformation: Okay, it's a bit cheaty. The entirety of the wings just hinge out and fold behind the robot mode as a cloak. The legs are the underside, the arms are hidden between wing and cockpit, and the robot head is inside the rear section of the cockpit. The pilot's seat flips back into the space vacated by the head, so the pilot is still facing forward in robot mode, a nice touch. The only part of transformation that could be considered tricky is lengthening the legs. You really have to pull hard to get them fully extended, and if you don't, odds are they'll be a bit uneven. Also, depending on the tolerances of your toy, you may need to use a knife or other thin prybar to get the head piece to snap firmly into place. Robot Mode: While Vader's head is too high, Kenobi's torso is too long. If his hips could slide up about an inch, his proportions would be a lot better. 6.5" (17cm) tall. This one is the most abstracted of the three, since A) he's not really known for wearing angular armor, and B) making his vehicle mode colors accurate prevents the use of Clone Trooper armor as seen in the Clone Wars cartoon. Mostly gray and maroon, like the vehicle mode, but there's significant dark gold paint on the boots, and light tan (or cream) details on the arms. The head is molded as a robotic version of Obi-Wan's own, with golden yellow hair and beard pieces, silver face, and green eyes. The head turns at the neck, probably a rivet joint. The waist turns for transformation, but is locked down almost entirely in robot mode. The shoulders are universal joints, the elbows are hinges, and the wrists are hinges built with significant wiggle for rotation (but not enough for him to hold his lightsabers in a chopping pose). There's an upper arm swivel but no lower arm swivel. The hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges, and the ankles are hinged for transformation. There's a swivel above each knee. The lack of heel spurs or the ability to bend the toes up past horizontal combines with the longtorso action to make it hard to stand him up, your best bet for a dynamic pose is to bend at least one knee enough so that his cloak acts as a third leg. His missile launchers fire straight down in this mode, so it's really just saber storage. The hilts of his own sabers are a little narrow, and hold loosely unless he chokes up pretty extremely. One of Grievous's spare lightsabers holds better. Overall: While hardly a toy to rave about, at least it has a smaller amount of outright problems than the other two. The strong vehicle mode counts in its favor...if you only get one of the three, get this one. Assessment of the line so far: Even the best of these is really a slightly larger Deluxe, although one could argue that the plastic quality and mold detailing are a little better. But a lot of the price difference is clearly the license. And considering how unimpressed I've been with the $10 droid toys I've bought from the SW line, I expect everything in the line is jacked up significantly by the license fee. On the other hand, Grievous aside, they're a lot better than the Animorphs toys. (And don't go Googling up my old Animorphs toys and pointing out that I gave them higher recommendations...the standard of Transformers toys in general has gone up since then, and the scale slides to match.) LUKE SKYWALKER * Convert from X-Wing Fighter mode to brave Jedi Knight * 4 launching projectile missiles In order to bring balance back to the Force, Luke Skywalker must confront and defeat Darth Vader. Using his attunement with the Force, Luke changes into X-Wing fighter mode and travels across the galaxy to face his foe. Using proton torpedoes and a barrage of missiles, Like battles Imperial fighters and ruthless bounty hunters as he embarks on his quest to confront his destiny. STR 9 INT 10 SPD 10 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRP 8 FOR 9 Avg 9.5 Yay stat inflation. No way Luke is INT 10. 5 H-connecters hold the vehicle mode into the bubble. One rubber band secures the lightsaber to the bubble, and four more hold the attack foils closed and the launchers on them. Pilot Figure: 32mm tall, the "base" is just a strip of black painted plastic between the feet, and is not large enough to let the figure stand well. The hips are hinged to move together, and the arms are connected through the torso by a single rod. It seems to be made all of orange plastic, with a decent paint job. Vehicle Mode: 7" (18cm) long, 6.75" (17cm) wide, it's a pretty good X-Wing (although some people with more SW-fu have said it's a bit stubby). Very light gray plastic with red and yellow markings, plus rusty airbrush pattern on the nose and darker gray airbrushed on the engines. The tech greebles behind the cockpit and at the rear are painted silver, and R2-D2 is silver and blue. The cockpit cover is clear plastic with light blue-gray painted on the struts. The seat inside is painted black, and the pilot can rest in it but does not sit snugly. If you look on the underside, a fair amount of orange robot mode stuff is visible. The lightsaber clips onto the underside as well...this is the first one not to have any lightsaber missiles. The landing gear deploys, and the missiles fire using the marbleshooter method. Unlike most pressure-shooter missiles, these have tabs on the sides to keep them from spinning around in the launcher (since they're supposed to be blasters). Oddly, two of the missiles have a light metallic blue barberpole stripe running around the base. The attack foils can separate, sort of. But it reveals the robot arms in the process, and hte joints aren't really meant for locking the foils in attack position. Mind you, not much about the foils locks. The launchers are loosely connected, the tabs that are supposed to secure the foils in closed position don't. [Later note: The barberpole stripes are canonical, but are supposed to be on the upper right and lower left, mine had them on both lower cannons.] Transformation: The front end splits apart (and the hips separate and rise up) to reveal legs, which are kinda narrow in order to fit behind the kibble panels. Most of the panel length becomes Rhinox-like hip armor slats, but some become calf armor. The nose halves twist around and open to become feet, but the joints feel like soft plastic that's just waiting to twist off. The head simply pops out of the hyperdrive compartment, thus making space for the pilot (the cockpit seat from the vehicle mode splits in half to be the backs of the thighs). There's a little chair inside the now hollow chest, but it doesn't really hold the figure any better than the vehicle cockpit chair. The top foils fold back to become a backpack, and they snap together but don't hold as well as I'd like. The thruster nozzles are hinged to fold away, but look better sticking straight up. The bottom foils have the arms in them, and you get a sort of Armada Cyclonus shoulders and arms result. Then they slide back (you need to fold the thrusters up first), but don't snap into place, so they tend to slide forward with the slightest provocation. Robot Mode: 6.5" (16.5cm) tall with a shoulderpadspan of 6.75" (17cm). The color scheme and general design is meant to evoke Luke's flight suit from the original Death Star attack run. Orange paint on the chest, pelvis upper and lower legs, orange plastic on the forearms, plus black paint on the glove and boot areas do a good job of bringing this across. The head is basically a human head in the flight suit helmet, but with the face painted silver. The visor is clear yellow plastic. Balance is iffy. The figure is very topheavy, and the soft plastic used in the ankle joints mean the toy can start to sag without the join moving, and once it has sagged enough, the joint slips. It doesn't help that the heel spur's joint isn't all that tight (it maxes out at a flat foot, but trying to fold it down to help support a stance doesn't work too well). Unfortunately, the ankle joint actually sticks out the back of the foot, so you can't rotate the feet to have the straight line edges towards the center. The fact that the insteps are convex means that the figure can often rock back or forth. The head turns, but the waist does not. The foils can rotate up to being horizontal normally, but if you want to raise the arm any farther you have to push past a blocking peg and slightly "dislocate" the shoulders. They won't pop off entirely, but it looks like they're about to. The upper arm attaches to the underside of the foil using a restricted ball joint that acts as a swivel, and the elbows are double hinges while the wrists are swivels. The hips are ball joints, and the knees are very stiff hinges (paint on both pieces stiffens the joint). The ankles are mushy universal joints, and the heel spurs are hinged. The hip panels are on a combination of two hinges and a swivel, so they can usually get out of the way of whatever pose you're trying to have the figure strike. The hands are much like those on Obi Wan, and have the same difficulty in holding, well, anything. There's a couple of bumps on the lightsaber hilt that I think are supposed to let you secure the weapon in hand, but they don't work. I ended up having to use poster putty. Any of the four missile launchers can be removed from the foils and held in the hands, but the pseudo-ratchet action from the hexagonal pegs means they can't be held pointing exactly along the line of the forearm. Also, to point the gun forward instead of down, you have to either have the hand hold it sideways, or dislocate the shoulder. Overall: Well, other than the parts that are supposed to come off (launchers, saber), nothing has popped off. Things just don't hold together well, and I worry about the ankles breaking over time. But it does look good in both modes, which is some small comfort. And to damn it with faint praise, it's not as bad as Grievous. Dave Van Domelen, hopes the designers get more into the groove with later designs, especially in the case of the hands.