Transformers

Review – Transformers – Cybertron – Downshift

Transformers have had a pretty low point in their life the last few years. Armada and Energon has some fairly weak toy design in terms of sculpt and articulation. Seriously, what’s up with Armada Hot Shot’s shoulders?

Still, Energon was better than Armada, and Cybertron has been better than Energon. Lately, Cybertron has even been better than itself. The toys are starting to receive joints that make sense again, they have all sorts of neat detailing, they have better alt modes, and better transformations.

One of the latest Transformers released to the market is Downshift. Now, you may remember Energon Downshift who was highly reminiscent of Wheeljack in design and colors. This version of Downshift shows homage only in head design. This 70s style muscle car Transformer more closely resembles Alternators Wheeljack than G1 Wheeljack. And so as far as I’m concerned, this toy can be Downshift, brother of Wheeljack, and Energon Downshift can take the roll of Wheeljack. Confused?

As mentioned, Downshift’s alternate mode is a 70s style muscle car. It’s not styled after any one car but shares elements of the Barracuda, Mustangs, Cameros, and others. It’s colored primarily green with black stripes, hood and soft top. There is some light detailing in the interior of the car as well but they don’t extend below the cut off between the top and body of the car.

The transformation isn’t too complex and the end result is slightly reminiscent of the older styled G1 cars such as Jazz and Prowl. Yet the transformation itself is not all that similar to those old toys. Downshift’s robot mode is pretty solid all around though cut joints in the arms as well as an unhindered neck joint would have helped a bit.

One aspect of the last several lines is gimmicks. Generally, many of the gimmicks involve sticking keys or smaller robots it some orifice on the larger robots to shoot missiles or open claws. Downshift’s cyberkey gimmick causes the grill of his car mode to open up into a sort of claw. It’s effectively neat, especially since it still works when the rear half of the car is folded downwards in robot mode, but it’s not particularly useful for anything cool. The better gimmick is the pair of shoulder mounted missile launchers Downshift includes. They not only give Downshift minicon hardpoints to use but they can be attached to the sides of the car mode for a heavily armed 70s muscle tank look.

Ok, yeah, sticking the launchers on the sides of the car is really dumb and ruins the look of the best vehicle mode ever in the history of Transformers.

Downshift is a really great toy and would make a great addition to any Transformer collection. You might even like it if you’re just big on 70s muscle cars.

Review – Transformers – Energon – Alpha Q

Feb 28th, 2005

by Ramen Junkie.

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Every once in a while we get a Transformer’s toy that doesn’t actually Transform into anything. Alpha Quintesson (Alpha Q) is one such Transformer. We first met the Quintessons back in Transformers the Movie. They led a pack of hungry Sharkticons and liked to toss random bots into pits of doom. As it turns out the Quintessons were more intertwined with the history and origin of the Transformers race then was originally believed.

Of course those Quints also looked like Eggs and had 5 faces (of darkness!). This is Energon. I couldn’t tell you what alpha Q’s role is in Energon since the show is abysmally unwatchable. That doesn’t mean it can’t have halfway decent toys. This Quintesson is quite a bit different from it’s ancestors, though it still shares some traits. Instead of just being a ball with faces plastered to it, this Quint is a sort of giant Snake robot with a face inside the mouth. Which brings us to the first gimmick. When a button on the back of the neck is pressed, the face spins to a different one. There are three available faces to choose from.

There is one other primary gimmick to this toy besides the face spinning. The toy includes three rubber bendy tentacles. The bendyness is great and they hold a verity of positions. Also wheels on the bottom of the base cause the tentacles to twirl menacingly as you roll Alpha Q around. One tentacle features a small yellow pincer, the second features some sort of purple blob, possibly wires or electricity, and the third tentacle features a red chainsaw. The chainsaw arm is great for dispatching the many tree based transformers alpha Q may encounter 9see Botanica).

Other gimmicks include a head mounted missile launcher and ports for at least 9 Energon chips. Alpha Q has articulation at the jaws, universal shoulders, hinged and balled elbows (4 arms), and a hinge at the top of his neck. The articulation isn’t huge but it’s substantial enough for the character design.

Though cool, this figure isn’t without it’ flaws. The waist joint could use a little more range of motion, particularly in the forward direction. It also would be nice if the snake mouth could fold up out of the way a bit more. The face can barely be seen back up in there. I can’t say I really care muck for the spinning tentacles gimmick either. It can be hard to pose the tentacles just right (due to their tentacle nature) and then a slight bump of the wheels could throw everything all right off.

Then there is the part where Alpha Q doesn’t transform. He’s not supposed to, but if you’re looking for a Transformer, don’t bother with Alpha Q. For the most part otherwise, it’s a decent action figure, though one that’s probably not for everyone.

Review – Transformers – Beast Wars 2 – Lio Convoy and Galvatron

Oct 12th, 2003

by Ramen Junkie.

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Lio Convoy

Beast Mode

Wow, it’s a bit bigger than I expected it to be. The white fur and gold mane really look nice on it, he looks very noble. As some people have mentioned though, the plastic seems kind of low grade compared to other toys.

Minuses for this mode: the robot mode arms seem to have a bit of trouble keeping attached to the inner gray piece. This isn’t helped by the mane pieces getting in the way of attaching them to the gray piece. Also the single joint on the front legs is kind of loose, so it can be difficult to get it to stand up, but I haven’t had much problem with it sliding forward once the toy is standing.

Also you can see the robot chest very clearly on the bottom. There are some nice pluses though. As mentioned before, despite the strange lion colors, they look nice. When you press a button built into the mane the mouth opens, but instead of just the bottom jaw opening the upper half of the head opens as well. And he even has a tongue.

Also you can flip four panels out on the mane to reveal missile launchers for ‘attack mode’. It’s actually kind of a neat gimmick. On a minus note, the other four panels of the mane can also flip out, and spin like Inferno’s blender-butt around the lion’s head. I’m sure it looks nice in animation, but it’s kind of lame.

Earlier I was spinning it and it sort of looked like he was using it to fly, which actually made the gimmick seem even more goofy. Plus the other mane pieces and forelegs get in the way of the spinning action.

There are also claws that flip out of the front legs for the attack mode but they make it difficult to get the toy to stand.

Transformation

Without going into to too much detail, I will say I hadn’t been able to pick it up from pictures I’d seen. I had tried quite a bit to figure it out, but it seems I was wrong. Essentially the upper lion body is sort of a shell surrounding a middle body piece. The lion stands straight up on it’s hind legs, then this shell rotates around the center body of a bit, and the chest piece flips up.

Also as I’ve heard stated by others, he transforms pretty much nothing like the fuzor Bantor, despite similar looks.

Robot Mode

The top of his head is about 8″ off the ground. The lion head and mane is about another inch over that. He does looks quite a bit like Optimus Prime, which is one of my favorite parts of this toy. This figure is very well articulated. Something like 20+ points, including fairly universal shoulders, and elbows, rotating ankles and mid legs, double knees, waist neck ect. There are some wrist joints but they only hinge in one direction, no rotation, but still better than some toys.

Several people have complained about the mane pieces blocking the head. I’ve actually found the spinning mane gimmick mentioned before is useful for moving the mane pieces out of the way, simply open all four panels, rotate them to the back so the bottom panel is in the front, then fold the top three panels back shut (you should deploy the front missile launcher but not the rear top one to get this to work right, I’d also suggest leaving the bottom long piece folded out, in fact I think you’ll have to.

Anyway, this end up with the short bottom piece in front and it doesn’t get close to blocking the face. And it doesn’t look half bad. On the note of the spinning gimmick, it does work in this mode, but it’s still just as goofy.

Other gimmicks, the claws on the lion legs still flip out and become sort of arm claws, though not really “Wolverine claws” but they are still kind of neat. Additionally you can flip the “bottom set” of mane missile launchers out on the arms as additional weapons, but this leave an ugly hole in the arms.

Also the top mane missile launchers can be removed and used as pistols, the pistols look nice with missiles but kind of stubby without the missiles in them. Also the chest panel with the Maximal symbol opens to reveal a rub sign and I guess “A Matrix”. It looks nothing like “THE Matrix”, but apparently it is “A Matrix”. Honestly it looks more like some sort of data port or something.

Overall I’ve been trying to decide what size to classify this guy as, I was wondering before I got him what size it should be, I was expecting Mega sized, but he is actually slightly larger. But then he’s not quite an Ultra either. I almost want to say he is a Mega sized beast with an ultra sized robot, which is probably the best way to say it. Probably closer to being a small Ultra than an oversized Mega. Anyway, I really like him an give him a 9/10.

Dragon Galvatron

Dragon Mode

Where to start… well I’ve heard many people try to compare this toy to Transmetal 2 Megatron. Well despite the flaws of TM2 Megatron, this dragon is quite a bit worse. Tiny gimpy wings that could not possibly hold this beast in flight. The drill mode halves, which are almost larger than the wings, are in the way (though they can be removed and actually come removed).

Hmm other problems, the legs, the upper legs are the tank treads and are huge. The thing looks really strange in almost any standing position. It does look pretty nice though. The dragon mode is pretty nice when the flaws aren’t getting in the way. But the flaws are pretty bad.

The neck on this thing is very good. Similar to TM1 Megatron’s tail only much better. LATER NOTE: The tank treads can be folded down and used as lower legs instead of upper legs, this does wonders for his mode. The legs look much better like this, they gain almost all the posability of the robot’s legs, and the dragon sits much higher off the ground (and thus more impressive looking).

Drill Tank Mode

To transform to this mode you fold the drill halves over the dragon head and neck. Then manipulate the legs around a bit. I’m starting to think they should have just made this the alternate mode for this toy. It’s much better then the dragon, though slightly boring (no pun intended) being a vehicle (read: no real articulation). The drill spins in the same manner as Inferno’s butt and Lio Convoy’s mane only without anything to get in the way.

Not much else to say about it. It resembles the original Galvaton’s cannon mode actually, and you can fold the treads around a bit and increase the resemblance.

Transformation

Fairly straightforward. Mostly you have to do everything in the correct order or it doesn’t work. I never realized the arms were formed by the tail actually. The drill bit piece ends up just hanging off the back and ends up as a sort of paradoxical piece. It works as a much needed third leg, but the toy probably wouldn’t need a third leg if it weren’t for the heavy drill bit hanging off the back. Maybe not a paradox really, but in robot mode it’s only needed because of itself.

Robot Mode

Very nice. Posability is slightly more limited than Lio convoy due to much different proportions on body parts, but it is still fairly posable. In the TM2 Megs comparison department, this guy’s probably cooler in robot mode, partially because he has two real arms and hands, though I kind of like the wings on TM2 Meg’s back better.

Gimmick wise, this guy is way behind Lio Convoy. His chest has a cool sort of clear globe thing in the center of it, I guess that is sort of a gimmick even though it doesn’t do anything. His knees have some neat Gatling cannons on them, though the Gatling cannons don’t spin. The tail missile launchers (which I forgot to mention earlier) are now on the robot elbows and can be flipped around to face forward and used as weapons. Or the missiles double as axes, though the axes seem small next to the robot.

Also the wings can be removed and used as a cool pincer weapon. The claw can easily hold a large toy. It is a very cool weapon, and similar to Transquito’s wings only better. As mentioned before this toy has a severe backpack problem, and it’s not one that is easily balanced either. If this guy had some heel spurs I think the problem could have been remedied a bit. I had the same problem with Magmatron only to find later he has some heel spurs that fix the backpack problem on him.

I’ve double and triple checked Galvatron, he has no heel spurs, if he does they are not intuitive in the least.

Just a note, the plastic on this guy is not nearly as cheap feeling as Leo Convoy.

Overall

I’m torn a bit. I REALLY like his robot mode despite it’s flaw (singular, the backpack thing). It’s well armed and has a lot of detail, the animated look has a different feel to it than the CG look. The drill mode is cool, though there isn’t much to it. The dragon mode is very iffy. I was going to say “it’s not that bad” but I won’t lie, the problems make it rather horrid. It only resembles a dragon because of the head mostly. I’m only going to give it an 8 out of 10 score. But remember the Robot Mode picks up a LOT of slack dropped by the Beast Mode.

Overall For Both

I’m rather undecided which I like more. Mostly due to fitting in with the other figures, since I like to have some story to them. Galvatron fits in well as Decepticon leader. But Lio Convoy’s resemblance to Prime draws me towards him. Generally they are both very cool, and I’d recommend them both.