ROTF Review Thread

Money, violence, sex, computer graphics, scatalogical humor, racism, robots designed to be rednecks but given European accents, and maybe another sequel to the saga... what's not to love? TF m1, Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon and now Age of Extinction.
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JediTricks
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by JediTricks »

I'm reading DvD's reviews on the wave 1 scouts
http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Scout1

For Depthcharge, he mentions extra tabs to swing down the radar tower part way. In fact, the actual joint for those parts has another tab for the same thing. He feels it's not for attack mode, but I would disagree with that. While there could be a stable, flat foot made from this alternate position, the legs would have to stick WAY far forward to use it, to the point of instant instability. However, it also creates a flat surface for the boat hull and closes off the back, which is what the pontoon-like Attack Mode could use. So, an interesting find.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Onslaught Six »

JediTricks wrote:Stratosphere might have charm, though it could be a major flop.
I was thinking Total Pass for a while there until we saw some new auction pics where he's actually 'posed well.' And he gives off this incredibly cool 60s Japanese Super Robot theme to him that the raw figure doesn't convey at all.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Rampage01
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Rampage01 »

I think part of my liking for Rampage comes from the novelty of a quadraped robot mode. I also find whipping his treads around more entertaining than I probably should. Of course, he also gets bonus points for being an homage to one of my favorite characters. (Also for being an homage to something besides G1.)

I guess that isn't really much is it? Maybe I shouldn't like him. I do, but I don't seem to be able to come up with much as to why I do.
We'll just chalk this up as further proof that I have bad taste. (The fact that I liked Cybertron Thundercracker enough to buy both repaints was probably proof enough, already. :P )

While I'm at it, I might as well put in my two cents about the other ROTF figures I've picked up thus far.

Ransack: First bi-plane TF that I've heard of. Ads some nice variety to the line. Very well done bi-plane to. Good detailing and very little robot mode junk on the underside. Cool looking robot mode, too. Very skeletal, which makes sense, what with WWI planes being little more that wooden frames with canvas coverings. I really like him and look forward to any possible repaints and/or remolds, too.

Dirtboss: Another first in the alt. mode department in the form of a forklift. Unfortunately, the flap with the steering wheel on it doesn't actually lock in to anything in either mode, but that doesn't get in the way of anything so it's not too bad. His robot mode design is a bit plain in comparison to other ROTF figures. Didn't wow me as much as Ransack, but still a good toy.

Breakaway: Back to regular TF alt. modes with him in the form of a modern fighter jet. F-35 to be more precise. Like most jet-formers he has a bit of robo-junk on the underside of his alt. mode, mainly the feet. His bot mode is kind of awkward looking, with most of the jet ending up folded over his shoulders. I think it gives him a sort of charm, especially if you imagine him as a rookie. I personally really like him, but can easily see how others might not.

Sideswipe: Great robot mode design. Very sleek and graceful. I can easily imagine him skating around between Decepticons, blades swinging. It's a small thing, but I also really like the way his blades are transformed. If the CGI model does it the same way, it should look really cool on screen. Bot mode is also more stable for posing than it looks like it would be.

Rollbar: Like Dirtboss, his design feels very plain compared to other ROTF figures. Unlike Dirtboss, he doesn't have an unusual alt. mode, or even any weapons to make up for it. He's not really bad, he's just not great. He seems like a good enough toy, but he just doesn't distinguish himself in any way.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

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Actually, Dirt Boss isn't the first forklift TF. Armada's Liftor gets that honor.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Rampage01 »

Is that what that Minicon is? I've seen pictures of him before but it never really occured to me that he was a forklift. For some reason, I always thought he was supposed to be some kind of space-age snowplow.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by onslaught86 »

Gnnnn. So I want to get Rampage just to mess with him now, he sounds 'interesting' if nothing else. Especially since I hear tell you can rotate his springy legs 360 degrees to turn them into swivels, then back to activate the springs again.

After some searching, found the original gallery that made me interested in him from a few months back: Clicky.

I originally thought that the treads could be stowed based on those pics, now it appears they're just tucked back. Eh. We'll see.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Onslaught Six »

So. Sideways.

We knew very little about the Silver Audi Guy for a while. Once we started getting pics of his toy, it started looking kind of obvious--this guy's Barricade! I mean, look at him, he's got the head, the insecty window wings, the grille chest, digitigradey legs, everything. And then...it turned out it wasn't him, it was this new guy named Sideways. While slightly disappointing (as Barricade was my favourite 'Con from the first movie) he was still a pretty cool-looking toy, and it was looking increasingly unlikely that he was going to get another toy, so what the hell, I got him. Plus, nobody else seemed to have reviewed him yet, so I took the plunge.

Interestingly, Sideways doesn't actually turn into an Audi--just a vague approximation of one. It looks similar enough, though, and I don't care about licensed cars anyway, so what the hey. He's apparently missing areas of black on the hood, roof and trunk, which would explain why he comes in the same wave as Sideways (presumably the black would help differentiate the two silver cars). Frankly, I'm glad it lacks this paint, though, because a lot of the cars used in ROTF have this positively annoying habit of having stupid paintjobs. Like the random black hood parts on Mudflap and Skids. (Incidentally, though, the black and silver on Sideways makes him look a *lot* like the cartoon colouring for Bluestreak, which was used for the Universe version as well.)

If Sideways is anything, he's the perfect example of Movie Aesthetic. He's a bitty car that explodes into a much bigger robot. He's also got 'all kinds' of fiddly bits that you can basically position whatever way you want to. Sure, somewhere there's an "official" orientation, but nothing says you need to do it that way. After about a year of Universe's easily-defined and static robot forms, it's an almost refreshing change of pace.

Sideways' backpack is probably the biggest example of this. Both Hasbro's own pics and Seibertron's photos are Doing it Wrong. There's a pair of slits in the kibble, see, and the intuitive thing that you want to do is just fold the kibble up the whole way--and doing so causes these slits to align with the back of his chest/hood kibble, which makes you *think* "Oh, that's the way it goes, then." But it's not. In reality, you fold the backpack around so it ends up looking like, say, Universe Prowl's, and align the tabs in his backpack with two red tabs in his lower back. Doing so not just makes it look ten times better, but it allows you to fold up two panels in his chest and move the insecty wings forward--to make giant demon pincer shoulderpads. It looks awesome.

And yes, lots of fiddly bitses. There's his chest, which you can leave mostly folded up to closer resemble a more standard grille chest, or split it apart to resemble a Movie model more. As time's gone on, I've gotten into the Movie designs more, so I prefer to split it apart.

There's also his legs. They're very much digitigrade, but in an odd way. Most digitigrade Movie TFs, like Movie Starscream or Barricade, could straighten their legs out to approximate regular TF legs, if you so chose, and in many cases (Longarm, for example) it seemed like they were designed to do that in the first place. Sideways can't do this, though. He's got one joint, and then a digitigrade portion that's moulded permanently bent, and then he has another joint. It's not hindering at all, though, which is kind of impressive.

What 'is' hindering to his legs is the kibble. It's very much designed to fold over to the inside of his shins, and then there's a peg on the kibble and a hole in the digitigrade leg portion. Attaching these, however, will totally disable that second lower leg joint from being useful at all. On top of that, it doesn't look as good on the inside of his leg as it does on the outside, which is more Traditional TF anyway.

His arms have lots of geary bits in them. I suppose for some kind of Mech Alive gimmick, but it's *really* unnecessary. Gears in his elbows make some bits in his biceps turn around when you move his elbows. It's not an *intrusive* gimmick, other than beefing up his arms a hell of a lot (especially when compared to his positively chicken-like legs) so I'm not going to give it any shit.

What I 'am' going to give shit to, though, is a gimmick in his transformation. It's a definite Automorph, no question about it. During transformation, you press on his grille and his wheels spring down into his chest. The wheels on his hands are faux ones (and I'd expect so, since one is a 'saw.') The problem is that, first off, the grille doesn't immediately look like you should press on it, and second off, when you do press it (at least on mine) you need to press it slightly off-center, instead of in the middle, to trigger it. It's not a problem once you figure it out, but it's kind of non-intuitive and you can't transform him otherwise. The instructions clear it up, but I don't 'use' those.

Also, his arms have doorwings. This is in addition to the window-wings he's already got. However, the doorwings don't really have any place to go, and if you fold them back (like wings) they kind of bump into his backpack a little bit. It's not too horrible--certainly not the worst kibble problem we've ever had with a TF--but it's there.

If this guy's got one obvious flaw, it's paintapps. His entire stomach and crotch have loads of detail but are done in one big solid red colour. Thankfully, the detail goes deep enough and the red isn't annoying enough that it actually swallows all the detail--but this is one case where a blackwash would definitely help, and make *sense* as these kind of things are mostly on the dirty underside of a car. Also, the fingers on his left hand are painted, but not his thumb, and not on his right hand. The hell?

So here's the big question. Do you get him? I'd say yeah. He's not particularly flawed in any kind of way that stops you from enjoying the toy itself. His legs are kind of thin, so occasionally he has a balance issue, but usually a little bit of fiddling can clear that right up, and once he's in a good pose, he'll usually stay that way unless you knock him over. If you look at him and he appeals to you, grab him. In a line that, thus far, appears to have lots of abandoned ideas (Starscream, Prime) and downright weird and flawed designs (Herp and Derp, Demolishor, Rampage), Sideways is a 'really' safe bet. You can definitely do worse.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Dominic »

Herp and Derp? Oi.

As far as Sideways goes, it is not that the auto-morph is badly designed, it is that the instructions do a bad job of explaining it.


And, now, more random thoughts on the line.

More stuff I have seen, but am skipping:

7-11 stuff:

I am skipping all of this. But, I have picked up a few items for Lewis.

Character straws: Prime, Megatron, Fallen, and Bumblebee. While these are all better than one might expect from 7-11 merchandise, I am not sure they are worth going out of the way to get. If you are only willing to spend a few bucks to get a representation of the characters, you probably do not want them that much. (They might be good for little kids though.) Prime's chest looks a bit....off. I can see what the mold designers were attempting. But, it looks...incomplete.


Tilt-motion cups and slurpee cups: There are several tilt-motion cups, (each featuring a different character), at least 1 paper slurpee cup (w/ plastic top that is molded to read "Revenge of the Fallen"), and a paper slurpee cup.



And, actual toys:

Wheelie (robot/toy truck): If Wheelie/Wheels was a Voyager scale toy, he would be a nice reference to the "Transformers" franchise's roots as a branch of Microman, or even a larger than usual "Real Gear" robot. As it is, the toy is too small to be convincingly different from other toys that are not supposed to represent toys come to life, and far too large to be scaled to those toys. Combine this with the characters *very* tedious clown role in the movie, and I just cannot bring myself to drop $12 on it.


Deep Desert Brawl (robot/tank): Rather than make this a new character, (as was done with the Wreckage mold), Hasbro is making this another iteration of the off-screen DD recolor of the Leader Class toy. DD Brawl is either a non-movie toy, or represents a character like Blackout, who will just show up, despite being dead, with no explanation. Worth getting if you do not have either of the previous uses of this mold.



And, comics:

The movie adaptation and tie-ins have been compiled. "Defiance" is the only one worth getting on its own.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Onslaught Six »

Dominic wrote:Herp and Derp? Oi.
I knew if anyone were to complain, it'd be you, Dom. :D I dunno, part of it stuck to me. It's a better name than "The Twins," for Primus' sake.
As far as Sideways goes, it is not that the auto-morph is badly designed, it is that the instructions do a bad job of explaining it.
It can't be that, because I never use the instructions unless I positively cannot figure out part of the transformation. I saw the springs, and one of the wheels triggered without provocation, so I understood what was supposed to happen, I just couldn't figure out what to do to trigger it. Looking at the instructions made it obvious, though, and I got it after that.
Wheelie (robot/toy truck): If Wheelie/Wheels was a Voyager scale toy, he would be a nice reference to the "Transformers" franchise's roots as a branch of Microman, or even a larger than usual "Real Gear" robot. As it is, the toy is too small to be convincingly different from other toys that are not supposed to represent toys come to life, and far too large to be scaled to those toys. Combine this with the characters *very* tedious clown role in the movie, and I just cannot bring myself to drop $12 on it.
The descriptions of Wheelie from the novelizations actually plays him out to be a pretty endearingly funny character, not unlike Frenzy from the first movie. Of course, tastes seemed to vary on whether Frenzy was annoyingly idiotic or hilariously funny, so your mileage may vary.

Regardless, I may skip the toy.
Deep Desert Brawl (robot/tank): Rather than make this a new character, (as was done with the Wreckage mold), Hasbro is making this another iteration of the off-screen DD recolor of the Leader Class toy. DD Brawl is either a non-movie toy, or represents a character like Blackout, who will just show up, despite being dead, with no explanation. Worth getting if you do not have either of the previous uses of this mold.
No indications that Brawl is back, and I'd be especially worried about that considering he was technically named Devastator anyway.
The movie adaptation and tie-ins have been compiled. "Defiance" is the only one worth getting on its own.
The prequel to Movie 1, right? Hrm. I'll pass.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: ROTF Review Thread

Post by Dominic »

Wheelie might be more tolerable if not for the fact that the movie has a half-dozen clowns, and all of them are annoying enough on their own. Either way, he is bad enough alone.

"Defiance" is one of two prequels to the second movie.

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