Universe2.0/Generations Review Thread

[Shockwave]

I meant molding a new one. I don't have a lot of faith as my sculpting skills... need refinement.

[JediTricks]

Perceptor - the short and not-so-sweet of it.

- I don't care that this is under the mainline badge and RTS gimmick, it's clearly a Generations figure.

Vehicle mode:
- Halftrack truck with lightbar on top.
- Front end doesn't quite align with main body.
- Red is dominant, some detailing keeps it from looking cheap, though it could use a little more here since it's vast expanses of red.
- Rolling is fair, but bot shoulders stick out the bottom of the front bumper and drag on ground.

Transformation:
- Instructions spend a third of the time explaining something that isn't possible at that stage since the wheels cannot pass the hinge; and that section is really is just "rotate strut around, rotate wheel in".
- Instructions explain but confuse about the lower legs.
- Something ugly about this transformation even before the atrocious backpack/shoulder problem, the lower legs come together with the kibble so oddly.
- Aforementioned backpack problem is vague, doesn't lock down when correct due to design missteps.
- Back to vehicle mode is frustrating the first time, the feet are easy to forget to leave out of the way.

Bot mode:
- Looks a lot like Reflector. Deco, sculpt, cheesy chrome bits, shoulder cannon, robot proportions, it's quite G1.
- Face sculpt based on G1 cartoon, but this is longer and thus looks cheaper, a bit like a older doofus.
- Eyes are painted yellow which is STUPID AS HELL since they're set deep in the head and already were lightpiped yellow plastic, so the paint actually covers up the color of his eyes by being thick and deep in shadow!
- Kibble backpack also houses shoulders on struts, backpack is supposed to lock into strut on head and into a tab in the back, but the tab doesn't hold so any rotation of the arms can easily dislodge the entire backpack and shoulder assembly, which is a huge problem on this figure.
- I don't like "floating" shoulders either, although these at least are in the right place.
- Chrome and clear chest opens to show the detail inside and access the rubsign, but the rubsign sits on a section smaller than its shape, so it's essentially a loose sticker that bends when you use it.
- Lightbar turns into shoulder cannon that reminds one of the microscope on the original. A nifty touch, and they added a flip-up targeting reticle.
- Shoulder cannon is on a hinge designed specifically to move, yet in no mode can this work, it always bumps into something. It seems like an idea to use the chest-tray and the cannon to fudge the microscope mode of the original character, but got abandoned partway through.
- Legs telescope quite a bit, thighs are very thin to make working knees, but telescoping causes a little floppiness so care is needed to pose the knee joint.
- Hands are sculpted open but meant to hold 5mm pegs. This figure seems like it needs a gun for those hands. The right arm can bend up to support the shoulder cannon, but that cannon is permanently attached so that's all he can do.

Bottom line:
- Some interesting ideas but feels half-baked.
- Very slaved to the G1 character, almost to the point of overkill in the deco.
- Has some personality despite unlikeable head.
- Suffers from extremely problematic engineering issues when posing legs and especially arms.
- I kinda like this figure despite flaws, but hard to enjoy and impossible to recommend without many caveats.

[Onslaught Six]

- Hands are sculpted open but meant to hold 5mm pegs. This figure seems like it needs a gun for those hands. The right arm can bend up to support the shoulder cannon, but that cannon is permanently attached so that's all he can do.

I'm wondering if Blurr was given the superhuge sniper rifle specifically so you can give it to Perceptor.
http://www.shortpacked.com/wp-content/b ... sniper.jpg

[andersonh1]

Generations Blurr

Vehicle: Well, the colors certainly reference G1 Blurr. I'm not sure how well they work on the car... I'd never expect to see a car like that tooling down the road. Aesthetically it's not bad. Flip it over, and the sniper rifle clips in much better than Drift's sword did, or at least I dont' expect the damage that I did with the sword since the gun has a harder plastic. Clearance is decent, and the car rolls fairly well.

Transformation: I found it a little tricky the first time back when I first bought Drift, but once I figured out that most of the car splits along the center, it's pretty easy. Same with Blurr. All the panels line up nicely and fit together well.

Robot mode: A good repaint. The new colors make Blurr very different than Drift, so mission accomplished there. The sniper rifle and door pistols are a nice bonus since we get remolded weapons along with the new head, making this reused mold more of a bargain. The head is IDW's version of Blurr rather than G1, which is fine. It makes sense to have the new toys reflect more recent fiction and hopefully achieve some cross-promotion, though I have no idea how many kids read IDW's comics.

Overall: An excellent repaint/remold, and it's good to have a new version of Blurr that's considerably better than the original. Really, G1 Blurr has quite a few flaws. I need to review that at some point.

[JediTricks]

Fiddling with Perceptor, I found that the backpack with the arms has a way to rotate into position in such a way that it locks down tight enough to move the arms. However, it's pretty tenuous, relies on friction between parts that aren't designed for the job, they may wear from doing this job. But for now, Perceptor is "whole" to me and I can concentrate on what a weird thing he is, more G1 in spirit than most Classics, but with engineering that just seems too ambitious, too outside the norm.

[138 Scourge]

So, Scourge. I've been looking forward to this toy something fierce, as you can probably imagine. I'll admit, at first, I was put off by the change in alt. mode, because if the flying bathtub of death isn't broken, why fix it? Sure, as a space hovercraft it's kind of odd, but as crazy sort of spaceship that's bullet-shaped, why not? So the flying wing stealth bomber refit seemed kind of unnecessary. Plus, it looked like kind of a callback to the BotCon Scourge, and that thing looked dumb as hell. Honestly, though, now that I've got this thing, I'm glad they went this route, because it gave the designers a chance to show off some pretty clever tricks.

Jet mode: Probably "Jet" is a misnomer, since the bio describes Scourge as being able to fly in space easily, but hell, all the Decepticon jets do that. This is a sort of stealth-bomber jet with some fictional bits and a clearly Scourgey color scheme. Even without being the Death Bathtub, this thing's reminiscent of the original just by color and by the familiar head-mounted laser at the back of the thing. Up at the front are six painted windows, which imply this thing is HUGE, then there's nine smaller windows on either side that are just not painted. I'm not sure what's up with that, if they're not supposed to be windows, or if filling in each of these little things would have counted as individual paint apps (I don't know these things, JT, is that how it works?) but it's not a big issue. The jet here is pretty amazingly wide and really...flat. Like, it's actually surprising to me that they could get a robot in here. And they pulled it off without much in the way of standard jet kibble, too. The bottom of the jet has fold-down landing gear, and a few techy bits, but nothing that screams out "Robot parts just hangin' out here" (looking at you, Thunderwing). The only parts that you could call kibble are the arm/engines on the top of the plane, but seeing as how they're engines, and not just crap hanging out, I'm disinclined to use the k-word here. Though if I was, it'd be a switch for a jet to have it's robot kibble on the top of a plane. You can see the robot's fingers at the front of each engine, but again, they're not overly offensive as far as being blatant robot parts. While there's no obvious weapons on this mode aside from the headgun, there are the bits for the clip weapons under each wing, so you can clip on guns, missiles, or speakers, depending on the situation. In an odd choice, the handguns this guy comes with don't fit onto the vehicle anywhere for an attack mode. They do hide out in a nice weapon storage feature, more on that later. And of course, Scourge can peek out from the back of the jet mode just to recreate that one bit in the movie. Nice touch here, and while it looks a little silly, it's still a fun feature.

Transformation: It really took me a minute to get this guy going the first time, but once I figured out what was going on, things worked out well. The instructions aren't spectacularly helpful, they give you an idea of what's happening, but not exactly. Basically, you fold down the wings and flip out a panel at the bottom of the jet they're mounted on. Unfold the cockpit area of the jet to make his legs, swivel the waist around to put a kibble flap at the back, turn the legs around to get 'em back at the right side, unfold the back panel of the engines and pull the arms out, then you flip the arms around 180, close the end bit of the engine again and it becomes extended round shoulder pads. This bit is really clever, actually, if hard to describe. It seems like they could have just made the engines extend and had a joint in there to be an arm, but no, they went a slightly longer way around the mulberry bush, it's pretty neat, really. Pop up the head and fold the head panel down, push the chest armor piece up (this'll pull the arms up with it), and jigger the chest together. Then snap the panel the wings attach to into the back and you're good. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't so much, once you do it a time or two you're gold. It's clever stuff, there's some different tricks going on in there, but it works really smoothly and everything snaps together nicely. It's especially impressive on a guy whose usual transformation is "Unwrap wings from around robot, fold a couple bits and you're there". Dude's given up his title of "King of the Shellformers", clearly.

Robot: Looks exactly like Scourge should look. Other than the wings being slightly different, this guy pulls off an amazing resemblance to his G1 counterpart. By the way, said wings have a couple articulated points on 'em, so you can fold the things up to look more like the originals. The head does not have even a bit of lightpiping, which is a welcome change for me, but then they go and paint the eyes a dark blue, which...kind of what you'd get most of the time if they were lightpiped. Well, whatever, this guy can sort of get away with having what looks like dark, empty eyes anyway. The headsculpt is outstanding, bringing out a lot of Scourge's character. That can be difficult, just ask Titanium Scourge. Articulation's pretty good, the upper arms and shoulders are pretty much one thing, so they're a little stiff, but if you pose the forearms and hands right, you can work around it. And if you've got the Big Convoy mold and his Matrix, you can recreate "The Burden Hardest to Bear", a feature that I'm just loving. Dude's feet end up being pretty big, he looks like he's wearing good-sized boots, but that does provide damn fine stability. Now, neat trick this guy pulls with the weapon storage: each wing opens up, and you can snap one of his guns into little storage spaces sculpted into the insides of the wings. This seems like something that could have been ballsed up easily, but it works perfectly. The guns stay in place in there, and can stay in there during transformation and everything. Now, you got two guns, a rifle with a fold-up barrel, and a double-barreld smaller gun. In what's a neat trick, the smaller weapon, it's butt folds in, and a clip folds out, so you can clip it to the top of the larger gun, making a even bigger gun that looks a bit like a Targetmaster. It's not, though. I'd have liked to see the Targetmaster feature make it's way in here, but at least they got clever with how to make this gun work. Honestly, probably my favorite use of the clip system yet. And on a purely cosmetic note, Scourge does manage to both have fists with the usual holes in 'em, and to have his signature pink claws. Nice. Only real flaw I can find, if I want to pick nits, the upper arms are kind of spindly, and that neat bit in their transformation might cost a bit of articulation. But it's a minor flaw, and not one that hurts the toy much at all.

Overall: This figure's exactly what you want if you want a really good version of Scourge. The robot mode's a near-perfect recreation of the original, with some neat new features. Fun, different transformation, and a vehicle mode that's somehow close to the original and at the same time an entirely different thing. Love it, recommend it.

[annhell]

Dude's given up his title of "King of the Shellformers", clearly.

I think that title was already ursurped by the speedboat Decepticon from the Cybertron series (whose name eludes me right now).

Scourge hasn't arrived on my tiny island yet. I've been toying with the idea of getting 3 pieces of this figure just to display as the Sweeps. In your opinion, do you think the mould is worthwhile for troop building? Or should I just get 1 to skulk around behind Cyclonus?

[138 Scourge]

Dude's given up his title of "King of the Shellformers", clearly.

I think that title was already ursurped by the speedboat Decepticon from the Cybertron series (whose name eludes me right now).

Scourge hasn't arrived on my tiny island yet. I've been toying with the idea of getting 3 pieces of this figure just to display as the Sweeps. In your opinion, do you think the mould is worthwhile for troop building? Or should I just get 1 to skulk around behind Cyclonus?

Oh, yeah...Thunderblast! She's almost, like...unofficial Sweeps material just for swiping the transformation so blatantly.

As for troopbuilding with this guy...Yeah, I'd say he's well worth it. Damn fine mold, damn fine. You don't want this dude skulking, you want him standing out proud and triumphant!

I've got this one, and another on the way thanks to preordering the next wave, and I may well just hang on to the pair even if I rarely troopbuild. Throw in Titanium Scourge and that's a pretty good Sweeps troop right there.

[andersonh1]

Cybertronian Soundwave

Like Megatron, this is a very nice version of G1 Soundwave that retains all the essential colors and characteristics of the original figure while adapting it to a "Cybertronian" vehicular mode. And since I've currently got Soundwave in that mode, I'll start with that.

Vehicle: Blue and silver with gold trim in the front. Armed with Soundwave's traditional weapons, and I love that they've given him his "AA battery" based weapons that the original toy had. There's no real cockpit, door or windows, though the chest window could do in a pinch. But it seems fitting that sentient vehicles that don't have drivers wouldn't bother with driver compartments, so the absence of one works very well. However, the vehicle doesn't roll well because the front two wheels keep getting caught on the bumper. That's fine, the whole thing slides along fine. With the guns and armored look and "claws" on the front, Soundwave looks like a vehicle built to fight a war. It works well as a wartime mode for Soundwave, in my opinion.

Transformation: fairly simple and intuitive. Everything folds up and out, with various bits rotating. Easier to go from vehicle to robot than vice versa, but neither is very difficult.

Robot mode: Very recognizable as Soundwave, even with so many shapes and parts that differ from the original. We had a discussion last year about "iconic" Transformers, and I think Soundwave definitely qualifies. He's kept so much that dates back to the original tape cassette figure. The blue and silver color scheme is still present, along with a face similar to the original and the "cassette" door chest. The vehicle claws that end up on his waist almost look like the cassette buttons. And the chest compartment opens to allow the "battery" weapons to store in a mix of play factors that the original toy had. Posability is good, especially with the large stable feet.

Overall: Very nice version of Soundwave, and a decent Transformer as well, especially if you're a fan of Cybertronian mode characters.

[Shockwave]

Wow. Had my whole review done of the RTS Legends figures and accidentally hit the back button. Whole thing lost. Well, here goes.

Trailbreaker: It's black and therefore a little bit bland. He's a good representation of the character and if you want a mini one this is a good one to get. It's not spectacular, but it doesn't suck either. It's Trailbreaker and therefore kinda meh. This thing isn't going to be the center piece of your collection but it's not trying to be.

Prowl: It's basically Universe Prowl shrunk down. I look forward to the inevetible Bluestreak and Smokescreen repaints. I do wish there were some details on his upper shoulders but it's a small complaint.

Goldbug: It's the Bumblebee from a few years ago, but the decision to go with the Goldbug homage is a good way to reissue the figure without feeling like it's the same one.

Prime. It's basically G1 Prime shrunk down to about 1/8th the size. The thing of note here is that it's G1 toy Prime not fiction Prime. The difference is really visible in the head sculpt. Transform is similar to Classics Voyager Prime but simplified.

Megatron. It's nice to get a Megs that's actually a P38. I know that sounds geewunny and maybe it is, but this figure really does represent the original toy well. The head is a little more like the cartoon model than the original toy, but that head kinda sucked ass anyway. Transformation is completely different from G1 Megs but everything in both modes more or less ends up in the same place. It gives us something different but something familiar at the same time.

Starscream: The bot and vehicle mode are your pretty typical Starscream. The transformation is different. The arms actually become the engines which is different. And the cockpit on the chest isn't the same one that ends up in vehicle mode. I do wish there was some blue on the tail wings but that's just so that it would break up the endless white back there.

Overall, I think this set is worth it. I like legends size figures and I (obviously) like G1 so this set was instant win. They could have put more paint to bring out the details a little more but these are minor complaints.