Overlord may be slightly less familiar to a lot of people because he wasn’t a part of any major show continuity in the US. He was the big dog Decepticon in the Japanese series Super God Masterforce, and showed up a bit in some of the other Japanese only G1 shows. His other major role was as the protagonist in the popular IDW comic arc, The Last Stand of the Wreckers. In the original continuity he was a double Power Master. He had two Power Master figures who could slot into his chest behind the panels on his chest. In the Masterforce cartoon, these were Giga and Mega, a husband and Wife combo recruited by Devil Z to combat the Autobots. In the IDW books he was just a big tough guy. In this new iteration, he is a headmaster, like all of the Titans Return figures. He also only has one head, though the Japanese version includes two head options, representing Giga and Mega.
He does have his chest slot gimmick still however. Sort of. The chest flaps open and have slots where you can stick Titan Masters. Except the holes aren’t deep enough to allow the doors to close with the Titan Masters inside. This is actually a real shame given the whole gimmick of the follow up line and it’s Prime Masters. Having Overlord be able to “power up” with the Power of the Primes would have been a neat little play pattern to tie the two lines together.
The Titan Masters kind of look funny anyway, with their obvious faces and all. Disappointing chest face gimmick aside, Overlord still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Unlike a lot of Transformers, he eschews the standard one bot, one vehicle gimmick and splits into two vehicles, a Jet and a Tank. Neither vehicle has an independent robot mode and both are somewhere between a deluxe and voyager in size individually. The tank is pretty nice, but even without the need to hide a bunch of extra bulk that most jet Transformers suffer with, the jet is still kind of chunky and weird.
For a Leader class Transformers with two vehicles, the overall transformation is pretty simplistic. He definitely falls into the category of “G1 with more articulation” in his design in that respect. Considering Overlord isn’t one of those staple characters who gets a new look every few years, that’s probably for the best. He fills the role of “Classics Overlord” pretty well. Certainly better than the TFCC version we got a few years ago. As much as I like the Bludgeon mold and that figure, he doesn’t work nearly as well as Overlord as the Titans Return figure.
In addition to his two vehicles, Overlord also turns into a pretty nice little base for Titan Masters. This fulfills the line gimmick of the Leader toys becoming bases and homages back to G1 Overlord, who also became a base. It’s works really well in this line too given the emphasis on the little Titan Master figures.
Overall, Overlord is just a nice solid toy. His vehicles and base work well with the Titan Masters. The robot itself is all around solid and nicely poseable. He isn’t the most well known character, but he does look the part of being a big menacing bad guy, which is pretty much what he is trying to do. I’d definitely recommend Overlord.
As sort of a last hurrah for the Michal Bay Transformers series, which is effectively done, Hasbro has been doing a sort of “greatest hits” line themed around the movies called Studio Series. It’s not a bunch of re-releases though, it’s new molds of most of the figures, with an emphasis on Robot Mode Scale. It’s also a way for Hasbro to give us better versions of a lot of characters who aren’t named Bumblebee or Optimus Prime. Often in the case of movie toys, for the sake of spoilers, toy companies end up working from pre production art and general descriptions or stills. They need to have the toys out when the movie releases, so they are working on the toys before the final movie vision is in place. So in the end, things don’t always end up being a perfect representation. Studio Series goes back to fix some of these issues.
The original Black Out toy from the first movie way back in 2007, isn’t really a bad toy, or a bad iteration of the character. His main offense is that he’s kind of too small. Black Out is one of the largest characters across all of the movies, and his Voyager toy isn’t awful, but it doesn’t really give off the proper huge vibes he deserves. For Studio Series, Blackout gets a Leader sized toy. The only other Leader Class figure so far is Grimlock from Age of Extinction.
He is definitely a nice size for Studio series at this scale, though he is actually quite a bit smaller than Leader figures from the Generations lines (Currently Power of the Primes) and even previous movie figures. Leader Class Blackout is noticeably smaller than Leader Class Starscream from the previous movie lines, for example. If you’re a real stickler for scale, Blackout is still going to be too small to go with a lot of the previous movie Transformers.
Blackout is still a pretty nice looking Transformer though. He is full of the little greebley bits that really made the live action style what it was during the Bay era. There are a surprising amount of little tab places on the fold over parts as well, particularly in his arms and shoulders. The whole robot doesn’t really look solid, but it is. I have had a little bit of trouble with one leg popping off the mushroom peg joint when turning it, it goes back on, but it’s kind of an issue. All of the little bits hanging off everywhere also tend to hinder articulation a lot. He has plenty of joints, but he can’t really use all of them. He also is pretty back heavy due to his backpack, which doesn’t help when trying to balance any poses. Probably the last major gripe about his little claw hands, which have no way or rotating them to do anything besides look like little flippers hanging off his arms. He has thumbs and everything, but the greebles and lack of wrists just makes them useless.
One final note of worry on the robot mode, the flat part of the feet are made up of two panels that later make up the sides of the helicopter tail. I seriously worry that these panels will end up scraped up and nasty looking after being used as feet, over time.
Transformation leans back into the complexity of the early movie lines as well, which will be a turn off for some people, and probably most kids. There is a lot of “do this in this order” and “position this just right” going on with panels and whatnot that need to properly mush together. It’s not a real hard transformation, it just can be tricky in getting everything massaged into place. Also, I found the joint holding the pelvis and back together on mine to be extremely tight. I knew it needed to separate and flip up, but it required enough force to free it that it made me uncomfortable pulling on it and I was worried it might break.
The helicopter itself is very nice, it’s appropriately large as well, almost 12 inches long. Like his 2007 version, Blackout includes a small Scorponok figure and like the 2007 figure, the Scorponok can be inserted into the tail area of Blackout’s vehicle. There isn’t really much else to the helicopter, there isn’t any spring loaded helicopter gimmick or missile launchers, it’s just a nice looking military chopper.
Ultimately, I feel like Blackout is a pretty cool sort of display piece, maybe not a super great toy. He looks really good in both modes, but the joint issues and complex transformation make his playability kind of weak. Also, the price tag of Leader class figures at $50 USD frankly. This is more of a personal complaint with the latest trends of Transformers pricing though.
I’ve been a bit behind here on my Transformers themed gaming here. I
have yet to really get into any of the latest 3D incarnations of
Transformers video games until recently. i figure the best thing to do
would be to start at the beginning. Unfortunately, Transformers
(Armada) isn’t available on the PC so I’m going for the game based on
the first movie game. Keep in mind also, while I played the PC version,
I’m pretty sure it’s essentially the same as the console versions for
PS2, Xbox360, and PS3. It’s probably marginally different than the DS
version however.
This is a game with a bit of extremes going for it. I’ll start with
the good extremes because, generally good = boring. The graphics are
pretty swank. Everything looks really nice, there’s a ton of great
particle effects and every character looks pretty much the way they
should. As a bonus, the numerous cut scenes, as corny as they may be,
are well animated and fluid as well. The action and Transformation
gimmick is used fairly effectively as well, though more so for land
based vehicles (more on this in a bit). My only complaint with the
transformation gimmick is the “button” for how to do it is not in the
controls options, which mean I had to putz with things until I figured
it out (it’s mouse wheel up).
Speaking of controls, let’s move on the the extreme of bad. The
controls are mostly decent, except for the flying sequences.
Controlling Megatron wasn’t so bad but Blackout and Starscream have
extreme issues with the up and down precision. It’s possible this was
just my machine or something but it makes flying anywhere almost
impossible. Thankfully it’s never ever necessary. Even the mission
where you have to shoot down 20 jets can be done by standing on the
ground shooting rockets at them as they very slowly fly by.
Assuming
you can lock on to them. The next major gripe I have with this game is
the incessant military/police. You see, due to the nature of the film,
creating things to fight and DO on missions was a bit tricky. Each
side has like half a dozen main characters to choose from for creating
storylines and missions. This leaves the pool of things to shoot at
extremely small. This is “fixed” through two methods. Each faction
gets a whole mess of Drones that show up in mass from time to time.
Also there is an almost constant stream of military or police forces.
This means you’ll constantly be chased by police cars and constantly
being assaulted by Ospreys and Blackout style helicopters. The human
attackers generally do little damage and mostly serve as an annoying
nuisance than anything.
The drones help give a more formidable set of opponents but they
aren’t without their issues either. They come in a variety of sizes and
flavors however both the Decepticons and Autobots use the exact same
drones. Also, each type has some gimmick to defeat it, two of which are
extremely annoying. The two largest types require you to throw some
sort of vehicle at them to remove their defenses. There isn’t any way
around this and finding a vehicle can often be tricky. Once you find a
vehicle getting it to connect just right among the mess of
police/military and everything else going on can be tricky as well. To
make things more tedious you will have to hit them 3-4 times each. If
you try to straight attack or get to close they will fling you halfway
across the battle area.
Which brings up another bit of annoyance, almost every encounter has a
completely arbitrary “Action Zone”. Leaving this circle for more than
about 20 seconds means instant mission failure.
The hero characters all show up of course. Through the course of the
Decepticon missions you fight Bumblebee, Jazz, Ironhide and Optimus
each to their destruction, which makes a nice twist on the plot of the
film. Ironhide however is probably the most annoying boss battle ever
as it involves a lot of drones, a lot of “kill stuff then fight the
boss”, all while doing a lot of “stay away from the boss between rounds
or he’ll fling you across the map”. I could understand this more if you
fought Ironhide as say, barricade or Scorponok but you fight as
Blackout, whom is considerably larger than everyone.
The Autobots of course showdown against the Decepticons with one
major twist. Shockwave shows up as a boss. He’s even a triple changer
transforming from a stationary gun turret, to robot to a helicopter
similar to Blackout. This is somewhat odd for several reasons. First is
that no other major characters were added. Sure we have the “drones” but
they are all clearly called drones implying they are nobodies.
Secondly, shockwave has never gotten a movie based toy. Even the drones
are all based on toy designs, Swindle, LIST DRONE TOYS. Thirdly,
Shockwave is rumored to be a major player in the third Transformers
film. Will his design have any relation to the one presented here.
Technically the game isn’t really cannon in anyway, but it is something
to question.
There is one character conspicuously absent from the game. Ratchet is
not a playable character nor do you ever fight him. He makes a few
short appearances in some of the CG cinematics but he doesn’t ever
appear in game. Bonecrusher shows up in an NPC role during one of
Starscreams missions and Brawl is fought during the Autobot quest though
you never get to play as either of them. This is actually somewhat
disappointing as I was hoping to play as Bonecrusher. His articulated
claw could have added some interesting dynamics to the gameplay. Also
Brawl is extremely small compared to his movie counterpart.
Brawl was the tank, referred to as Devastator in the first movie.
He’s correctly called Brawl in the game but in the movie he was several
stories tall and it took a great deal of effort by almost everyone to
take him down. In the game he’s the same size as Ironhide, who turns
into a larger pick up truck.
The missions themselves are decent though fairly standard for an
action style game. The Decepticon missions are probably the better set
if only because the Decepticons are more varied than the Autobots and
the Decepticon missions come off as less hypocritical. By Hypocritical I
mean, the Autobots get penalized for “Destruction” while at the same
time you have missions like “Drive around as Jazz blowing up gas
stations to distract the police”.
Overall, this is an OK game, though not spectacular. The real issues ironically come from the more “Game” like elements.
NOTE: It’s almost inconsequential but I just wanted to note that
while playing this game I took screen shots of my OWN all the way
through of lots of great stuff using a program to do so only to find out
the program had not saved ANY of them. So I’ve had to resort to
picking up a bunch of random shots from around the web.
Where Combiner Wars did it’s duty by giving us remakes of all of the original Combiner Transformers, it also used that opportunity to repaint all of those molds into different versions of the original G1 Autobots. Titans Return has been moving into a lot more interesting territory. There’s a lot more updates of Targetmasters, Movie bots and in this case, Jumpstarters. Topspin and Twintwist were a pair of very similar G1 bots that had one specific gimmick. Pull them back, and a motor would speed the vehicle along and eventually it would pop up and land on it’s robot feet. The entire transformation was literally “fold in half at the waist”.
Topspin got sort of an update with the movie line, he appeared in Dark of the Moon as one of the Wreckers, as a blue Lowes NASCAR. His toy even got a gray colored repaint that kind of worked as his buddy Twintwist. This iteration had pretty much nothing in common with his namesake aside from a vaguely Blue and White color theme. The original jumpstarters are more of a turquoise than a blue.
Titans Return has given us a proper update to this pair. Topspin came first but Twintwist is a straight remold of the Topspin mold. The new mold isn’t an exact replica of the original space ship/tank thingy, but it’s close enough, and the originals were kind of misshapen anyway to help accommodate the auto transform gimmick. The transformation is also an actual transformation now, and naturally a lot more complicated. It’s still reminiscent of the original. The bulky back end becomes the legs with the sides becoming the arms and the end result looks pretty close to the original robot with better proportions as well.
Like a lot of Transformers lines, the later figures tend to be get better all around, and Topspin is no exception. He’s definitely one of if not the best mold in the line. The closest rival is Triggerhappy. A lot is helped by the way his transformation does a good job of hiding a lot of the hollow bits that have been prevalent lately. He also does a lot of interesting twists and flips that help him feel like he actually has a complex transformation. Something else lacking in a lot of figures lately. Particularly of note is his arms, which do this neat open up and collapse in on the shoulder and hand, often it’s a trick done on one end or the other, not both.
Both vehicles do a great job of lending itself to the Titan Master gimmick. The space ship design is perfect for a cockpit for the small robot to sit in and pilot. The little drill tank of Twintwist is a great vehicle for these little guys as well. Neither was originally a Headmaster but the gimmick fits well.
Topspin and Twintwist are definitely a top notch toys for the Titans Return line. Twintwist is slightly weaker than his mold originator Topspin. The guns don’t work as well in the tank mold and the tank dreads kind of just hang off and look ugly in robot mode vs Topspin’s wings. There’s been a lot of hits in this line but this mold one of the best. It’s a solid update of a unique and interesting G1 design with a modern appeal layered on top.
Possibly the last of these fun little animal Decepticons we’re going to see is Scorponok. There’s also a Toys R Us purple colored repaint of this figure called Paralon, who actually really resembles Beast Wars Scoponok, but this review primarily covers the normal brown colored mass released version. Scorponok’s animal motif is, a scorpion.
In fact, he simply IS a scorpion in his alt mode. While the other Decepticons all turn into vehicles with animal like themes in robot and beast mode, Scorponok just turns into robot and a scorpion. Straight out Beast Wars style. He has a really unique style going for him as well, and a very unique Transformation. The scorpion mode gives him some really obvious choices for hands, but Scorponok eschews that with a clever trick.
His scorpion claws slide up his arms to become a pair of huge shoulder pauldrons. No parts forming here, but they are essentially lose pieces at one point. The effect is neat for sure, but the connections tend to be a little lose on the shoulder joint. Given their large size they catch anything passing by and easily leverage out of their joint to become crooked or loose. The end result also means his claws have no real joints in Scorpion mode, which is kind of a lame trade off since Scorpion claws are one of the more versatile and fun joints in scorpion toys. Who doesn’t live a big set of vicious working pincers?
He also has a ton of fun character in his face and overall design. His little face with it’s little robot mustache makes him look pretty interesting. He also has a set of spindly legs that work well despite their small size and his upper body girth. He also completed his sandy sort of Persian motif with a scimitar weapon. The sword can be held in robot and scorpion mode as a giant stinger.
Overall, Scorponok isn’t the coolest Decepticon in the line, but he’s still a fun little toy. He does feel a little small overall, which is probably his biggest downside. The Paralon repaint kind of fits the name Scorponok a bit better, if you are looking at getting only one, but I find the brown color scheme works better for the figure overall.
