Dave's Transformers Rant Sideswipe with Nightbeat Thrust with Inferno Well, I found Sideswipe in early March, Thrust finally in mid-April. Ironically, Transformers.com has had Thrust's bio up for a while now, but Sideswipe's is not up yet as of April 12. CAPSULES Sideswipe: Very good vehicle mode, interesting transformation, passable robot mode. Nightbeat runs down about the same way. Recommended. $9.76 at Wal-Mart. And yes, I'm running against most popular opinion in recommending this. Thrust: Solid vehicle mode, another interesting transformation (not standard for jets), decent robot mode. Lots of pegging fun, although there would be more if only they hadn't reworked a couple of launchers at the last minute to lock them into place. Recommended. $9.76 at Wal-Mart. RANTS AUTOBOT: SIDESWIPE Altmode: Street Racing Car (see below) Mini-Con: Nightbeat (motorcycle) Function: Trainee Quote: "With aggressive precision I will speed towards victory." SIDESWIPE is the youngest and the least experienced of the AUTOBOT soldiers. He's an unproven rookie who wants to be a player, to one day stand as an equal with other great AUTOBOT champions. He drives and works hard always trying to impress his superiors-great AUTOBOTS he idolizes above all else. Although he means well, sometimes he tries too hard and things don't turn out the way he intended. BLURR with his critical eye and sharp tongue states matter-of-factly, "He's got a lot to learn." But OPTIMUS PRIME knows better, he sees raw potential in the enthusiastic upstart and knows with experience SIDESWIPE will one day be an irreplaceable asset. STR 5 INT 5 SPD 6 END 7 RNK 6 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 6 Avg 6.125 As a side comment, many have noted that they really should have called the main toy Nightbeat, since the color scheme is appropriate for that Headmaster detective. Vehicle Mode: Okay, this is a hybrid of a number of cars, no doubt in part to avoid infringing on anyone's trademarked appearance. There's some 1987 Thunderbird Turbo in there, a lot of Nissan Skyline R-33 or R-34. The body is two-door, but they molded four doors on...the rear doors clearly don't quite fit, and the bar on the rear door windows would prevent the windows from rolling down, further suggesting a certain amount of "making a square peg fit in a round hole" design. Whatever it is, it's NOT a dull sedan like many have complained, it's some sort of "Fast and the Furious" hyped-up street racer. The car is 6" (15cm) long, mostly in a bright medium blue with amber windows. There's gunmetal gray trim on the airdam and spoiler, red metallic paint for the rear lights and turn signals and yellow headlights. There's three Autobot symbols on the hood. Two small ones tampo-printed on the sides at the right and left front fenders, and one molded into the supercharger. It's painted properly, for once, not just all red. Orson, a source at Hasbro who posts to various TF boards, says that the molded faction symbols will all be properly painted from now on. "Transformers" is written across the top of the front windshield. As a street racer, the ground clearance isn't all that much, and a couple of hardpoints on the undersied further reduce it. But the wheels roll well on flat surfaces, and there's no problem with body warping to leave you with only three wheels on the table at once. The main gimmick of this mode involves pressing in a small yellow button at the rear of the car, which causes the middle third of the rear section to rotate around 180 degrees. Nightbeat is meant to store on this panel, so this deploys the Mini-Con and makes the car look like it's part Brat (pickup truck). Deployed, Nightbeat forms a sort of JATO-style booster for Sideswipe. He can't fly like Blurr, but he can move. There's a secondary gimmick that's not really intentional (I don't think, anyway), and doesn't always work, but it's cool when it does. Pressing down on the main Autobot symbol causes the front section of the car to snap out in two clamp-like halves, once in a while chomping closed around any Mini-Con so stupid as to stand right in front of the car. Finally, this is one of those cars where the robot head can be seen inside the driver's compartment, which is always kinda surreal. Transformation: This starts with the hood-snap-forward trick, actually. And then almost always continues with one of the weapons mounted inside the front doors popping off. }-> It is possible to transform the toy without either weapon popping off, but it's not easy. This is because you have to bow the front a little bit to free the front doors (and windshield) to pull apart, and this is enough to pop the pistol out of its place. At the end of transformation, you should snap the hood halves back into "loaded" position. It's very difficult to transform in either direction with them undeployed, but not impossible. Oh, and it's not obvious unless you read the instructions, but the head snaps forward about a centimeter to be better centered on the torso. Robot Mode: 5" (13cm) tall, and just a little bit more than that wide at the boots. Yeah, the front half of the driver's canopy hangs off the sides of the lower legs, which looks pretty awkward. The revealed robot body is gray, the upper arms and thighs are yellow. The head is gray with black crest and blue goggles. A bit of orange trim sits incongruously over the folded-down supercharger cover (so yes, his chest has a big Autobot symbol). His forearms and toes are black, the forearms mostly covered by hood halves. He has a pistol and a knife made of transparent amber plastic, and they can connect to give the pistol a bayonet of sorts. His hands can hold the Star Saber and other Mini-Con pegs. Poseability is so-so. The shoulders are universal joints, but limited by the shape of the upper arm piece to only a few degrees of movement out to the sides. The elbows are ball joints, but very restricted by the shape of the forearm piece (in fact, it'll only stay put with about 20 degrees of bend...it'll bend twice that far but then spring back). The hips are fully universal, but the knees only bend sideways. The toes only lock into two positions, all the way in or all the way out. The feet will snap together for stability, though. The head does not turn. There are four hardpoints in robot mode (compared to one in vehicle mode). There's the flip-panel hardpoint from car mode, which is now essentially coattail-riding, and which only Nightbeat and maybe a few other skinny Mini-Cons can attach to. There's a dead one over each kneecap, a bit short to keep them from scraping along in car mode. Finally, there's a live hardpoint in the center of Sideswipe's back, clear for anyone to attach to. With a Mini-Con attached to this last hardpoint, you can pull down to make the right arm raise up, rotating back about 180 degrees. It's not spring- loaded, so the arm will stay where you leave it. If you remove the Mini-Con while the peg is pulled down, you can push the peg up freely, then it will lock at the top. With Nightbeat on this peg, you can transform the Mini-Con to look more like a jetpack. Sideswipe has a coup de poing gimmick, as well. The little yellow triggers are a bit tricky, but the blue forearm armor will snap out to full extension quite forcefully (just don't do it with the bayoneted pistol in hand!). Now...those big bootflaps. Probably the biggest design flaw in the toy, the pieces that form the front doors and the front half of the canopy really just look bad in robot mode. I get the impression that they're supposed to be like wings, combined with Nightbeat as jetpack, but they don't really look it. Or that they're supposed to make it look like he's in a trenchcoat, maybe. They can be folded back up (making it a little tricky to attach Nightbeat, but not impossible), but that makes it look like Sideswipe is wearing hip-waders. Another option is to place them straight out to the sides, where they form little battle platforms for Mini-Cons to sit. You can even place his hand weapons on their pegs to look like something the Mini-Cons operate. This works better with Mini-Cons that have knees and can sit, though. Nightbeat can straddle the pegged pistol nicely, though. On his own, Sideswipe suffers a bit from kibble problems, but even some of the flaws can be turned into strengths. Despite my usual focus on poseability, I rather like this toy. Nightbeat is a silvery gray motorcycle with black wheels and yellow pipes, plus a red headlight. The Mini-Con symbol is on the left side of the body, and the PowerLinx connector is on the middle of the underside, in a yellow block. I'm not going to try to identify the model of motorcycle, but the huge pipes suggest it's a custom mod of whatever the base model is. Cycle mode is 2.25" (5.5cm) long with the front wheel all the way forward (it has a few millimeters of play). It can stand unsupported with the front wheel extended, if you bring it back towards the body the cycle falls over. Transformation to robot mode has the big exhaust pipes fold down to become legs, the handlebar and fuel tank part folding into upper chest and head, and the rest rotating 90 degrees around to be the shoulders and arms. Robot mode has no hands, just wheels, which is a pity...separate arms would have made this very much like the "Motoslave" units from Bubblegum Crisis. It stands (unsteadily) 2.25" (6cm) tall, with an inhuman head formed from the headlight/handlebars section and a single red eye. The Powerlinx connector becomes inaccessible on the butt while Nightbeat is standing, but it can sit nicely on a hardpoint. Jetpack mode is not in the instructions, but it's easy to make. With Nightbeat attached to the live hardpoint on Sideswipe's back, fold the headlight and fuel tank down as far as they'll go. Then pull the exhaust pipes up so that they clip around the handlebars, and point the headlight in the same direction as the pipes. Fold the front wheel back down as well. It now looks more like a jetpack and less like a motorcycle strapped to Sideswipe's back. Shotgun mode needs a little customizing to work properly. From motorcycle mode, point the headlight straight up and rotate that piece 180 degrees. Then fold the pipes around to point towards the back again, and flip up the front wheel. The headlight is now a peg for putting in Nightbeat's hand, with the front wheel as the stock (if it gets in the way, just leave it in its normal position). Unfortunately, the diameter of the headlamp is only 4.55 mm, while the hand hole is 5.30 mm in diameter (yes, I have vernier calipers). A little bit of poster tack is enough to temporarily solve this, although I suppose a thin layer of clearcoat nail polish would provide a more long-term fix. Worth the effort to give Sideswipe a four- barrelled shotgun, though. Nightbeat's robot mode is pretty lacking...no hands, skinny legs with minimal standing stability. But everything else is golden, and it goes very well with Sideswipe. Overall: This is a toy with significant flaws, but not insurmountable ones. A worthwhile purchase. DECEPTICON: THRUST Altmode: F-35 (or X-35) Joint Strike Fighter (more or less) Mini-Con: Inferno (missile truck) Function: Decepticon Subcommander Quote: "I fight, I prevail, I conquer!" A veteran soldier, THRUST was summoned to Earth by MEGATRON to reinforce DECEPTICON military ideas, and swiftly became MEGATRON'S number two in command. THRUST'S meteoric rise to the top earned him the lasting contempt of STARSCREAM & DEMOLISHER, who constantly strive to undermine his authority. Known for his lightning speed and advanced attack capabilities, THRUST will employ any means to win. Will arrogance and blind ambition cloud his ability to lead his troops to victory? STR 7 INT 8 SPD 10 END 9 RNK 9 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 9 Avg 8.25 Typos and incorrect names are from the original. Vehicle Mode: 6" (15cm) long, 5" (12cm) wingspan. This is mostly a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, albeit with a few significant differences: the F-35 has a single directable jet nozzle at the back, while Thrust has two fixed nozzles that become the ends of his arms; the F-35's VTOL-assist turbine fan (behind the cockpit) is covered with a panel during level flight, Thrust has no such cover. Plus, of course, the undercarriage junk, the missile launchers, the Mini-Con. }-> http://www.lmaeronautics.com/products/combat_air/x-35/ for the official webpage of the F-35/X-35. The main color is a dark gray, with light gray/silver accents, yellowish green missiles (and a few other bits), and seafoam or victorian green on the leading edges and some following edges. There's also a few bits of red here and there, orange paint on the tips of the thrusters, plus a dark purple Decepticon symbol that almost fades into the background on the right wing. Unlike Sideswipe's symbol, there's no white border, but it's not the sloppy splat of previous Decepticon toys. There's a definite "not quite finished" look to Thrust in this mode, with many panel lines and some exposed tech bits on the fuselage. It's as if he's come back from repairs, but didn't worry about the cosmetic stuff. Thrust has two big wheels in back hidden behind two pairs of smaller molded wheels, plus a small nosewheel. On a smooth surface, it rolls as well as any car-mode Autobot. A missile launcher is under each wing, using the standard "marble shooter" type of trigger. These were originally supposed to be removable, but (probably for safety reasons) have been permanently attached with swivel joints. There's a flat space with a dead hardpoint between the tail halves that's there for Inferno to sit in, adding a third launcher. More about this when I discuss Inferno. There are two more dead hardpoints, one on each wing, and a live hardpoint on the underside that only works in Buster Typhoon mode (more later). A generally good vehicle mode, and it doesn't even look that bad from underneath, the only significant kibble is from the twin main engines. Transformation: The air intake cowlings become the legs, and the main egines become arms, an interesting reversal of the typical jet Transformer. In order to keep the general look of the robot mode the same, the cockpit head swings around on an arm to lock into place at the rear of the jet. Inferno's platform folds down to become a backpack. Robot Mode: This stands 6" (15cm) tall thanks to the conehead (or "Eraserhead" as Demolishor called him in the cartoon), and has much more yellow-green visible in this mode. A new color is added to the shoulders, a very dark green with molded Decepticon symbols in purple. His eyes are purple, but there is no other paint on the face, which makes it look a bit bland. The cockpit showing on his head is not actually visible in vehicle mode, there's a shell over it that now hangs from Thrust's butt. It can be removed with some effort, and it has pegs. Ah, pegs. Thrust is covered in small pegs and the holes that fit them. You can lock the legs onto the cockpit shell for stability if you want, although the pegs on the cockpit shell are really there for keeping the vehicle mode together. There's a peg hole on either side of the nonfunctional "hand" (a ten-pointed nozzle, unlike the five-pointed version on the cartoon). Pegs on the backpack, pegs on the legs, pegs on the weapons, pegs and holes on Inferno, lots and lots of pegs. The missile launchers on the knees were originally supposed to just peg onto the kneecaps, but were placed lower on the legs so that a disc could be added on the other side to lock 'em down. A pity, as these weapons were clearly meant to peg onto the arms. The removed cockpit shell can peg onto the forearms, either as a holder for Inferno's missile launcher, or as a sort of shield with vortex weapon. Beyond the pegs, the toy is pretty poseable. The shoulders are universal joints (two swivels at 90 degrees to each other), and the elbows are hinged, if a bit restricted by the bulk of the forearms. No hands, so no hand articulation. The head turns at the neck, and his cone-hat can pop forward to protect his face. Hips are ball joints, as are the knees. The knees lock into position so you don't have to worry about sagging. The toes have a little range of motion for transformation, but not much. The missile launchers fixed to the shins do get in the way a bit if you don't remove the missiles. The missiles really can't be fired in robot mode unless you point his legs in weird ways...he has one heck of a kick, though. For an idea of how poseable the legs are, check out Thrust, Lord of the Dance: http://www.protoformproject.com/dvd/images/thrustdance.JPG Buster Typhoon Mode: Okay, this isn't named anything in the instructions, I'm just going with the anime style here. To get in this mode, you turn the head and legs around, lift the wings up off the back on a hinged plate, and position the arms slightly up and out to the sides, presumably to fire counterthrust and keep him from falling over. You can also position the legmounted launchers to fire in the direction of the typhoon. Inserting a Mini-Con onto Thrust's chest and pulling down spins the wing section around, although thanks to the unremovable launchers you can't position the legs in a good-looking way without the wing whacking 'em. Anyway the basic premise is that Thrust generates a typhoon blast with the spinning wings, thrusting with all his might to keep from flying backwards. I am getting more and more tempted to cut the launchers free. Thrust is a really good toy, hurt by the decision to lock down the missile launchers. That decision impacts not just the launchers, but also other gimmicks like the Buster Typhoon. Inferno: A dark green and light gray missile truck. The Mini-Con symbol is on the driver's side launcher clamp (aka the left arm), and the live connector (yes, the *connector* is live) is on the underside. Vehicle mode is 1.75" (4.5cm) long, a somewhat stubby truck with a big light gray missile launcher clamped into its bed. The missile is the same yellow-green as Thrust has, and there's a few bits of that color on the clamps as well, plus silver windows. The missile is 3" (8cm) long, dominating the truck. Pushing forward on the Powerlinx connector pushes a tab that hits the trigger on the missile launcher. Yep, it's almost impossible to accidentally fire the missile while everything's together, woot. The front of the vehicle is not locked together well, and this results in a wobbly vehicle. Transformation is basic. The cab unfolds into legs, the launcher clamps fold around to become arms. The head is just molded into the underside of the vehicle. Robot mode is 2.25" (4.5cm) tall if you ignore the missile tip sticking up from behind. The missile tip itself forms a third leg that compensates for the backpack formed by the launcher, or you can just pop the launcher off. Once you remove the launcher, it's REALLY easy to accidentally trigger (he says after picking the missile up off the floor). The face has an owl-like beak and one big round eye on the right with a slit on the left. The face is painted in bright neon green. The waist swivels, the hips and knees are hinged, the arms are pegged on at the shoulder plus can swing out on transformation hinges. The legs were put on backwards, the pelvis should have the molded detail forward and the hole in the back. It's easy enough to pop the hips off and replace the legs on the right sides. This seems to be an error in all copies. The arms can be easily removed, they're just on straight pegs...which means they can be put on other pegs. Like those of the launcher, turning it into a little missile drone. Inferno can hold his missile launcher over his head on one of the pegs, without falling over. He can also peg onto the side of Thrust's backpack, but can't QUITE fit in it like a papoose. His boots will fit in, letting him stand behind Thrust's head with a little stability. Inferno's "Attack Mode" basically has him bend over with the launcher on his back as a sort of artillery emplacement. I find it looks a little less embarrassing if you point the missile launcher backwards, but there's really no way to use this mode without the potential for innuendo. Finally, if you remove the launcher and the arms from vehicle mode (to make the missile drone), you can fold the green shoulder joints down as winglets to get a flying truck mode. Inferno has a couple flaws, but it's a good solid Mini-Con, and the first since Jolt to just hand the weapon off to his partner and go do something else. Overall: Thrust was well worth the wait. The bulky forearms and the locked launchers are really the only significant problems, and I'll probably fix the latter with a Dremel eventually. Dave Van Domelen, saw the X-35 on Mail Call, nifty plane. Optional VTOL!