After biding my time for several months, I finally bit the bullet and picked up the Force Link 2.0 Starter Set from Amazon.com this week. While I had next-to-no interest in the Force Link device itself, this set was - sadly - the only way to actually get hold of the titular hero of Solo in his most familiar garb. The original price tag of $64.99NZ was impossible to justify, however. Fortunately, this item finally plummeted to $14.98US ($22.32NZ) a few days ago, making it a much more appealing purchase.
Featuring the usual five points of articulation, a blaster pistol, and a working holster, Han is everything you could expect from the basic 3 3/4" line. While nowhere near as exciting as some of the more obscure character release from this line (see: Moloch), he's a great - and necessary - addition to any 3 3/4" Solo display. As for the Force Link bracelet itself... Well, I made no secret of my disappintment with the original Force Link bracelet's disappointing performance. Sadly, this iteration is worse. Much, much worse. Having pulled the bracelet from its packaging and loaded it with batteries, I enthusiastically grabbed my brand new Force Link 2.0 wampa - eager to hear his blood-curdling roar. Instead, I was greeted with a far more terrifying sound: "FIRMWARE UPDATE REQUIRED".
I get it, I really do. This bracelet is intended to cover a huge number of figures, many of which have yet to even be conceived by Hasbro. So it makes sense that firmware upgrades will be required from time to time. What was shocking for me, however, was that the bracelet hadn't even been programmed to work with the initial wave of Force Link 2.0 figures that accompanied its release. In fact, the only figure that did work without the firmware update was the pack-in Solo. Things soon went from bad to worse, however. Despite all of our efforts, my fiancée and I were simply unable to perform the necessary firmware update. We downloaded the app and managed to detect the bracelet, but were then taken through through a strange finger-tapping syncing ritual that neither of us was able to successfully perform. We relaunched the app - hoping to try again - but were never again able to detect the bracelet. So now it sits abandoned on my shelf, a useless piece of tech only able to play dialogue and sound effects for one figure.
Strangely, my twenty-year-old CommTech reader still works beautifully...
I get it, I really do. This bracelet is intended to cover a huge number of figures, many of which have yet to even be conceived by Hasbro. So it makes sense that firmware upgrades will be required from time to time. What was shocking for me, however, was that the bracelet hadn't even been programmed to work with the initial wave of Force Link 2.0 figures that accompanied its release. In fact, the only figure that did work without the firmware update was the pack-in Solo. Things soon went from bad to worse, however. Despite all of our efforts, my fiancée and I were simply unable to perform the necessary firmware update. We downloaded the app and managed to detect the bracelet, but were then taken through through a strange finger-tapping syncing ritual that neither of us was able to successfully perform. We relaunched the app - hoping to try again - but were never again able to detect the bracelet. So now it sits abandoned on my shelf, a useless piece of tech only able to play dialogue and sound effects for one figure.
Strangely, my twenty-year-old CommTech reader still works beautifully...
