TF Views

Added a few more figures to the roster...

Cyberverse Commander with Base
- Megatron with trailer base backpack thing - Not a bad entry, Megs is an ok figure with good detail. The base is alright, simple as hell and not that much going on, certainly not worth another $7 they're charging for it, but it's a convincing trailer, it clips onto Megs in both modes, and even makes a decent mech suit (if you ignore the instructions and use the "wings" as arms, as they were CLEARLY intended). The shooty gun goes off WAY too easily though.

Human Alliance Basic
- Sandstorm - cheesy baby buggy vehicle mode that drags on the ground which I hate, decent robot mode, pretty mediocre emplacement mode that makes for a terrible (and confusing) handheld weapon. Human figure's eyes are too close together, odd.
- Icepick - nice snowmobile mode, weapon mode is dubious but has room to be improved upon a little (chainsaw? how about scissors? or a spinny blade? the answer can be "yes!" to them all) and probably looks better handheld by a bigger figure, but just looks like a snowmobile with the tread flipped forward otherwise. Robot mode is decent if you don't mind cheap-looking white plastic, and it's got an unusual head. Sgt Chaos has a Germanic look to his masked, helmeted visage, but is otherwise unnoteworthy.
- Whirl - Hasbro cheaped out with the deco, the prototype used in the instructions clearly shows transparent cockpit cover, but they went with solid silver (on top of solid black plastic, so no scraping it away to reveal clear) so that hampers an already meh vehicle mode. Vehicle mode's brown color doesn't help either. But after spending a little time fiddling around, there's some charm here, and moving the rocket pods from the tail (wtf?!?) to hanging under the side missile makes a big difference. There's even hand and foot controls in the little risk-taker's-cockpit, but Sparkplug the pilot figure, his arms don't get close enough to actually grab the control handlebars - how stupid! Weapon mode is actually really good, folding the arms around makes for a nice and stable emplacement, the inversion of the cockpit seat makes for a new gunner seat shape, and the rotors becoming a long cannon barrel may be gappy but it pulls off the look really well. Robot mode is... interesting, not terrible, and mixes some of G1 Whirl into the character, but could be better too. The fact that nobody at Hasbro said "this removable rotor cannon could easily be his handheld weapon" sucks, the rotors end up as a backpack when they so easily could have been SLIGHTLY modified to slide over his hand, or added a 3mm hole somewhere to plug onto his arm peg - that was a massive missed opportunity. Still, end of the day, I like this figure.

Deluxe
- Sideswipe - I caved, was sick and wanted to take advantage of the sale, get another gun for the Mechtech group. Figure is ok in design if a bit small and simple, deco is an embarrassment of boring though. Gun is nice, flip-out blade is keen until it flips too far on its limited-slip axle (but that limited slippage lets the blade stay deployed since there's no plunger lock here). Bottom line, not entirely terrible, not very good though.

Voyager
- Battle Blades OP from the previous movie line - it was on clearance at HTS for $10, so I pulled the trigger on part of a larger order. OP looks way better than the DOTM voy OP, scales nicely to DOTM Megs and Shockwave. Good figure, I really like the expression of the Leader Class OP as a Voyager here, they even improved in a couple areas. The Matrix in his chest hangs up and gets dislodged in transformation though.

Leader Class
- Ironhide - vehicle mode is pretty good, except way too much robot junk visible under the body line, the back of the truck barely clears the ground from so much stuff. It's a big truck, and scales pretty well to the regular Human Alliance line vehicles and figures, maybe 10% too big but not crazy big for those (a tad too big for either LC OP though). Has 3 gimmicks, pull back each exhaust pipe to reveal each robot mode arm weapon, which is quite cool, and there's a button in the bed which sounds the truck revving the motor (holding the button causes it to make a running sound which then cycles down and back up until you let go, then it finishes the cycle and ends).

Transformation is somewhat simplistic but not too bad. It is however hampered by the front windshield piece being very difficult to get out of place, and even harder to get into place transforming back to vehicle mode; also, the front fenders are on stupidly weak ball joints that will pop out unless you take great care. The instructions also get the orientation of the windshield in bot mode wrong, there's a tab it hits when you leave it facing up.

Robot mode is big, very big, bigger than any other LC I've seen, half a head taller than LC ROTF OP which is a darned shame. The large size and simple transformation create a simple robot form in articulation, but it is a very detailed design (the sculpting is somewhat soft, like an upscaled Voyager-class, but the dark colors help get away with that). The forearms suffer big kibble chunks which is a real shame, they dislodge easily and are just too much. The neck on mine is glued down, and not glued in straight either, which is a bummer, but it's obvious why they did that, the joint they designed has no stops, the head can be turned 360 on it until it snaps the wires off, and it'd also be really easy to break the movable facemask off. Bot mode's articulation is very simple, just rotation & hinge shoulders and elbows and hips, and hinged knees and ankles; one hinged knee has almost no range though due to a stiffening panel added late to that part. The joints are all too weak on mine but to varying degrees, the left shoulder often dislodges on the transformation clip but the joint itself is also barely able to keep the arm up; the ankles hinge sideways for a spread leg pose but the hip ratchets are too weak and allow more play so he splays beyond that. Ironhide relies mainly on his gimmicks, and they are cool enough to justify consideration of the figure - the right arm reveals an underscaled version of the forearm weapon from the first movie, the left arm reveals a rather uninspired rectangular cannon (that reminds me slightly of the tripod buddy from the deluxe figure), the right calf side panel pulls open to rotate down and slide out a missile-launcher that (unbeknownst to the instructions) removes to be a 5mm peg handheld gun, the left calf side panel pulls open to reveal a gold-handled survival knife, a button in front or a lever in back drops the faceplate to set off 1 of 2 voice clips that don't sound like the movie character much (Ironhide here! Weapons ready!), and a lever in front or a button in back causes the chest to open wide and pivot forward a spinning gatling gun complete with a red light at the top and sound effects (if you don't finish the range of travel, the gatling gun doesn't stop making its sound and lights, but if you do, it has a completion sound before it stops). Both sound gimmicks come with blinking green eyes, the right eye includes the small scar above it which just looks like more eye when lit. There isn't much paint, deco is mainly black plastic, teal plastic, and a little gold piping, but it doesn't look terribly sparse for it. Aside from the fists, there are NO mechtech ports at all anywhere, which is somewhat odd for the Autobots' weapons master. The Human Alliance basic vehicles scale to nice weapons for him, especially Backfire and Whirl, but his shoulders are too weak to hold them upright.

Bottom line, I like Ironhide, but there are some reservations, it's not all good and gravy.

Not sure what I've picked up since my last post aside from the following...

Dlx Optimus Prime (WM exclusive) - An interesting figure, not bad for a dlx OP, some cheats but a satisfying, new transformation and decent in both modes. Not a bad deco overall, but bot mode could use even more paint.

Cyberverse Hatchet - alt mode is pretty good, albeit gaudy in black with gold trim. The underside could be less obvious (especially the claws just hanging off the back of the wings), but it has a working front landing gear. Transformation is alright, interesting for a feline robot type thing (Hasbro instructions miss a panel that covers most of the gaping back), definitely not the same ol'. Bot mode is interesting, not entirely satisfying but not bad, just could use a little more range of motion to make the rear of the bot a little less chunks of stuff and more robot. The front half enjoys a lot of nice sculpting though. And the 2 drones have their fronts flip over to reveal 2 different cannons (early versions had them peg together at the back but on mine the peg has been removed) and can be hand-held or shoulder-mounted.

Dlx Space Case (Target exclusive) - just got this figure today. A repaint of Terradive using semi-translucent blue plastic for most of the vehicle mode, lots of new paint, and a new head in bot mode. There's a lot of new and interesting paint, some paying homage to the original G2 figure, although the head is something quite different. The translucent bits don't really get a lot of play in bot mode, kind of a shame. Bot mode also doesn't do quite as good a job hiding its gaps as Terradive did, not sure why tho'. All in all, not bad.

JediTricks wrote: And the 2 drones have their fronts flip over to reveal 2 different cannons (early versions had them peg together at the back but on mine the peg has been removed) and can be hand-held or shoulder-mounted.

I might be reading this wrong, JT, but do you mean that there's no pegs at the back end of both your drones?
The copy I got has those pegs, though they can only be fitted together one way. The centre of the gattling-gun head serves as a port to peg into, but the gun barrel on the other drone is too small for that.

Got HA Basic Tailpipe, Pinpointer & Sgt Whocares from HTS. Sgt Noble (why are these names SO BAD?!?) is another whatever, but at least he has a face, sculpting on the figure's armor plates and helmet is decent enough. Tailpipe is alright, I like the figure even though it's got a bit of a kibble problem on the back, and the head can't turn. The head has a real face below the 4 faux LED headlights (the ones from the bike don't go anywhere, but the ones over the tiny face are supposed to look like the same ones). Bike mode is decent, if a bit oversized for the human, but has stability issues at the midpoint and alignment issues at the front end (the instructions are nearly useless sorting out the handlebars folding down and the rest going around that). Weapon mode is lame, can't stand on its own, but kind of amusing too, I always like fold out blades from wheels, I'm a sucker. Tailpipe's tailpipe in bot mode is hinged across his back, but can be positioned as a gun sticking out from his left hip - oddly, the tailpipe is the grip for weapon mode, but the 5mm grip is a collar that slips off to reveal a smaller peg. Pinpointer is what makes this set work though, he's a little robot with big bulky fists, and he can turn into a dual-chain-gun handheld weapon that has an alternate layout to plug into the back of the bike. None of it is great, but together it's all kinda cool


The mailman delivered another part of my HTS order yesterday...

HA Drag Strip with Master Disaster

This is a bad figure. Not "so bad it's good" bad either, just "so bad, I wonder who gave design duties over to the intern" bad.

I don't even know where to start, it's got a bad deco, a middling sculpt, confused articulation, terrible "weapons" which don't stow or get used in alt mode, awful accessories, not enough personality, problems with light passing through most of the parts, shoulders that don't lock down and don't align right and have a mess of excess parts, and the most unusable trashy "weapon" mode yet where the whole car I guess is supposed to be a blade weapon held from a peg in the middle. Oh, and Master Disaster, who is dark smoke translucent plastic, suggesting he's a hologram rather than a character, doesn't fit in the vehicle cockpit and can't hold the steering wheel once you jam the figure into it in a way that goes beyond what the hip joints allow (the hips have to go 90 degrees and then get pushed together, and you can't do any of that without de-transforming the underside to get the human figure in). The shoulder joints are a source of pain, there are too many joints working against each other, so they will pop out. The steering wheel that has to fit into the ugly open chest also will pop out of its horrible joint. And the accessories, 2 large curved yellow and purple blades with a bunch of junky tech sculpting, have nowhere to go natively in vehicle mode. Oh, and did I mention that the instructions are confused about how the arms transform, rotating on an axis that the joint cannot move?

All in all, I think Hasbro should be ashamed to release a figure this bad.

annhell wrote:

JediTricks wrote: And the 2 drones have their fronts flip over to reveal 2 different cannons (early versions had them peg together at the back but on mine the peg has been removed) and can be hand-held or shoulder-mounted.

I might be reading this wrong, JT, but do you mean that there's no pegs at the back end of both your drones?
The copy I got has those pegs, though they can only be fitted together one way. The centre of the gattling-gun head serves as a port to peg into, but the gun barrel on the other drone is too small for that.

You are reading it correct, no pegs on the back of EITHER of my drones, I was quite annoyed as I had only read about the combination, there weren't any photos out there of it that were easy to find, so I was trying and trying. Then I finally found 1 photo and realized how mine was different.

JediTricks wrote:HA Drag Strip with Master Disaster

This is a bad figure. Not "so bad it's good" bad either, just "so bad, I wonder who gave design duties over to the intern" bad.

Oh man, that's disappointing. I was actually looking forward to this guy. (Part of me has sorta been amassing Stunticon homage figures.)

and the most unusable trashy "weapon" mode yet where the whole car I guess is supposed to be a blade weapon held from a peg in the middle.

No no no, JT! You're missing it. The 'obvious.'

He's the Skyboom Shield! Yes, seriously!

All in all, I think Hasbro should be ashamed to release a figure this bad.

I'll wait for some more reviews. Is he seriously out at regular retail now?

So, it turns out that Master Disaster was sculpted with Cybertronian glyphs all over his outfit, but they're hard to see with the dark gray translucent plastic as the only color, and they're not particularly sharp so they at first just look like wrinkles. Are these supposed to be like sponsor decals only in Cybertronian? What was the thinking here?

Onslaught Six wrote:No no no, JT! You're missing it. The 'obvious.'

He's the Skyboom Shield! Yes, seriously!


I'll wait for some more reviews. Is he seriously out at regular retail now?

As a shield, it's flimsier than the Skyboom shield, and more awkward, and the packaging seems to have even less understanding of that concept. But that probably is what they were going for when they screwed it up.

Is it out at regular retail? I have no idea.

JediTricks wrote:So, it turns out that Master Disaster was sculpted with Cybertronian glyphs all over his outfit, but they're hard to see with the dark gray translucent plastic as the only color, and they're not particularly sharp so they at first just look like wrinkles. Are these supposed to be like sponsor decals only in Cybertronian? What was the thinking here?

Maybe? I dunno. I just toss the human figures in a bin. (Then again, the only HA toys I own are ROTF Barricade and Icepick.)

As a shield, it's flimsier than the Skyboom shield, and more awkward, and the packaging seems to have even less understanding of that concept. But that probably is what they were going for when they screwed it up.

Is it out at regular retail? I have no idea.

You're actually the first person I've even heard of having Drag Strip, so.

JediTricks wrote: Cyberverse Commander with Base
- Megatron with trailer base backpack thing - Not a bad entry, Megs is an ok figure with good detail. The base is alright, simple as hell and not that much going on, certainly not worth another $7 they're charging for it, but it's a convincing trailer, it clips onto Megs in both modes, and even makes a decent mech suit (if you ignore the instructions and use the "wings" as arms, as they were CLEARLY intended). The shooty gun goes off WAY too easily though.

I dunno if I see those wings as "arms". They've got zero articulation as arms, and if you raise 'em up or down, then it unpegs their connection to Megatron. I'm pretty happy with 'em as wings, myself.

I like this toy all right. Maybe not worth the whole fifteen bucks, but hell, I was curious about these things, and Megatron looked like the best of the lot. The Megatron figure in here's pretty decent, the transformation's close to how the Voyager does it, but still does some different things (well, it has to, not having the trailer), and both truck and robot modes look decent. I did find it took a little bit of doing to get the truck to hold together, but that's probably from me not reading the instructions more than a flaw of the toy. The weapons base thing looks pretty good as the trailer, decent as the base thing, and is fairly enjoyable as the jetpack thing. Weird that the package shows Megatron holding the double-barreled gun thing on the back of the box with the jetpack, but the instructions don't mention that it can come right off of the rest of the thing. Also, I'd have liked it a little more if the guns that made up the mini-trailer from the single-packed figure had been in here, but hell, can't have everything. It's not like Megatron's not well-armed in this set. Still, now I wish I'd gotten the Motormaster-themed repaint in the Target two-pack, but I played clearance chicken and lost on that one. Anyway, decent enough toy to pass some time with.

So how about that Guzzle?

Guzzle's packed in robot mode, and he's a decent lookin' robot. He's another one that looks a lot like the G1 version of the character. More specifically, he looks like the version of the G1 character that showed up in Last Stand of the Wreckers, and if Hasbro wants to make this a trend, I could get behind it. Guzzle's a small toy, and looks like a short robot, but damn this dude's burly. His chest's kind of small in proportion, but his arms are friggin' massive, and his legs are pretty good-sized, too. The tank barrel sticks up in back enough that it'd almost double his height. Of course, he is a movie toy, so hie's got two fingers and a thumb on each hand, and two big toes on each foot. And dude's just completely covered in details. It looks pretty nice, actually, especially the detailing on the chest and forearms. They might not be strictly necessary, but they manage to look kind of cool. Colors on this dude are outstanding, too. The limbs of the toy are the green of the tank's outer armor, and the grey of the treads, with some off-white for the thighs and helmet. But then the chest is this bright yellow and the robot's face has a neat shiny blue going on. Guzzle has a couple extra guns in tank mode that combine into one "battle rifle" in robot mode, but for being two guns it's still sort of small. It's less a rifle than a very complex pistol, sort of like Powerglide's, but simpler.

Transformation's pretty easy, basically you close the legs of around the body and fold down a few panels of armor. It's simple enough for a smaller-size toy, but there's a couple steps that you've gotta do in the right order or it won't work. I believe it to be a new one for a tank transformer. I like how it works, but the downside is that you don't get to move the tank's cannon around in vehicle mode because of it.

Tank mode's okay. Looks decent, it's a tiny tank. Take apart the robot's gun and plug 'em in to turret up by the barrel. It's nothing special, really. And since the turret's immobilized by the way the transformation works, there's even less to do with this tank than with most. Solid enough, but not a big deal.

Overall, I dig this toy. The vehicle mode's the worst thing about it, and even that isn't bad as such, just sort of there. Great looking robot mode and a neat transformation. He's one of those that can pretty much double as a Classics version of a G1 dude, so even if you don't want movie toys, you could do a lot worse than pick up this guy. He works well on his own merits as a pretty decent movie toy. Not an amazing kind of thing, but worth a solid "B".

Cyberverse Cmdr - Guzzle - kinda snorey really. Ultra-standard transformation, simple and yet also has tabs that make it a bit annoying. Vehicle mode is ok but uninspiring. Bot mode is kinda lame, not a lot of articulation, way too much shoulders. The weapons are alright, though the transforming gun's barrel doesn't fold out all the way. Not bad, but easily the least-inspiring of all the CybCmdrs I have so far.

HA - Leadfoot with Steeljaw and Sgt Detour- nice vehicle mode with some alignment issues around the doors and front fenders. Transformation is... interesting? Impossible to say for sure because the instructions, pictures, design, none of it seems to agree or even know what is going on all the way. Robot mode is... pretty mediocre and gappy and problematic, but has a lot of room for fiddling into looking slightly better if you have a forgiving mind. The driver is generic, a repaint of the one with Roadbuster. The dog is not, but has a very doofy face, and the weapon mode is kinda folding his limbs around to be more like a box. The dog's chain can store in the figure's right forearm, while the missile can be stowed in the middle of the vehicle mode (but you have to really look for this, it's not in the instructions). Mine was defective, a hingepin shot through the door way off-angle, so I got my $30 back.

HA Basic - Reverb with Sgt Detour - um, WTF is Sgt Detour doing here again? And it's a different figure? Why? Were they really so lazy they couldn't come up with another shitty generic name for a human? This is a repaint of the Spike figure, a helmeted biker type. Reverb is really interesting in robot mode, he's lanky, has no mouth, he's got a permanent twin-V blade on the left forearm, and his back is covered by a big, high-up fan to match the ones that make up the backs of his legs - the upper fan can at least be moved to horizontal in bot mode, the others are vertical unless you detransform his legs. Reverb's shape in bot mode kinda reminds me of Robotech, but I'm not sure why. The hips are super weak on the Z-axis but can be somewhat countered using the bar meant to be flipped up as a crotch. Transformation is interesting for a $10 cheapie, I think satisfying. Vehicle mode is... confusing. It's a motorcycle but instead of wheels it has a vertical fan in the back and a bigger horizontal fan off to the left -- that offset fan would be IMPOSSIBLE to let this guy fly. The pegs suggest that this is the intended position, but one can just fold it down under the bike for a more traditional shape, and even detransform the rear fender/fan/legs for extra flight potential. The right side has a movable 3mm bar for the twin missile accessory to clip onto. There are foot panels angled for the driver in the floorboard (why a motorcycle has a floorboard, I don't know). Weapon mode is... another shield, but this time manned? No guns here, just a face of 3 fans in a triangle with an intentional seat and ALTERNATE control handles for the human at the top. Or is this weapon a giant fan weapon, and thus the silliest thing ever? I dunno, but it looks like it was planned. Oh, and all of it is a powerful red with gray and black - why he's YET ANOTHER Autobot though, I don't get since the DOTM line has way too many of them, especially HAB, and Reverb in the movie-verse has been 2 different fan-style Decepticons up until this point. Anyway, I kinda like this figure.

138 Scourge wrote:

JediTricks wrote: Cyberverse Commander with Base
- Megatron with trailer base backpack thing - Not a bad entry, Megs is an ok figure with good detail. The base is alright, simple as hell and not that much going on, certainly not worth another $7 they're charging for it, but it's a convincing trailer, it clips onto Megs in both modes, and even makes a decent mech suit (if you ignore the instructions and use the "wings" as arms, as they were CLEARLY intended). The shooty gun goes off WAY too easily though.

I dunno if I see those wings as "arms". They've got zero articulation as arms, and if you raise 'em up or down, then it unpegs their connection to Megatron. I'm pretty happy with 'em as wings, myself.

They can move outward and about 15 degrees up or down from center. It's Cyberverse, the accessories so far have all been sorta meh.