ROTF Review Thread

[Onslaught Six]

If you nab it, swap his arms. They look a lot better that way, in theory.

[JediTricks]

Moved my Knock Out review to its own entry.

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.

Yeah, that is not an objective reason to like the figure, it only says you like a better figure from the past. One has to be able to appreciate an item on its own merits for it to really hold water, I think.

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.

Isn't a delivery truck unusual? Especially a fake Red Bull one? Still wasn't enough to get me to part with my hard-earned dollars though.

Gnnnn. So I want to get Rampage just to mess with him now, he sounds 'interesting' if nothing else.

Sucker alert!

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.

My method is so much more efficient, just rotate the waist 180 and then rotate the lower legs the same. Now you're not disconnecting the internal spring, and you still have a good amount of friction unlike the other method. True that you end up with a lot of screws showing, but this figure's aesthetic almost works with it. Doesn't make him suck less. First ROTF figure that DvD gave an "avoid" to: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Deluxe1

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.

Not only can't they be stowed, but the arms can't be used the way they're showing with the treads still around them, they start hitting the back and back kibble when you move them at all. And if you bend the treads backwards, the rubber gets stress marks. That said, you could flip them between the shoulder kibble and the arms so they face backwards (you can do it forwards, but then they flop like 2 inches in front of the guy), there's not much between him and the back legs so it's actually fairly effective, but it looks like he's tied them in a knot around his arms, not very exciting. If need be, I can take a photo to explain.

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.

Would you say get him over the upcoming repaint with new head, Dead End?
http://photos.actionfigs.com/showphoto.php?photo=37362
http://photos.actionfigs.com/showphoto.php?photo=37361

My instincts say to wait for DE, but that one photo you linked to on imageshack looks really good, minus the no-paint chest which outright sucks.

Dead End ... Transformation: I like the transformation, sorta. It just totally fooled me when I pulled apart his arms to get him back into robot mode and thought "Where the hell is his head?" Well, a hand popped off, it seemed likely that the head would, too. Anyway, it's more complicated than your average basic-into-car kinda thing. It's kinda neat how the hood and front fenders turn into the feet, and the backpack/windshield thing sorta pulls the back half along with it. Not too bad.

DE's transformation was very similar to the early basics in Beast Wars when I messed with him at Botcon. I'm waiting for the recolor, which I like better (blue, gray windows, silver wheels).

Stratosphere does look kinda nice, Tank Megs is a possibility, and Mixmaster will probably be ignored. But none of them are a couple of poundy arms mounted on a couple of wheels. And that's apparently something I like.

Demolishor's arms? They look kinda puny and ineffective in person, Ben's photos (part of his middling review where he still says he kinda likes it) make it look that way too: http://www.bwtf.com/toyreviews/rotf/voyager/demolishor/

Now, Long Haul's arms on the other hand, those are going to be poundy!
http://photos.actionfigs.com/showphoto.php?photo=37696
http://photos.actionfigs.com/showphoto.php?photo=37703

If you nab it, swap his arms. They look a lot better that way, in theory.

Doing a lower-arm swap may not be as easy as thought. While the elbow joints have screws, it turns out the internal area is geared for the Mech Alive feature. Also, if you swap the arms, it's not accurate to the vehicle it's portraying.

[Onslaught Six]

I don't like the way the scoop on that vehicle looks, anyway--it's backwards from how a Scavengerfing typically is. Yeah, I know, that's the way the real thing looks, I don't care.

86 says to Get Him regardless of arm swappability--apparently he did so, it mostly worked, and then he swapped them back. I'll just nab him.

[JediTricks]

Good luck with it.

I picked up Sideways last night based on the pic. Lives up to it visually, though the slots that grab the corresponding tabs aren't quite angled to lock it all the way on, only about half way onto the tab, but it's more than enough to hold. Hasbro's transformation also doesn't include the friggin' rear triangles on the hood which fold up and help give the collar area some better context, it amazes me how bad they can make their own figures look with these mistakes.

I'll have my own take on the vehicle later today probably, but the end result is it's a good shellformer figure, some issues and the neutered gimmick is a disappointment, the red plastic does need a paint wash, but it is different enough to get both this and Dead End (provided he doesn't have some sort of additional flaw).

[Onslaught Six]

Originally I was just going to wait for Dead End, but nobody else had reviewed him to begin with, and all the other figures either seemed flawed--even if they'd be interesting in a screwy-fiddly-design way (like Rampage) or just underwhelming with a better version coming later (Sideswipe) so I figured Sideways is a safe figure to grab.

I mean, I didn't find him particularly Wow Holy Shit Awesome--he's definitely more of the same from the first movie line--but 86 thinks he's the most amazing toy in the line. I'm content with merely saying he's one of the ones who isn't desperately and horribly flawed. Even his gutted gimmicks don't seem to detract a whole lot--I didn't even notice them until I was fiddling with him while talking to 86 about other figures' neutered gimmicks.

[JediTricks]

Originally I was just going to wait for Dead End, but nobody else had reviewed him to begin with, and all the other figures either seemed flawed--even if they'd be interesting in a screwy-fiddly-design way (like Rampage) or just underwhelming with a better version coming later (Sideswipe) so I figured Sideways is a safe figure to grab.

I mean, I didn't find him particularly Wow Holy Shit Awesome--he's definitely more of the same from the first movie line--but 86 thinks he's the most amazing toy in the line. I'm content with merely saying he's one of the ones who isn't desperately and horribly flawed. Even his gutted gimmicks don't seem to detract a whole lot--I didn't even notice them until I was fiddling with him while talking to 86 about other figures' neutered gimmicks.

I just posted my review as a new thread. I am not going to be using this thread anymore for reviews since it detracts from the point of a Review Section now.
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=352

I think Sideways gets closer to "wow holy shit awesome" the more you mess with him, though I'd agree he doesn't quite cross into that territory . He's got a lot of detail and movable parts, and I may have to take a photo of the pose he's currently in on my desk to really convey why he deserves "holy shit awesome" classification - the type of posing this wheel-foot can do gets so much better with practice, even mine with its loose left hip. (Sideways' poseability hampers my opinion of Sideswipe who can't do anywhere near as much, and Swipe was in that "holy shit awesome" territory so if he was, either he ain't quite now or Ways is.) Sideways' detail alone schools the first movie line's work, it's fine details without feeling loud and messy, I found that to be the case on Sideswipe as well, detail for detail's sake and not interrupting some broader elements.

I covered the neutered gimmick in my review, but it's clearly fucked up how they could have done something much cooler with just 2 more gears per arm, yet the cheap management cut that.

[JediTricks]

Not sure why this thread has tanked, but hopefully the following links will kick it back into gear:

Ben's reviews of:
Depthcharge - very positive
Dead End (scout) - very positive
Sideswipe - guess what? Very positive. Has mistransformed it somewhat in pics though.
Sideways - same as previous, positive and mistransformed a bit.
Demolishor - mixed, but positive

And everything else is Legends and other oddities so I didn't bother because they're not my thing.

DvD's reviews of:
Scout class wave 1 - Rollbar a mild recommend, Dead End a recommend, Knock Out a recommend with sidenote, Dirt Boss a recommend, Depthcharge a strong recommend (to which I agree), and Ransack a recommend that would have been a strong recommend if not for QC issues.
Deluxe preview wave - BB a mild recommend due to QC, Soundwave a mild recommend for robot mode only.
Deluxe wave 1 - Sideways a recommend, Sideswipe a mild recommend (which I think is a little harsh, but I don't agree with the issues he has on it so it could be he has a more problematic one), Rampage an AVOID (which I wholeheartedly agree, but nobody listens to us), Breakaway gets a recommend (which doesn't jive with my limited interactions of this mold).
Deluxe wave 2 - Skids a mild recommend, DD Brawl a recommend even if you have the original, Wheelie a mild recommend, Chromia a conditional recommend if you're going to try the combiner and a mild if not (as we haven't seen the combined mode, and DvD incorrectly says you can't pair Chromia to other Chromias via her combiner joint which you can, I dunno about even the mildest of recommends).

TFormers reviews:
Ravage - a 5 out of 10 for a great bot mode and no real alt mode.
Cannon Bumblebee - 8 out of 10 for what looks like a rather mediocre deluxe.
Mixmaster - 7 out of 10, which seems generous for that robot mode.
Voyager-class Megatron - an incredibly generous 9 out of 10, the review that convinced me to buy the one I got which I gave a barely-passing grade to in my own review.
Interrogator Barricade - 3 out of 10 for being a pointless reuse of the original toy with only a mild new addition.
Mudflap - 8 out of 10 for what looks pretty bad to me.
Skids - 9 out of 10, seems a little generous, but not as out there as Mudflap's rating.
Stratosphere & micro Prime - 7 out of 10, makes a good case for this one but pictures do tell a somewhat different tale.
Wheelie - 5 out of 10
Rampage - an unbelievably generous 9 out of 10, and the figure is mistransformed in every single photo of robot mode.
Sideways - 9 out of 10.
And then I got tired of looking for reviews on Tformers. Here's their review database: http://tformers.com/reviews.php

Peaugh's photo review of Leader Jetfire over on TFW2005:
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transform ... eview.html
I didn't realize how much bigger the alt mode was than Prime. At Botcon, they had it under glass in a way that didn't accent this. The undercarriage kibble is horrendous though, that's an entire SR-71 Blackbird sitting on top of a folded up robot. I also didn't know that Prime's legs extend for combined mode.

[Onslaught Six]

Not sure why this thread has tanked, but hopefully the following links will kick it back into gear:

Nobody bought anything, I suppose.

I did, though. >.>

And my God, Rampage is awful! I pretty much spent an hour trying to just get him in some kind of configuration that made sense and looked decent. His backpack isn't the problem--it's his damn springy legs, and horrible arms. If his arms had standard articulation and the whips were less rubbery and springy, he'd be ten times cooler.

Also fiddled with my friend Ken's Wheelie that he nabbed afterwards. And my God, that's a fun toy. Must remember to buy one for myself.

Haven't opened Prime, Mr. Scoops, the Twins or Mixmaster yet.

[JediTricks]

And my God, Rampage is awful! I pretty much spent an hour trying to just get him in some kind of configuration that made sense and looked decent. His backpack isn't the problem--it's his damn springy legs, and horrible arms. If his arms had standard articulation and the whips were less rubbery and springy, he'd be ten times cooler.

Hmm, I seem to remember someone warning of his maximum suckitude, and so many pooh-poohed that. He's just got a million fucking problems.

Also fiddled with my friend Ken's Wheelie that he nabbed afterwards. And my God, that's a fun toy. Must remember to buy one for myself.

Massive pegwarmer here. I am slightly tempted to buy on the nature of being Real Gear-esque, but the video I've seen of him in the movie is super annoying. I was thinking if I see it for under $8, I'd buy. What's fun about it?

[onslaught86]

Rampage has problems galore, but I think it was you, JT, who mentioned them being 'interesting' problems. His failure is not that he doesn't try, and I can applaud that. He's certainly not polished, yet I find myself more forgiving than normal for a line so plagued with issues. Sigh. Maybe I'm lowering my average standards here, yet I've had more fun with Rampage than most of this line's supposed flagship toys.