Rampage (dlx). First Impressions. Alt Mode. Very nice looking bulldozer, lots of detail, a tad small. Treads don't move, bottom is fixed plastic. Wheels keep treads about a quarter inch from the ground. Dozer blade seems way too big compared to the scale of this vehicle. Blade doesn't move up, only down, parts were hinged but looks like piston gimmick was dropped. Disappointing. Yellow plastics basically work, not as nice as painted prototype but ok; 2 different yellows, one warmer than the other. Part behind blade mistransformed in package, flops about when it actually goes in under the head and stays perfectly still. Various parts move too freely, but overall stable.
Transformation (to jackhammer mode). Are you fucking kidding me? The instructions are nigh-incomprehensible, 18 steps for this mode alone, they actually had to cram words back into the instructions to explain concepts here and there, and then they do a cutaway to a section without making it clear that you're focusing in on that particular section. Parts don't always end up where they claim (blade is a big one, there are tabs which simply won't line quite up in the position of parts given). Arms and whips are left flopping about halfway through to get in the way of everything for no reason. Soft-sells a vital step clipping pistons into jackhammer, and moves the legs into that position before the piston section despite spring-loaded hips not allowing that without piston part. Smooth. All for... this??? Doesn't even mention WHY this is important to the design (I'll get to that in a moment).
Jackhammer mode. WTF? Giant backpack of kibble, arms flopping about, all so the legs can pogo on spring-loaded hips? There is as much backpack as robot it seems, it sticks WAAAAY out. Is this in the movie, giant hopping around unilegged "jackhammer" guy? I sure hope not, that'd be ridiculous AND stupid looking, based on this toy. Some sculpted detailing, but feels like token work. Needs more color here too, bland.
Tranformation (to robot mode). I read someone claim this was missing steps. Sadly, it's not, it just uses poor angles and inaccurate angles on legs which the toy can't replicate. But package picture is basically this, sad as that is.
Robot mode. Ugh, I want my money back, this sucks so bad. The torso comes apart too easily, it's gappy from the sides, there's still the big backpack but now it has halfassed legs coming out of it sticking out even farther, and the head always seems to end up looking skywards. But its true failure is the spring-loaded hips, which are LINKED so you can't move just one leg, they are stuck together forever, and they always head towards bias of straight upright which doesn't fit the design they were going for. Light-piped eyes don't work at all. Knees are weak and want to collapse all the time, the rubbery points pretending to be feet seem to agree and help toss him on his face (point feet look like an abandoned actual foot was designed there, then molded as one piece instead). The whole thing's a waste, it might have looked kinda cool if it didn't have that giant crappy backpack, wasn't so spindly from the side, and wasn't just all around mediocre. It's like someone took a half-baked Scout-class figure and tried to fudge it up to Deluxe with a silly gimmick and a big dozer blade. Lost ideas abound here.
Articulation. Mediocre. Legs are essentially unposable, doesn't matter that they have hinge-n-rotation hips and knees (although the rotation on the knees is a disaster), nor that the ridiculous rear legs have a few hinges and sideways pivoting. Arms have oddly off-center rotation shoulders with sideways hinges. Ugly screw makes it look like elbow hinge, but no. Claws hinged on either side. Head kinda rotates on Z-axis (aka puppydog "huh?") and pivots upwards even more, but can't look straight ahead, thanks. Waist turns freely and OFTEN... OH MOTHER OF GOD, I JUST GOT IT!
... Ok, so let me take back the thing about the legs not being of any use. It's just that the packaging photo is wrong, the instructions are wrong, and the figure still sucks. If you want to use the hip articulation (remember, hips are permanently linked) you just rotate the waist around and then rotate the lower legs around, the hip spring doesn't work past 90 degrees and there's friction here, so it works when the bottom is backwards; the hips also have sideways hinging. The knees are movable from straight to about 30 degrees, any farther and their springs push them back.
Transformation (back to bulldozer mode). Not all that bad, tons of stuff moving around but you get to decide most of the when, which keeps it more stable. 1 transformation and several parts are already showing stress marks.
Overall. Crummy, terrible, avoid at all costs. Interesting ideas not fully developed lead to a frustrating experience and an underwhelming robot (and laughable jackhammer). Just too ambitious for final results. Oversized dozer blade dooms this guy in many ways. Deco is boring and lacks finesse. Instructions complex in an unfun, frustrating way. Disappointment at every turn.
The more I look at the line, the more cost-cutting I see, nearly every toy has an abandoned 'something'. Demolishor's treads are hinged plastic panels on the stock image proto, cheaper rubber on the final thing, bah. Prime had articulated fingers, rubber wheels, different sword mechanism, an extra hinged panel on the sides of his legs, and the fists look to have retracted as well. That's a lot of budget cuts for a flagship toy in a hugely successful toyline. Hmm.
Yeah, this line so far reeks of cost-cutting devices cutting itself off at the knees, Hasbro has some apologizing to do, economy woes or no. As for Demolishor's hinged treads, only pics I've seen from Hasbro had rubber and it looked like dookie.
I assume Sideswipe's pipes just sorta pop up on his back as a missile rack or some such, looked kinda neat.
There's no more than 3mm of travel, that's an expense to tool separately that I don't think they'd drop in for "looked kinda neat if you used your imagination".
Funnily enough, I'd forgotten about Movie Deluxe Car syndrome, where they look far too small in package, and explode out into much larger robots. Really do want Sideways, but he looks puny on card.
In this case, it's the opposite, the car looks and is plenty big, it's the robot mode that's smaller.
I agree on the smoking. However, the main problem with the windows is the crappy, crappy paint apps on them. They ruin what's otherwise a near-perfect plastic rendition of the Movie Prime chest by making the doors look like nothing but big glass windows. New Prime has crappy paint apps all-round, Hasbro are using a nasty silver paint of late.
You just voiced a concern I had been feeling but couldn't lock down about the big window doors.
Also, New Prime's blue isn't metallic flaked, the original has more visual pop.
Yeah, the paint looks super flat to me, very plasticky and boring.
Oh man, Rampage ruined the last few hours of my night, I am so exhausted writing that first impressions while messing with him. SUCH a disappointment.