What the heck, I’ve opened a few new toys this month, so I might as well start reviewing again. Since he’s closest at hand, Starscream gets the honors.
I opened the box months ago, but never took him off the tray until today (loose toys are harder to store, and I don’t have any shelves). I took him out, after a minute or so of fiddling with him I figured out what the rattling noise in the box was - his head came off. It popped back on easy enough. Some of the flaps move around, and you can lower the landing gear and roll him around the desk. His missile launchers can be swung around to fire forward, but they don’t do his ground clearance any favours. Clearly, he shouldn’t be firing those things on the runway. I was a bit skeptical of the blue and red Starscream colour scheme, but honestly, I think it works well on this mold. Something more show-accurate would be nice, and I’d like to see some of the (inevitable) redecos that are happening for it, but I just can’t picture it looking as good in G1 colours. There’s nowhere on here wanting for another paint application, although the mauve paint behind the cockpit on mine is a bit sloppy. Overall, it’s a solid jet, with less undercarriage kibble than I’d expected, and I love the forward swept wings.
Oh my goodness. How did I let it slip for so long? Oh, right. “I’m busy today. I’ll do a review tomorrow, so it’s okay if I play SimCity or watch an old Animated episode.” Anyways, this week’s toy on my desk is Voyager Megatron from Animated.
This first Megatron toy in the Animated line turns into Megatron’s original altmode, the Cybertronic jet seen in that one scene in the pilot, to stand with Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime. He’s mostly black, with a fair dose of grey and translucent red. His fusion cannon is mounted so that it fires aft, presumably to deal with that backstabbing Starscream. It is, naturally, quite aggressive, and being a spacecraft completely free of anything remotely resembling aerodynamics. It also appears to have VTOL fans, for no other reason than they need to parallel similar constructions on his earth mode. I can’t shake a feeling that it should be flying backwards, probably because of that fusion cannon and the flow of the lines of the craft, but apparently that’s just wrong. Overall, I’d say that he’s got a nicer looking Cybertronic jet mode than his 2007 film counterpart. Read the rest…
Well, it’s another month, so I’ll do one I’ve been dying to do for a while now. It’s time for Voyager Bulkhead from Transformers Animated.
Bulkhead, like every Animated toy I’ve got so far, is pure joy in vehicle mode. He’s chunky, although he seems a bit smallish for a voyager. Maybe that’s just because I’m anxious to see the leader size figure later. He’s mostly a military green, with white stars that remind me of Hound for some reason. It’s mostly show-accurate, except for the dip in the roof between the arms and a couple of missing paint applications (golden yellow for the lowest pair of lights on the front, and black for the viewports in the doors. All things considered, it’s a really nice vehicle mode. Read the rest…
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. Read the rest…