Dave's Go-Bots Rant: Wave 5a Beast-Bot Dinosaur (Reptron recolor) Strong-Bot All-Terrain Speed-Bot Race-Car Buzzer-Bot Convertible I'm calling the Glow-Bots "wave 4", since they came out in England months ago and also had the previous style of packaging, including full bio notes. CAPSULES Beast-Bot Dinosaur: Didn't buy this one, so no review, just listing it here for completeness. It's a good mold, but I already have two versions of it. $7.99 at Toys R Us. Strong-Bot All-Terrain: Good-looking in both modes, nice transformation. Recommended. $7.99 at TRU. Speed-Bot Race-Car: While I'm tired of Speed-Bots, this is a good new mold. Has a few kibble issues, but otherwise good. Recommended. $7.99 at TRU. Buzzer-Bot Convertible: Looks good, nicely poseable for a Basic, and it can hold a Kid-Bot driver. Recommended. $7.99 at TRU. PACKAGING Wave 5 (at least, as I call it) has new packaging, in mostly neon green and orange. The line is once again "Transformers Go-Bots", and the G-hexagon logo is still being used, but with some cog-like edging. The card inside the bubble is bigger and has a nice pic of the altmode, but no longer has the co-sell pictures. Those have been moved to the back of the card. The transformation instructions are shrunk down to almost nothing, and more space is given over to the storyline block. The bio card only has a sentence or two, promising more information online if you enter the password to be found inside. As of August 8, 2004, http://www.go-bots.com has not been updated with the new bios. A small one-sided two-color (black and orange ink) instruction sheet is inside the bubble, covering the secret code written on the insert card. The instructions stick with the "four steps either way" style of previous back of the card instructions. All the toys are twist-tied into the bubble in robot mode. Here's the storyline blurb. Back at the GO-POD, the headquarters of the GO-BOTS, an accident has turned a good bot bad! Beast-Bot, a valuable member of the GO-BOTS team, has become PREDITRON. He is now an unruly bot, causing trouble all over the galaxy! It's up to Earth's team of mighty GO-BOTS; AERO-BOT, STRONG-BOT, SPEED-BOT, and their friends, to use their new powers and protect the galaxy from PREDITRON forces! So, Preditron has forces? Doesn't say if they're copies of himself, the other Invisibility Force members, etc. RANTS All bio notes end with, "To unlock (character)'s full story, find the 'SECRET' CODE inside and enter it online at GO-BOTS.com!" Oddly, the character name is given in all lower-case. GO-BOT: STRONG-BOT ALL-TERRAIN Altmode: Jeep Secret Code: POWER Note: This take-charge member of the GO-BOTS team is the one that all the other team members turn to for his incredible strength in tough times. Vehicle Mode: A cute little open-top off-road jeep 4" (10cm) long, 3.5" (9cm) wide and 2.75" (7cm) tall. The chassis is mostly yellow, with a bluish dark gray for the rollbar and part of the front (plus a lot of the underside). The windscreen and most of the interior upholstery are a dark metallic blue-gray, with a red seat in the center. An orange shift stick is in the middle of the central hump, and the back of the windscreen has silver control panel detailing. There's a silver step on either side of the driver's compartment. The wheels are standard warm gray, with orange hubcaps that have the Go-Bots hex-G symbol molded into it. Some of the underbody bits are also orange. The Go-Bots hex-G is also painted on the passenger side of the front of the hood in metallic blue over red outlines. The hex-G is also molded into the silver radiator grille, and the Playskool logo (unpainted) is molded onto the middle of the hood. If you take one of the driver figures (called Kid-Bot in the cartoon) from a Deluxe Go-Bot, it will stand in the driver's seat, held in place by the stick shift. This is pretty clearly intentional, especially given Buzzer-Bot's design element covered below. The jeep rolls along well, although the front wheels tend to clack against the struts (aka robot arms). Transformation: Press the radiator grille and the arms pop out in a way reminiscent of the original Mirage-Bot Deluxe, and the hood pops up to reveal the head. It can still roll along in this mode, which is pretty cool. Then pull the rear half back, swing the legs down and twist the waist around. Simple, fairly intuitive, but not just the same old transformation. The legs don't really lock at full length, so you have to be careful lest you squat him down. Robot Mode: A little short at just a bit over 5" (13cm), it adds orange arms and legs to the color scheme. The front of the vehicle is now the head, the front wheels are the hands (again, like Mirage-Bot). Kid-Bot can still stand behind the stickshift, if not as snugly, and now looks over Strong-Bot's shoulders. The head is pretty close to the original Strong-Bot head, although in regular yellow rather than slightly orangish yellow. The torso looks really good, and the proportions are generally pleasing (although wheels for hands don't work so well for me). The arms swing at the shoulders (the mid-arm joints are the wrong way to be elbows, and are spring-loaded anyway), the legs can spread apart at the hips, and the waist twists. Plus, Strong-Bot can lean back as part of the transformation jointing. Pretty decent poseability for a Go-Bot. Overall: Looks good in both modes, good that he can carry a passenger, and the transformation is decent. A nice, solid Go-Bot Basic. GO-BOT: SPEED-BOT RACE-CAR Altmode: Sportscar, actually. Looks vaguely like a Lamborghini. Secret Code: RACER Note: SPEED-BOT is the fastest member of the GO-BOTS team! Vehicle Mode: Yet another red sportscar, this one with wing-like spoiler and a proper airdam, so it's kitted out for racing. Metallic blue windows, black paint on the airdam, hood venting and rear window. Yellow headlights, silver hubcaps and exhaust pipes, standard warm gray for the wheels and for some of the underbody. Metallic blue with yellow outline hex-G on the front center of the hood. The Playskool logo is molded into the front grille. The general proportioning has a little more emphasis on "big back, small front" than most Go-Bots cars. Looking at the underside makes it obvious that there's a robot inside, the face can be seen as well as the chest. Transformation: Yank the rear half back, spin it around and separate to make the legs. Pull up on the central chunk of the hood and the arms will snap out. The hood piece just sort of hangs loosely back there. Robot Mode: 5" (13cm) tall at the head, a tad bit higher at the shoulders. The smaller head and chest make it look shorter than it actually is, by comparison to the other Basics. There's a lot of yellow and warm gray added to the robot mode, plus a silver grille on the chest with a red- outlined hex-G. The hands are molded with pointing index fingers that have holes in the tips (for shooting stuff?). Medium-thickness twist-ties can fit into these holes and look like energy blasts. For reference, the hole is about 2mm in diameter and 29mm deep. As with most Go-Bots, the legs only separate at the hips, side to side but no front to back, and no knees. The arms swivel at the shoulders, and both the head and waist turn. Kibble-in-the-way Syndrome makes it hard to lift both arms at once, but the poseability is still generally pretty good for a Go-Bot. Overall: While I'm getting sick of all the Speed-Bot molds, at least this one is different from the others. It's MUCH better than the original, and if you consider that the current target market for this toy was probably working on teething when the original came out, the fact that it's the Nth Speed-Bot (where N is getting kinda big) isn't as much of an issue. GO-BOT: BUZZER-BOT CONVERTIBLE Altmode: Convertible sportscar Secret Code: CLEVER Note: This GO-BOTS hot shot has blown his top! BUZZER-BOT is racing around like crazy in his new convertible form. Vehicle Mode: A darkish green convertible with a pseudo-spoiler. The seatbacks and supercharger hump are violet, the hubcaps, windshield and headlights are silver, and there's yellow airbrushing on the doors and the front of the hood. The tires, rear bumper and interior bits are warm gray. The taillights are red, and the hex-G on the hood is violet with a red outline. The Playskool logo is molded on the rear. 5.5" (14cm) long, 3" (8cm) wide and 2" (5cm) high, the design looks sleek and fast. The interior chunk has footprint depressions designed to hold the various Kid-Bot minifigs standing behind a couple of dials on a control panel. The underside is very smooth and shows almost no robot bits at all, even the head is turned around to just be a purple plug inside. Transformation: You know the drill by now...pull back the rear half and spin it around to make the legs. This also happens to turn the head around to face front. Now pull the front down, which will make the arms pop out. Just swing the arms forward and it's done. Robot Mode: More yellow and gray come into this mode, which stands 5.5" (14cm) tall. The head is a proper Buzzer-Bot head, and the hands are molded to continue the general appearance of Buzzer-Bot that way as well (oddly, the screw-holes in the center of the fists are hexagonal). Unlike Strong-Bot, the driver's ledge is not able to hold a Kid-Bot in this mode. The shoulders are ratcheting, and the smoothest/widest range of the three I've reviewed here. They're connected a bit far forward, though, which looks odd. Standard legs-out-to-the-sides hips and swivel shoulders. The waist turns, and the head turns in synch with the legs, but can also be turned separately. Overall: Perhaps the most basic of the Basics, but well made for all that. And I really hope that they recolor this convertable as an Arcee type of bot. Dave Van Domelen, now to open the Invisibility Force figures and start playing with 'em....