Some cartoon with big chins and a little girl that got beloved by fans and taken off TV to make way for a different show on another network. Yeah, that's fair.
Heh, so many people did the Grims thing.. I'm quite looking forward to AniGrims, he's still where I stashed him. Come payday, Grims shall be mine! Glee!
Anyhoo, got Soundwave today. On sale, no less. Went in wanting Oil Slick, found Soundwave and Jazz. Was a toss-up between the two, settled on Sounds simply for the sheer snazziness of the Bitchin' Birdguitar. And the colour, I like blue things. So, without further ado..
o86 review Animated Soundwave
Backstory:
Soundwave. He's a given favourite, being one of the most iconic Transformers characters of all time. Hell, I have a Soundwave duvet cover I hang on my wall. When Animated came along, hey, he gets his dues, and that's always welcome. Last time we got a new Soundwave design, it was..Titanium, hm, but before 'that' it was..Music Label, damnit. Before 'that' it was Cybertron, and that presented Sounds as an alien jet with a very demonic aesthetic. This time, however, we get a more earthly take on how Sounds works when he's not a dated walkman. We almost got this in the movie, too, as Sounds was gonna be a Hummer. I'd have kinda liked to see a Ratchet retool as Soundwave, but hey.
Aaanyway..
Vehicle mode:
Sounds is a boxy little low-rider street racer van of the kind usually filled with idiots and playing terrible music, thus making it appropriate. It's not a Scion/BB as some have noted, being much larger in scale, more along the lines of the bigger vans the Scion . The colour is pretty much dead on Soundwave Blue, with perhaps a slight compromise between Toy Blue and Show Blue. It favours the darker blue of the movie, and lacks Toy Blue's metallic flakes, so. Accented thoroughly with electric blue paintapps that break the vehicle mode up excellently and prevent it from being a visual bore.
The windows are translucent. This is utterly useless, since they're black, and barely any light gets through. What was the point of that? Silly. Does have more bearing in robot mode, though.
This mode may be pretty far removed from a walkman, but as mentioned by others, this design's greatest strength is in its aesthetic - it mimics analogue dials and spools without being analogue in design. Clever stuff. Specifically, he has markings on his doors that look like a tape reel. The electric blue really brings it out.
Other nifty parts include the 'power' marking on the roof, the traditional Soundwave waist buttons on the grille, and a moulded equalizer on the back window. He also has a moulded license plate, sadly unpainted. The wheels even look like speakers.
He's pretty solidly in disguise, too. No obvious robot parts, the underside is well covered. He sports a Decepticon symbol in gold on the front of the vehicle.
Now, Sounds comes with one accessory: The Bitchin' Birdguitar. With an accessory this cool, it's not really necessary that he come with more. It's a big flying wing-style axe, in black with vibrant red paint apps. Can attach to the roof in vehicle mode, and really makes Sounds look more like a band's mascot van more than anything else. Huge novelty guitar and such. Nice touch. What would Soundwave be without his minions, after all?
Do have a quibble, mind - the vehicle's not as solid as it should be. Some parts don't align quite right, especially the front, and once it's knocked out of alighnment, it's a bit of a mission to get it back together. Also, short of plugging the Bitchin' Birdguitar onto the roof, it does nothing except roll. Does roll well, all the same, so. Would've appreciated some opening parts, hey, or pop-out speakers.
Pretty snazzy vehicle mode all up. Chunky, clever use of aesthetic to have it evoke G1 Soundwave without being dated, and the accessory stows.
Toransuform!
Fairly unorthodox transformation here. The front section contorts, spins, and folds around to become his legs, with the front half of the roof being feet. Grille flips around to become his shins, unfortunately making the Soundwave Buttons hidden in robot mode - good thing the chestplate has more. Sides of the van become his arms, bottom folds up into his chest, and the head pops out of his backpack.
if anything, this calls Alternators Rumble to mind, which is amusingly appropriate.
Laserbeak is exceedingly simple - guitar body splits into wings, neck slides in to become the tail. Does the trick, no worse than Booster.
Robot mode:
This guy's pretty squat and gorilla-like. Not "Repaint as Beastbox" gorilla-like, but..actually, that'd be awesome.
Essentially, he's about as wide as he is tall, and very boxy. Chunky shoulder and shin boxes, with big gold feet and long, thin forearms. Thighs are short, chest is wide. It's an interesting look, quite different from most in the Animated style, who tend to be more elongated than crunched-up.
The design aesthetic carries over to this mode too. The rear wheels are now shoulder-mounted as speakers, while he has more moulded speakers on either side of his head. The tape spools are now on his forearms. Robot mode reveals the chestplate, too, the first significant use of translucent plastic. While he doesn't have a cassette door ala G1 Sounds, his chest evokes it, and it does open if need be. There's a set of Soundwave Buttons on the lower half, and a Decepticon symbol in the middle. Sculpted into the back of it is another set of equalizers, carrying on the detail from vehicle mode, very cool. Only visible thanks to it being translucent!
Head's a neat reinterpretation, being sharper than G1, but more squashed than Cybertron's. The red sunglasses are spiffy. Purist in me wishes his glasses were yellow and his faceplate was silver, but whatchagonnado.
No slouch in the articulation department - 16 POA, including bending wrists, ankle articulation, multiple points in his double-jointed elbows, waist, and a ball-jointed neck. Not much range of motion in the neck, but enough to make the ball jointing worthwhile. He can assume a fairly wide variety of poses, and is stable thanks to his chunky feet and their ability to swivel. Could stand to have tighter ball joints, otherwise pretty good for joint tolerances.
Shoulders are a tad restricted due to the transformation jointing, can't move out to the sides well. Hardly a dealbreaker, though.
While Sounds is neat on his own, he's a bit bland, as he doesn't really have anything to do. Initially, with JT's thoughts in mind, I was thinking "Man, he'd be so much cooler with a gun and a shoulder cannon", until I hooked him up with the Bitchin' Birdguitar. Suddenly, it all comes together.
Thanks to Sounds having open-palmed hands, the Bitchin' Birdguitar plugs into his forearms. There are two pegs, so he can hold it left or right handed. The red contrasts very well with the blue, and completes the robot mode perfectly.
There's a number of options here. He can hold it normally, with it plugged into a forearm and the other arm supporting the neck; here the bending hands come into play (Heh, into play) so he can actually look like he's playing the thing. You can throw an arm up to give the crowd a wave (If only one hand was pulling the horns), His range of knee and elbow articulation help a lot here.
Laserbeak himself, now, he's definitely an accessory rather than a toy unto himself, shame. No real articulation, though he looks neat. Desperately needs paint on the eyes, fortunately I have a gold paint pen that's an acceptable match for the existing gold on Sounds.
Laserbeak has little feet underneath his fairly flat and static body, these are the lips that hold the guitar to Soundwave's roof. As such, he can sit on Sounds' backpack or arm, or he can clip to Sounds' back. This is rather neat, since it gives Sounds a jetpack. Wings! Keen. Alternatively, Soundwave can hold both pegs from guitar mode, which are now on Laserbeak's wings, and use his little bird-buddy as a hanglider. I love play value.
Overall:
Right, we've got a new interpretation of an old favourite, always a good start. A solid vehicle mode that simultaneously updates and homages, a really great and innovative accessory (Since Aaron Archer is a known fan of Takara's Brave series, I think it's safe to say this is a Mic Sounders homage, too), an usnusual transformation and an offbeat (Ha) robot mode with plenty of play and display value.
With minor reservations due to the tolerances in vehicle mode, dark translucent sprue, slightly cumbersome shoulders, and lack of paint on Laserbeak, this is a great piece of toy and you should go buy it now.
Picked up oil slick and jazz today. Went to three stores, only target had even part of wave 3, planning on picking up soundwave and voyager prime soon.
I've been putting off buying a Super Megs for a while now.
And I think I finally know what it is.
It's not the fact that he's $40. I mean, that's part of it, but fuck it, if I really wanted him bad enough, I'd just cave and do it.
But then I've been passing on Oil Slick and Soundwave and Jazz, even though they're plentiful. And I was thinking about it today and I figured it out.
I do not like Animated toys.
There. I said it. I admitted it. I just don't like 'em.
I don't know what it is. Lockdown's pretty cool, but every other one so far has been wholly underwhelming. Grimlock is a toy with Deluxe-level complexity that's bumped up to Mega for scale reasons. Ratchet's just kinda iffy. Blackarachnia is Just Alright and not impressive at all.
Meanwhile, Classics Onslaught is great, and I just bought Heavy Load who is pretty much guaranteed to rule. Onslaught impresses me and fulfills me in ways that the Animated toys just Don't--and it's not just that He's Onslaught, either. It's that he's a genuinely superior toy, and I don't think I can justify buying these damn Animated toys anymore if they don't really start to get really kickass.
I'll probably buy Soundwave soonish before he's gone, and I guess I want Prime and Megs in some incarnation. I'll pick up ActivatorBee to have him, although I still might get that three-pack that's coming out.
But yeah. Animated toys aren't doing it for me. The 'show' is great most of the time and I'm a big fan of that. It's just...I dunno. I said when the line started that I was gonna buy some of the toys and try them out and go from there. I did that, and now it seems that I just don't wanna keep doing it.
Maybe it's the aesthetic? Maybe I'm just not satisfied with the complexity or detail of these toys. I dunno, but whatever it is, I just don't like something about them, and I'm not likely to keep buying them.
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.
Frankly, I find the aesthetic fresh, and even fresher, is that the toys are not losing anything for the sake of gimmickry anymore. I haven't had a toy like that since... early beastwars.
Here's the thing, though: Neither are the Classics.
And it's not that I don't dig the aesthetic in general. Like I said, I'm a big fan of the show--the designs actually 'do' look cool there and stuff. It's just that, somehow, I'm not enjoying owning physical representations of them that much.
It's kinda like how I really like The Matrix but have no desire whatsoever to own figures based on it, y'know?
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.
That's interesting, because about half the reason I've been going so crazy getting the Animated figures is *because* I like the show and the characters so much, that I really want fun plastic representations of them. I mean, the first two I got were Ratchet and Lockdown, two characters I really dig, and the focal points of one of the best S1 episodes to boot. And while Lockdown has crappy hands and Ratchet's gimmick frustrates with What Could've Been, they both represent the show characters very well. So much that when I saw how badly Deluxe Bumblebee failed at that (I'm really fond of BB in the show) it was enough to make me pass on him and pick up the superior ActivatorBee the instant I saw him. And while it sucks that Voyager Bulkhead isn't in scale with any of his buddies, he's so wonderfully true to his show version (The styling, the proportions [itty bitty legs!], the wrecking ball) that he was an easy choice as far as purchasing. Plus he IS in scale with Lugnut, another favorite, so that's a plus. So for someone like me, who'll buy toys as representations of characters (I've got a bunch of anime PVCs too, for instance), they're great.
Of course, it works in a wierd reverse way too. Soundwave was one of the first designs we saw, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever, not least of all because of the Bitchin' Birdguitar. I eagerly anticipated his episode, and then...was severely disappointed, due to the lack of said guitar. Oddly, this did not detract from my want for the toy at all, because it was still a design I really liked, and hey, it did come with the guitar.
Anyway O6, you should know that Leader Megs is a terrific toy. About the only thing that I'd say is disappointing about him is his transformation, it's awfully simple, though there's a couple clever bits to it. Still, both resulting modes are great. His vehicle mode is HUGE! I also like making my own brand of fun with him. Every time he asks me "WHERE is the AllSpark?" I reply with a desperate "I don't KNOW!!".
As always, I dig the engineering on these things, and aside from the initial QC-fix issues we've got a good line on our hands. Just recently, Sounds, Mega Prime, and Blitzwing have really impressed me. They're dynamic, fun pieces of work that display well. Meanwhile, I regret purchasing the Battle Begins two-pack and Cybertronian Megs, and am not very fond of Blackarachnia. It comes down to individual figures rather than any particular issue with the line itself.
I'm being pretty selective, too. Won't get the Bulkheads, dunwant original flavour Prowl, Deluxe 'Bee looks bad.. Yet Jazz, Snarlag, Oil Slick, and lots of upcoming stuff says Buy Me. So I shall.
