Dave's Transformers Artifacts Rant Transformers Animated Game Collection Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/TFAgame1 This is a Wal-Mart exclusive, although the fact that it's proclaimed by a sticker suggests it wasn't planned to be one from the start. CAPSULE Transformers Animated Game Collection: A decent kiddie game, if a bit too simple to engage adult collectors (and yes, there's simple games that CAN engage an adult...I mean, you don't get much simpler than Go, yet few master it). Nice box, and some pretty good figurines. Probably not worth the money unless you either have kids or like making up house rules for kiddie games. $19.96 at Wal-Mart. RANT The premise here is of a box full of games and activities with a Transformers Animated theme. As such, the packaging itself is part of the product, and not something to be ditched once opened. The games are Little Kiddie stuff, but there's a quartet of PVC figures that older collectors might be interested enough in to buy the thing. It's sold under the Milton Bradley brand. Packaging: The box is somewhat irregular in shape, intended to look like the front end of Optimus Prime's vehicle mode. The overall size is 12.5" (32cm) tall, 10" (25.5cm) wide and 7.25" (18.5cm) deep. The top, sides, bottom and back are all in the "rectangular solid" configuration, but the front slopes back in several panels. The bottom panel is 4.75" (12cm) tall and parallel to the back one. The middle panel is 6.25" (16cm) tall and slopes back a little bit. The top panel is 4" (10cm) tall and more horizontal than vertical. There's Autobot symbol shaped cutouts in that top panel, with the minifigures visible inside. The whole thing is shrinkwrapped, with a thin cardstock insert held over the right side, the bottom front panel and most of the middle front panel. On the front bottom piece of the insert is an inset showing the unwrapped box, the minifigures and talking about the contents (board game, checkers, tic tac toe, 100 piece puzzle). The middle front panel has the TF:A logo, the name of the product, and a call-out for the minifigs. The right side of the insert has pictures of all the features, under a proclamation of "LOADS OF TRANSFORMERS ACTION!" These are: - "Cool TRANSFORMERS 100 Piece Puzzle" - "Unique Checkers Game: it's AUTOBOTS vs. DECEPTICONS!" - "Tic Tac Toe, TRANSFORMERS-style" - "Exclusive TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED Game!" - Pictures of the four minifigs, kinda pointless since the pictures are smaller than the actual minifigs, which are already visible in-package. Inside, the box is decorated to look like Earth Mode Optimus Prime's cab on the lid, front and sides of the box. The bottom of the box is just plain red with legalese, and the back shows the contents. There's an "Only at WAL-MART" sticker on the front, I wish they'd put the sticker on the cardstock insert. Still, it comes off cleanly enough. Here's the text from the back of the box: * * * * OPTIMUS PRIME IS PACKED WITH TRANSFORMERS ACTION! 3 Cool Games, 4 AUTOBOT Figures and a Puzzle! It's AUTOBOTS vs. DECEPTICONS! Join OPTIMUS PRIME, leader of the AUTOBOTS: open his vehicle doors [note, you can't actually open the doors] and get ready for a load of TRANSFORMERS action. Choose an AUTOBOT figure and search for DECEPTICONS to battle in the exciting TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED game! Then flip the board over for Checkers and Tic Tac Toe, both transformed into AUTOBOT vs. DECEPTICON battles. The final challenge is a 100 piece puzzle. It all stores inside this cool TRANSFORMERS vehicle package, where the next battle awaits! CONTENTS * 2-story OPTIMUS PRIME vehicle playhouse with roof, doors and inner drawer. [Again, the doors don't open. The front grille does, though.] * 4 TRANSFORMERS AUTOBOT figures: OPTIMUS PRIME, BUMBLEBEE, BULKHEAD and PROWL * Double-sided gameboard (TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED game on one side; Checkers and Tic Tac Toe on the other) * Dueling spinner/sliding scorer * Deck of 50 cards * 24 Checkers/Tic Tac Toe playing pieces * 100 Piece puzzle in a matching box * Instructions for all 3 games (Instrucciones del juego en ingles y espanol) Ages 6+, For 2 to 40 players * * * * The lid lifts off, and comes apart to reveal a black plastic blister tray inside that holds the figures. This is the upper story of the playset, I guess, if you ditch the blister tray. Under the lid is a cardboard honeycomb piece that fills the top half of the box and keeps the stuff inside from flopping around. I suppose you could fill it with toys to carry around. :) The front grill is held closed by two Velcro tabs, pulling it open lets you slide out a drawer with the main contents of the set. This drawer is 9.75" (24.5cm) wide, 7" (17.5cm) deep and 3" (7.5cm) tall. It has no lid per se, relying on the spinner and gameboard pieces to hold everything else in. Under the spinner are the rules. One folded sheet for checkers and tic tac toe. Rather than stacking checkers for kinging, you flip them over to a gold side. The board game rules are three pages with two tiny diagrams among the text. Next down are the gameboard pieces, which are heavy cardstock chunks shrinkwrapped together. There's five panels connected together, unfolding into a long skinny board 32.5" (82.5cm) long and 9" (23cm) wide. A black plastic gamepiece tray is under the board. A sheet of punch-out cardboard "checkers" lies on top of the tray, with an indent in the tray intended for storing them. The game deck is on the right, and the puzzle on the left. The deck is shrinkwrapped, no rubber band is provided. The puzzle box is fairly thin cardstock that would't survive on its own on the shelf. At least the puzzle pieces are inside a plastic bag inside the box. There's space under the tray, but not enough to neatly store the spinner there. THE GOODIES Figures: Okay, this is probably the main reason most of you will be buying this, unless you're buying on behalf of your kids. These are meant to be game pawns, and are made of soft but not gummy plastic. They're not all to scale, although Bulkhead is really the only significant standout. No articulation, the poses are all just standing at attention with arms to the sides. The paint applications are generally decent, but I'll note exceptions. Bumblebee: Made of bright yellow plastic with a strong UV glow. 5.1cm tall. Medium light gray is used on the face, windows and hubcaps. The eyes are bright blue, a red Autobot symbol is printed on the chest. There's no police light on the chest. Plenty of black paint on wheels, arms, waist, knees and soles, plus sometimes-sloppy black panel lines in various places. He has more black detailing than the Deluxe toy does. Even considering the somewhat sloppy panel lines, this is a nice looking piece, with possibly the best color scheme of any Bumblebee toy so far...which is kinda sad. Bulkhead: Made of olive green plastic and probably heavier than the other three put together. Hm, let's see...about 45 grams. All together the other three are 20 grams. Yep! 5.4cm tall at the head, 6.1cm at the shoulderpads. The right claw is open, the left claw is closed. Gunmetal paint on the face, neck, shoulder stars, upper arms, claws, abdomen and thighs, with some sloppiness here and there. Dark gray on the abdomen and elbows, yellow abdominal headlights, bright blue eyes, red Autobot symbol on his chest. Lots of black panel lines and other details, a bit of black got splashed on the side of the backpack on mine. Oh, and just noticed, he has red taillights on his butt...that's a detail even the Leader version lacks, I think. :) Pretty good all around, although white shoulder stars would have been nice. I can understand needing to limit the number of paint colors, though. Optimus Prime: Made of medium blue plastic with a strong UV glow. 6.3cm tall, and probably the only really awkward pose of the lot. Red paint on the torso and upper arms. Black chest windows, flanks, soles and boot stripes. Light gray paint on th thighs, neck, cheeks and grille. Yellow on the roof lights, headlights (it's hard to tell), pelvis details, toes, helmet stripes and bits on the backs of his hands (which are rather messily applied on mine). The face is a slightly bluer light gray, and the eyes are bright blue. A white Autobot symbol is printed on the left shoulder. The paint job is generally good enough that the only reason I'm sure of the base plastic color is the UV test (not wanting to cut it open to check inside). Prowl: Black plastic, 5.7cm tall and a bit wobbly. Probably the most at-ease pose of the four, though. Pelvis, thighs, thumbs and fingers are painted taupe (a sort of brownish light gray). The face, abdominal flanks, wheels, wheel centers and a dot on his back are medium gray. Bright blue visor, tiny red Autobot symbol printed on the abdomen. His main accent paint is a sort of dull gold that glows a bit greenish under UV, and it's found on his crest, chin (a bit sloppy), shoulderpads, chest panel lines, forearm chevrons, thigh pads, backpack, wheel hubs, boot details, belt buckle. The legs got a little warped in-package, so he doesn't stand as stably as the other three. Gameboard: Pretty sturdy, although it doesn't want to lie completely flat. The main side is a pretty generic winding single path of circular spaces strung together like beads, with intermittent Battle spaces. The background is an overhead shot of future Detroit with the Autobot hideout at the start in the lower left and Sumdac Tower at the upper left at the end. The path winds around pictures of the various opponents. In order, they're Meltdown, the Dinobots, Lockdown, Blackarachnia, Soundwave, Starscream and Megatron. The Dinobots and BA are shown in beast modes. All folded up, the "cover" is a portrait of the five Autobots with the TF:A logo. This panel is a non-game part of the backside of the board. Calling this panel #1, panels 2 and 5 have a quartet of tic-tac-toe battlegrounds using the following backgrounds: Decepticon warship bridge, Sumdac Tower (exterior), Autobot hideout (interior), Autobot ship bridge. Panels 3 and 4 are a checkerboard in red and dark gray over a Detroit city scene. Game Spinner: A single sheet of heavy cardstock 9.25" (23.5cm) by 6.25" (16cm) with two 1-6 spinners. One is purple and charcoal with a Decepticon symbol, the other is red and charcoal with an Autobot symbol. Megatron stands next to the Decepticon spinner. Along one long side are the numbers 0 through 6 and a checkmark (for victory, I presume) and a red plastic slider clip. Checkers: Sigh. I was kinda hoping for plastic checkers molded with faction symbols, but no such luck. Just medium cardstock punch-outs. The background is silver on one side, gold on the other. 12 have Autobot symbols in white with red borders, 12 have Decepticon symbols in white with blue-purple borders. Puzzle: The image is the first TF:A promotional image we got, with the five Autobots leaping into action. The box is 4" (10cm) by 3" (7.5cm) by 2.5" (6cm) and has the goal image on the two large faces. Pretty standard cardstock jigsaw puzzle. Game deck: A mix of red-backed Power Cards with Autobot symbols on the back and Battle Cards in various colors with antagonists on the front. Power Cards come in only a few varieties: Space Bridge (move to the next Battle Space), Ratchet Helps (take another turn...I guess this is why he has no figure), AllSpark (instant win on your current battle), and a whole lot of Energon cards (from +1 to +4 bonus to any spin). There's six colors of Battle Card, one for each of the Battle Spaces except for Megatron's at the end. Each color has three cards, sometimes all the same character, sometimes not. Repeated characters are in different poses. Green: Meltdown twice, Colossus Rhodes Orange: Swoop, Snarl, Grimlock Yellow: All Lockdown Blue: All Blackarachnia (two robot mode, one beast mode) Magenta: All Soundwave Purple: Lugnut, Blitzwing (crazy face), Starscream Game Rules: I'm going to assume you all know how to play checkers and tic-tac-toe, and concentrate on the board game. The idea is to be the first to reach the end of the path and defeat Megatron. The more foes you beat along the way, the better your chances are against Megatron, and there's deliberately fewer enemies (Battle Cards) than players so that the last one to reach a space may not be able to collect a Battle Card (although if someone ahead of you fails to beat a foe, there may be one left for the tail-end player). Power cards are left face up, although I'm sure older players would be willing to play with hidden hands. They're no use against Megatron, but can guarantee a win against other foes. You do not start with any Power cards, however (you get one at the end of every turn), so the first person to hit the Meltdown zone may not have enough cards to be assured a win (you have to move 9 spaces to hit Meltdown, though, so you'll always have at least one card). You can burn multiple Power cards on a single spin if you want. The Megatron battle uses the slider on the spinner. You start at a number equal to your number of Battle Cards, and then engage in unmodified spin-offs against Megatron. Lose and you go down a number, win and you go up. If you hit 7, you win the game. 0 and your turn ends, someone else could get to Megatron before your next turn and win instead. Okay, time for some rules clarity issues, because I am a long time gamer geek and part time rules lawyer. 1) If you land on a space occupied by another player, you move to the next space. This could be construed to mean that you can't go into an occupied Battle Zone, although I think the intent is that the Battle Zones (which are off the path) are not regular spaces and can be multiply occupied. 2) If you reach a Battle Zone with cards still on it, you must stop and do battle. It's not established if you can get past a Battle Zone with cards on it if you fail. Option 1: Fail and you can't get that Zone's card unless you draw Ratchet Helps (which lets you immediately try again or give up and move on). Next turn you move off the Battle Zone, tough luck. Option 2: Zero spaces is still a move, and you can't leave until you either win or someone else exhausts the enemy cards in the Zone. Either one works for me, although the rules for Ratchet Helps support option 1, since it lets you move on without collecting a Battle Card. 3) It's not established how you start your second try at Megatron. Do you reset to your number of Battle Cards, or do you start from zero? I expect they intend for you to reset, but it's not stated. The rules seem to expect you won't get to try again, that someone else will win before your next turn. In any case, there's not a lot of strategy possible, especially with your hand left face up at all times. I'd suggest the following rules to make things a little more interesting, because if I didn't create house rules I'd have to turn in my gamer geek ID. 1) Power Cards are held concealed. 2) You can move UP TO the number on the spinner if you want. This will let you slow down to collect more Power Cards if you want to risk someone beating you to the battles. You must always move at least one space, however. 3) If you land on the same space as another token, do a spin-off, and respin any ties (Power Cards may be used if you really want to). The winner can choose to either move their piece one ahead of the shared space, or move the losing piece one back. If this lands a token on a Battle Space with cards remaining, and that player has not collected a card from that space, there is an immediate battle regardless of whose turn it is. 4) If Megatron defeats you, discard one Battle Card. If you run out of Battle Cards, you are out of the game. If only one player remains, that player wins. Somehow. After all, Megatron Must Be Stopped! Overall: I'd call it a decent $10 game and the figures are worth maybe another $6. $2 for the puzzle, and I suppose the box itself is worth $2. So it's decent value, especially if you have kids who would enjoy the relatively simple board game. Dave Van Domelen, prefers the Armada Battle Game, though.