Bonecrusher hates that it’s taken this long to get a review done for him. He also hates that he probably won’t get a new toy for the Revenge of the Fallen toyline.
In vehicle mode, the first thing that jumps out about Bonecrusher is that they made him tiny. For such a big guy, he got stuck with a puny toy. Brawl got an upgrade, but no such luck for the guy that went toe to toe with Prime himself. He didn’t make out too poorly, though - there’s a ton of molded details, and the little tampographed Bonecrusher logo on the side is a nice touch. His vehicle mode is a little light on paint otherwise, though - just painted windows and a couple of painted lights (signal lights? on a minesweeper?) and spare tyres. He’s still fun, though - he’s got a good roll, and his big claw is articulated for plenty of car flipping action (admittedly, he’d be flipping Legends sized cars, but still). He’s concealed most of his obvious robot parts, excepting the toes sitting over his rear wheels. Read the rest…
Soundwave: superior. Lack of reappearances in later episodes of the show: inferior.
Yeah, I love Soundwave. I don’t know why (probably the voice), but he was the character that stuck in my head the most from G1. I never had a G1 Soundwave, or any of the homages in later series. I picked up the Classics Soundwave when it was at Toys R Us, which is close enough for me. But this review isn’t about that, it’s about Animated Soundwave! Unlike his previous incarnations, Soundwave turns into a station wagon rather than a tape deck or whatever else he’s been over the years. He’s a pretty solid little car, and rolls well despite the low clearance (although I find that he’s not always rolling on all four wheels). I think it’s fair to break out the dreaded descriptor neon for his paint job, with electric blue detailing against a dark blue body. Actually, maybe argon is a better choice for that, but I don’t think it’ll catch on. He’s got a pattern of electric blue creating a vaguely cassette spool-like design on the doors, a power symbol (IEC 5009, to be precise) on the roof, and in gold on the front bumper he’s got a duplicate of the original Soundwave’s control buttons. All he really needs is an eject button. There is also unpainted detail molded into the back window of two more cassette spools with a bar graph in between. Read the rest…
OK, now for another xmas gift, this time from my lovely wife. It’s time to rock out with… Laserbeak?! Yeah, I’m reviewing Laserbeak separately from his packagemate Soundwave. This’ll be a quick one, for a simple toy.
His guitar mode is pretty straightforward. It’s molded entirely in black plastic, with a splash of red. There’s not a whole lot of features here, although you can adjust where the headstock sits on the neck (yes, I had to look those names up, I’m not a musician). There are a couple of pegs on the body that fit into Soundwave’s arms, and he can also be mounted on Soundwave’s roof in vehicle mode, which looks silly. Read the rest…
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…
It’s a tired day on Take Your Toy To Work day this week, and in my non-rush this morning I dragged Stockade in to harass my co-workers for the next week.
Out of the box, Stockade is similar to but technically distinct from the Sector 7 Escalades used in the movie. He’s mostly black, with heavily tinted windows and lights, silver detailing, an S7 emblem on his doors and a Decepticon logo on the grille. Pretty slick. I kind of figured an SUV would be taller (and scaled more closely to Ironhide), but I guess he wouldn’t fly as a voyager. Still, the silver details really make this a nice looking altmode, and the only real headscratcher for me is one of those pesky fuel doors on each side. Read the rest…
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Decepticon, and the tag cloud in the sidebar is telling me I should do another one. Grabbing the closest one at hand, I’ve got the bounty hunter Lockdown to review.
Lockdown’s vehicle mode is suitably intimidating, portraying death on wheels rather nicely. He’s got spikes on his roof, spikes on his bumper, spikes on his hubcaps, and plenty of other sharp surfaces to discourage the use of Detroit’s crosswalks. I’m not quite sure how a driver could be intended to see past that enormous engine that pokes out of the hood, but that could perhaps be part of the point. He’s slick, he’s low slung, and he’s just plain cool looking. Read the rest…
OK, because I grabbed him while fumbling around in the dark for a toy to review, today’s review is going to be about Dropkick.
Dropkick, despite being connected with the video game adaptation of the movie, is actually a pretty nice figure. His altmode is a very nice blue and silver Chevy Silverado (actually, it’s not licensed - I’m tempted to call it a Chavy Silverada or something like that, but that seems annoying to try to keep up). In the deco of the truck mode, he’s got what is possibly the biggest faction symbol in the history of the brand - it’s about half the length of the truck. Clever. The truck is lowered to an insane degree, and if I hadn’t seen people actually doing crazy things like that, I wouldn’t believe it to be accurate to reality (Autobot tip: to evade this Decepticon, find some speed bumps!). Unlike Ironhide, this vehicle features something I’ve never seen on another Transformer - the bed cover actually has a pickup bed underneath, and is removable. Very nice. The bed cover doubles as a “capture claw” type device, which is deployable through a spring-loaded cover in the tailgate. Read the rest…
Well, it’s another Bring Your Transformer to Work day, and this week I let my wonderful lady pick one out. I opened the bag this morning, and to my surprise (because I’d forgotten I’d bought it) it’s Jolt, one of the Walmart exclusive deluxes from the Movie line.
Jolt is a redeco of Cybertron Crosswise, according to the Wiki, and transforms into a Bugatti EB 15.4 Veyron. Supposedly. I’m not going to claim to be an expert on either Cybertron or Volkswagens, so I’ll take them at their word. It’s a nice looking car, at least, and the purple/silver/black colour scheme really seems to work on this mold. I’m reminded of Swindle, but I may be biased because that’s the colour I painted my spare. Nothing stands out from the vehicle mode as “missing”, except maybe “missiles”, but those can be added by inserting the key into the rear of the car. Voila, missiles (of the non-firing variety). If you want to shoot, he can fire a single spring loaded missile from his spoiler, but he’ll only hit targets behind him. If you want him shooting that missile at something in front of him, he’ll have to transform… Read the rest…
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