Transformers Reviews

Offroad Ironhide

May 23, 2008 7:29 pm Ryan Movie Toys, Toy Reviews, Voyager

I’m going to kick things off with the toy that’s been sitting on my desk at work all week, Offroad Ironhide.

Offroad Ironhide is a redeco of the Ironhide figure from the Movie toyline. Like the original, this figure transforms into a GMC Topkick C4500 pickup truck. The figure is mostly dark blue, with flecked paint similar to what would be found on an automobile. Like all figures from the Allspark Power refresh of the movie toyline, Offroad Ironhide has a healthy dose of baby blue paint applied somewhat randomly pretty much anywhere. My favourite feature of the paint applications added to the figure for the redeco is the mud painted on around each wheel well. The wheels are free rolling in vehicle mode, and it looks pretty spiffy as it is.

Transformation from Truck to Robot:

Rotate the front bumper away from the front of the truck to free it from the two pegs underneath the GMC logo. This step has me nervous about the strain that it might be putting on those two pegs, but I’m not seeing any signs of stress so far.
Pop the front halves of the rear fenders out from the vehicle. They go out and back just a bit.
Pop the two halves of the truck cab out, and let the springs lift them up. They’ll have to release from pegs near the back of the cab before they’ll swing up. You can fold the back doors in behind the front doors at any time now.
Pull both front tires out so that the hubcaps are one position past the one where they are facing up, relative to the now barely recognizable truck.
Swing the truck bed down, away from the rear of the cab. You’ll notice that there is an Allspark blue t-shaped piece in there, with two holes in it. There are two pegs on the crotch piece of the robot for them to sit on. There is also a single peg on the Allspark blue piece that fits into a hole on the other side. I find this one pops off pretty easily.
Inside the truck cab is a grey piece with a bit of Allspark blue on it. Swing it down.
The black piece between the front bumper and that grey thing from Step 6 rotates. Turn it 180 degrees.
Separate the two halves of the truck bed. To activate the Automorph in Offroad Ironhide’s feet, rotate the black piece near the tailgate down to form the main part of the foot, which will swing the other black piece in, swing the back tires around, and swing the heel out.
Lift the head up. You should be able to do this by pulling back on the roof/windshield section, but I can never seem to do it without pulling the roof/windshield piece off. Now is also a good time to rotate the back window of the cab against the roof to flatten it a bit. It sits flattest if you lift the front bumper back up to the position it was in in Truck mode.
Rotate the arms against the wheels so that they don’t clip the front of the truck, and then rotate the wheels the rest of the way in. There are pegs on either side of Offroad Ironhide’s head that fit into hole in the centre of each wheel. Try to rotate the many shoulder joints to hide the screw hole in the back (it moves and looks better this way), and rotate the other joints so that the elbows and hands are in the expected positions (use your own arms for reference, if they’re available).
On that grey thing that’s hanging off his chest, lift the inner striped thing up so that it lines up with the stripes on the bigger piece of the grey thing, and then lift it up to both cover the otherwise gaping hole in Offroad Ironhide’s chest and cover the GMC logos on his grille.

It’s just that easy!

In Robot mode, there’s a lot more to look at on Offroad Ironhide. I’m really fond of the yellow, and just the general infusion of colour that the original Ironhide figure lacked. There are lots of nice little details to the sculpt, and unless you’re looking for movie accuracy I’d say this is the version of the mold to get. The light piping in the eyes doesn’t work, because they’ve been painted over in Allspark blue, but the plastic was so dark that they barely worked before, so it’s no great loss. The figure is very posable, although most of the joints on mine are a bit on the stiff side. It’s okay, everyone gets stiff joints when they hit old age. Offroad Ironhide comes with his trademark cannons, done in a golden plastic with small Allspark blue highlights, and with Allspark blue missiles. He can only fire the missiles if both cannons are attached together; they are not spring loaded and the sliders to fire the missiles are not on the same half that the missiles sit in. The combined cannon is about as long as Offroad Ironhide is tall, but it’s not heavy enough to cause many balance issues - he’s a hefty figure in his own right.

Articulation Breakdown

Head - Swivel joint only
Arms - Triple jointed shoulder (three swivel joints, one of which is ratcheted, but allowing a lot of movement overall), swivel elbows (limited to about 90 degrees), swivel wrists
Legs - Triple jointed hip (three swivel joints, one of which is ratcheted, although one of them is closer to the knee), swivel knees (limited to about 90 degrees)

Score

Deco: Rating: . I really don’t care much for the Allspark Blue infusion, but it doesn’t clash too badly with his scheme, so I’ll tolerate it.
Posability: Rating: . This figure is amazingly posable, but loses for some joints being too tight (I’m looking at you, shoulder joints!) and some being too loose (hips, this is for you!) and for ratcheting joints in inconvenient areas.
Transformation: Rating: . I don’t like how readily the roof pops off. I’ve become good enough at it that it doesn’t usually happen, but it’s just another part to lose and I really don’t like having to remove anything that isn’t a weapon. His automorph is straightforward once you know it, but not intuitive enough that a co-worker that picks it up off your desk isn’t likely to strip the gears (didn’t happen to mine, but it was definitely my first impulse to pull on the heels when I saw them).
Badassery: Rating: . It’s freaking Ironhide. He’s got a big freaking gun. What more do you want?
Vehicle Mode: Rating: . I was tempted to dock a half point for the smokestacks, but yadda yadda toy safety. I know. It’s a movie toy, of course it looks almost exactly like it did onscreen. I like the cannons enough that I don’t care that they show in vehicle mode - would Ironhide really feel the need to conceal those bad boys?
Robot Mode: Rating: . There’s not a single thing I could think to improve on this figure. The kibble that’s there fits well with the onscreen character, and more of it tucks away than you’d really think they could.