Dave's Rescue Bots Rant: Energize Wave 1 Chase the Police-Bot & Chief Charlie Burns Optimus Prime & Cody Burns Heatwave the Fire-Bot & Kade Burns Bumblebee & Graham Burns Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/123/RBBasic3 At the time I write this, there's no RBBasic2 review, but since I have several unreviewed figures from the first two assortments sitting around, I'm leaving RBBasic2 open in case I ever go back to them. :) The Basic size class changes with this wave from having an articulated human with a transforming vehicle to having an unarticulated human and an articulated but non-transforming Autobot with an energy tool replacing their left hand. On the plus side, we finally get show-accurate humans and poseable Autobots. On the minus side, the humans are statues. On the very minus side, there don't seem to be plans to make a Dani Burns figure. :( These sell at the same price point as previous waves and the other Playskool Heroes two-packs. I guess we can either get two articulated human size figures or a larger articulated bot and a chunk of plastic human...they wanted to sell these at the $6-7 price point rather than the $10-12 level. I'm not sure what the case assortment is, as I might not have been first to get at the pegs, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bumblebee is longpacked. The choice of pairings is a bit odd, but makes sense when you consider that Hasbro has decided that the first four Autobots to sell have to include Optimus and the Yellow Cancer. Then it's just a matter of pairing the male members of the Burns Family up with the best fits available. If they sell well enough to justify a wave with Boulder and Blades (or Hoist and Medix), we might just get redecos of the same four humans. CAPSULES They're all decent, if a little disappointing in the lack of articulation for the human partners. If you only want to get one of the four, it really comes down to what aspects you value, so go ahead and read the full reviews. I don't regret getting all four, though (and I do regret having picked up Medix, for which you're not going to see a review). RANTS Packaging: Same sort of open blister card as the previous waves. The Autobots are on the left side, held in by strings around their waist and elbows. The humans are on the right, held in by a single string around the waist. There's no paperwork inside. The card fronts have a picture of the robot with the human partner on the shoulder or right arm, with the left arm thrust forward to show off the energy tool. The art style is show-accurate for the humans, but a bit too cel-shaded and finely detailed on the bots. The card backs have art of the various toy characters (humans are Cody and the pre-Burns group) around Chase's police station with the mobile HQ in the background. They also have photos of the toys on back, and a common blurb about Rescue Bots that's the same on all four: "Robots and humans saving the day, working together the Rescue Bots way! No matter what emergency strikes, never fear - team up with the Rescue Bots and their extra-tough energize gear!" Common Design Elements: All of the humans are made of single pieces of rubbery fleshtone PVC, arms down at their sides and slightly akimbo. At first glance they look like regular Playskool Heroes figures, albeit with fewer paint apps than usual. No attempt is made to scale them, they're all about the same height (2.5"/6.5cm). In fact, Cody is a millimeter or so taller than his father! They all have peg holes in both feet so they can still at least work with playsets and the older mini-vehicles. The bots are all a little more chibi/exaggerated than their animation models, and again all about the same height as each other (3.5"/8.5cm). They all have universal joint shoulders, neck swivels and wrist swivels (although see individual entries for some tweaks to that). The legs move forward and back as a single unit. The right arms all end in fists that are too small to hold 5mm pegs and too large to hold 3mm pegs. There's also a bit of AllSpark Blue circuitry pattern on each right forearm that looks like some kind of energy infection. The left arms all end in "energize gear" that is painted AllSpark blue rather than being made of clear plastic. That blue paint color is also used for the Rescue Bot faction logos. The feet are all hollow on the underside, so they can't use standing pegs to secure them in place. There are no action gimmicks on any of the energize gear. Note for those who recently started reading my reviews: AllSpark Blue is pretty close to what's called Non-Photo Blue, a bright shade used on the "AllSpark Power" wave of 2007-8 movie toys. I decided to call the shade AllSpark Blue in honor of that. RESCUE BOT: CHASE THE POLICE-BOT Partner: Chief Charlie Burns Energize Gear: Gripper Clamp Plastic Colors: The right hand and legs are slightly rubbery dark blue plastic, the rest is rigid white. Paint Apps: Silver on the upper arms, thighs, face and lightbar center. Dark blue (good match) on the helmet, chest-roof, backpack and shoulder fenders. Overly glossy black on the wheels on the shoulders and ankles. Yellow forehead badge and chest window. Bright blue and red lightbar flashers. AllSpark blue goggles, claw, arm infection and center-chest Rescue Bots symbol. Energize Gear: A big blue two-fingered clamp that can clamp around Chief Burns's head. No motion gimmick, it just happens to be the right size. But it's rigid plastic, so you can't really bend it to fit around Cody's head. The "wrist" is fairly close to the elbow in this case. Partner: Glossy black belt, glossy charcoal gray pants that look black under normal lighting. The shirt is dark glossy blue with glossy black epaulets, and the belt buckle is glossy yellow. The overall effect is to make it look like he just stepped out of a swimming pool. His hair and mustache are glossy light gray, and his eyes are black dots. Overall: Pretty good bot, but the human suffers from the excess of gloss paint. No significant virtues or flaws compared to the rest, although his sense of humor is suspect. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Partner: Cody Burns Energize Gear: Rescue Saw Plastic Colors: The right hand, head and legs are a somewhat flexible medium-dark blue plastic (lighter than Chase), the rest is rigid bright red plastic. Paint Apps: Silver paint on the upper arms, thighs, pelvis/abdomen, smokestacks, faceplate and forehead tablet. The chest windows and molded wheels are gloss black, no separate silver paint for hubcaps. The eyes are yellow, and there's white stripes under the windows. There's molded circles on both shoulders for insignia, but there's only one printed on the right shoulder. Energize Gear: A buzzsaw with exposed cable connecting the motor to the wrist base. Probably meant for cutting through wreckage, rather than cutting into Wreckage. The wrist lets it be swung down or sideways (at human head level). Partner: Cody is, as noted above, abnormally large in that not only is he not shrunk down to be in scale with the other humans, his poofy hair actually makes him the tallest of the four by a little bit. His jacket and shoes are gloss brown, his pants are gloss tan. He has yellow hair and a yellow shirt collar, but a lack of paint on the actual shirt makes the collar look like a necklace (also, he has pretty well-defined pecs for a kid). The collar of his jacket is white. As with the others, his eyes are black dots. The paint applications on mine are a little sloppy. Overall: It's kinda sad that they think so little of the selling power of the core four Rescue Bots that they had to displace two of them in order to put the obligatory Optimus and BB into the wave. But for those who miss Robot Heroes, it's a good chibi Optimus. I'd have given him the jackhammer, though, as it looks more like the wrist blades many Optimii sport these days. Oh, and Cody's a mutant freak. But we kinda knew that already. RESCUE BOT: HEATWAVE THE FIRE-BOT Partner: Kade Burns Energize Gear: Fire Axe Plastic Colors: The ladder, right hand and legs are rubbery bright red plastic, the rest is rigid bright red plastic. Note, the right hand does have his triple hoses molded into it. Paint Apps: Silver for the right hand, upper arms, thighs, abdomen and head (helmet is left unpainted save for a yellow badge). The ladder on the back is painted white, and there's a white border around his chest window. The chest window itself and his goggles are AllSpark Blue, and his Rescue Bots insignia is on a round bit in the center of his chest. The lightbars on his shoulders are painted yellow, and the wheels on his arms and legs are gloss black without separate hubcaps. Energize Gear: An axe with a power cable. There's also cables molded into his forearm, and the blue paint goes back to about the halfway point of the forearm. The axe turns at the wrist point, though. Partner: Okay, of the four, Kade is the only one wearing clothing that has a good reason to be slick and glossy, from drifting hose spray if nothing else. So naturally he's mostly painted in matte canary yellow and matte golden yellow. His gloves, belt and boots are gloss black, at least, as is a black patch on his back. His helmet is matte red, his hair matte orange. He has his trademark punch-me-in-the-face smirk below his beady black eyes. Overall: I suppose that the fireman's hat is why this one has the smallest head by a pretty wide margin, which makes it stand out as being a lot less chibi than the other three. So if you're not keen on the big head aesthetic but would like at least one show-accurate Rescue Bot, this is the one to get. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Partner: Graham Burns Energize Gear: Jackhammer Plastic Colors: The legs and right hand are rubbery yellow plastic, the rest is rigid yellow plastic. The right hand is the same mold as Chase's. Paint Apps: Gloss black shins/toes, wheels, chest stripes, mouth and ears. Silver on the right hand, the upper arms, thighs/pelvis and faceplate. AllSpark blue for the chest windows and eyes, with the Rescue Bot symbol being on a raised circle in the center of the chest. The power cable for his energize gear is unpainted, and really could use some silver. Energize Gear: A jackhammer, and the swivel is way back at the elbow, so the entire forearm turns. Partner: Well, as the last unclaimed male Burns, Graham got stuck with Bumblebee. I guess if the partnerless Cody is going to go with one of the Obligatory Autobots, though, he's a better fit for Optimus than Graham is. And the jackhammer energize gear suits Graham better than the saw. Anyway, he has gloss black for his boots, belt, glasses, eyes and...the fly on his pants. His pants are glossy denim blue, his shirt is glossy tan (same color as Cody's pants). His vest and helmet are glossy bright green, his hair is brown, and his glasses lenses are blue. I'm just going to go ahead and put him next to my full sized Boulder right now. Overall: The only one of the bots that really needed another paint app (the power cable). And while it's a Yellow Cancer, at least that means if it ends up longpacked then Graham gets to be longpacked too. Dave Van Domelen, wasn't going to do this tonight, but then Lord of the Rings Online had its scheduled maint run really long.