Dave's Beast Machines Rant

     Skydive
     Blastcharge
     Sonic Attack Jet

     Seized by boredom and a sudden urge to get some nail polish remover so I
could clean an old ring I made in 9th grade, I headed out to Meijer today.
And what did I see but a couple pegs full of new Deluxes!  Naturally, I
snagged both.  Later, at Target, I spotted Nightscream...but I ordered that
online last week (UPS Slow, expected Wednesday or Thursday).
     [Late Note: Decided to get Sonic Attack Jet, spliced the review onto
this file to keep things neat.]

CAPSULES

     Skydive: Good beast mode, surprisingly involved transformation, very
nice robot mode and decent gimmicks.  Strongly recommended.  $9.99 at Meijer
     Blastcharge: Good vehicle mode, good transformation, okay robot mode,
decent flexibility in terms of additional modes, nice gimmicks.
Recommended.  $9.99 at Meijer
     Sonic Attack Jet: This is a recolor of Jetstorm, which was a Strongly
Recommended toy.  This recolor looks even better.  If you don't already have
Jetstorm, Strongly Recommended.  If you do, it's still at least Mildly
Recommended, depending on your budget.  $9.99 at Meijer


RANTS

     The packaging is a little different for this wave.  Rather than printing
"DELUXE" on the bubble, they put it at the top of the card (which I suppose
does constitute a variation for Snarl, who is shipping in this batch as
well).  Still no NAME at the top of the card, though, so you still have to
paw through all the toys on the peg instead of looking down the tops.  Both
toys have twist-ties, but Skydive's aren't immediately obvious, and are a
little harder to undo.  Blastcharge is packaged in a sort of action pose,
with the missiles on the bubble tray in a spread as if being ripple-fired.
Nice effect.
     [Later note: Snarl is in his original packaging.  Sonic Attack Jet is in
the second "bent-nose" Jetstorm bubble, with th enew card.]
     Reminder, the techspec notes have been edited for grammar and general
readability.  If you want to see the originals, check out
www.beastmachines.com.  


MAXIMAL: Skydive
Altmode: Pteranodon
Function: Aerial Combat Specialist
Motto: "When in the skies, I am the terror which Vehicons despise." [gag,
ack]

To the Vehicons, Skydive is the true menace in the skies above Cybertron.
His speed and maneuverability are unmatched within the Maximal ranks, and
they make him an impossible target.  In the unlikely event any Vehicon does
manage to acquire a targeting lock on him, Skydive is protected by
reinforced, specialized alloys that give maximum strength for minimum
weight.  His wings double as energy receptors, giving Skydive incredible
endurance - he always outlasts his opponents.  Despite a generally stoic
personality and a tendency towards terrible poetry, Skydive takes great
pleasure in "buzzing" secret Maximal outposts.

STR 6.4  INT 7.7  SPD 9.9  END 9.7  RNK 6.4  COUR 9  FRP 6.8  SKL 9.5
     Avg 8.175

     Beast Mode: Despite the parade of names he's had during development,
this is clearly a "reformatted" Transmetal Terrorsaur, down to the purple and
brown/tan color scheme.  Fully extended (which they aren't in the box) the
wingspan measures 11" (28cm), and it's 7.5" (19cm) from beak tip to claws
when at rest.  The legs are a bit long for an actual pteranodon, but it's a
necessary concession to the robot mode, and it doesn't look too bad.  The
green spark crystal is located on its back.
     Everything holds together fairly loosely.  Like many winged TFs of late,
the wing segments don't actually lock together, they just rest against each
other and are easily deranged.  Most of the body clicks into place, but it's
not strong enough to hold together if you're not very careful when using the
beak gimmick.
     The whole neck and head are spring-loaded.  If you use a lever to push
the head forward, it snaps back quickly and the mouth opens (kinda like
Minitron's gimmick in reverse).  Inside the lower half of the beak is a
molded weapon or radome.
     The wings are fairly poseable, although they're also spring-loaded at
one joint.  They can also be folded back along the body nicely for
transportation, although the results look disturbingly like a techno-organic
duck.  (Robert Powers has been reformatted!)

     Transformation: At first I thought this would be trivial.  The legs
become legs, the wings become arms, and there's the head inside the chest.
How hard could it be?  Turns out that the torso requires a lot of
manipulation to transform, resulting in a satisfyingly "dense" torso (i.e. no
big chunks of empty space, like in God Magnus).  Undocumented feature: the
spring-loaded wing pieces can be locked back into position as elbow spines.

     Robot Mode: As many have commented already, there's a strong
"Evangelion" feel to this mode, mainly due to the gauntness and the shoulder
blades.  A little over 6" (16cm) tall at the head, that goes up to 7" (18cm)
if you include the shoulder blades.  The spark crystal is now on his chest,
and it looks like armor plate has been ripped open to expose the spark.  Long
(3"/8cm) spines extend from his hands and can either be placed forward in
attack position or folded back out of the way.
     Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles are all ball
joints, giving this toy great poseability.  However, the legs are a bit long
and spindly, so you may need to use nail polish to stiffen up the ball joints
in the legs to support some poses.  However, the various spines and blades
all over the arms can sometimes be used as extra supports.
     The rear arm spines formed from the spring-loaded wing membranes can be
used for weapon gimmicks in two ways.  One way, shown in the instructions, is
to use the rear spines to manipulate the arms muppet-style.  The other way,
an undocumented (or badly-documented) feature, involves letting the rear arm
spines spring forward and swing the arm in a vicious swipe.  Well, maybe not
vicious, more like moderately ill-tempered.  Still, a nice trick.

     Overall: They're FINALLY getting the hang of making Maximals lately, it
looks like.  First Snarl, now Skydive.  And it's as if the designers feel
ashamed that the relatively weak Terrorsaur design got used four times
(Terrorsaur, BotCon exclusive Fractyl, Lazorbeak, Hydrar) and have busted
their humps making good pteranodon toys since then.  This is a toy very much
worth picking up.


VEHICON: Blastcharge
Altmode: Six-Wheeler
Function: All-Terrain Combat Specialist
Motto: "Destruction is the highest form of art."

Ground-based Maximals literally have nowhere to hide from this fearsome
Vehicon.  Second only to Tankor in brute strength, Blastcharge doesn't bother
ferreting out hidden Maximals...he just destroys everything in his path until
Maximal components are sifted from the rubble.  His powerful off-road
abilities would seem out of place on the world-city of Cybertron, but when
Blastcharge enters an area, rubble enough to justify those abilities soon
follows.  He's equipped with 3 long range plasma ultrarockets, the
longest-ranged weapon availble to Cybertronian technology.  Sheer power and
drive make him an extremely effective weapon in Megatron's arsenal, but his
incredible stupidity in any realm but combat keeps him from seeking power as
other Generals do.  Blastcharge is often heard parroting Megatron's
"brilliant" sayings, yes.

STR 9.3  INT 2.2  SPD 5.2  END 8.5  RNK 4.6  COUR 7.9  FRP 9  SKL 8.5
     Avg 6.9

     Vehicle Mode: Blocky six-wheeled tank-like vehicle, mostly tan, grey and
red, with black wheels and gold-chrome front compartment.  5" (12cm) long
with wheels 1.5" (3.5cm) in diameter.  The spark is hidden behind the
radiator grille, which cannot be opened.  At first I thought it had no spark
at all, but then I noticed the blue-green flash inside the grille.  
     Unfortunately, the wheels don't roll very well.  Part of this is because
they're hard plastic (spending a weekend playing with the rubber-wheeled
Super Fire Convoy and God Magnus has spoiled me), but a lot of it is due to a
weird design choice on the rear wheels.  They have springs inside them to
push them outwards, generating friction and keeping the wheels from rotating
freely.  My guess is that this was done so that the wheels would stay more or
less put in robot mode, but there's ways they could have done that without
messing up vehicle performance.  Oh, and it helps the ground clearance if you
leave the arms straight in vehicle mode, rather than folded as shown in the
instructions and as the toy is packaged.
     There's three main gimmicks in vehicle mode.  One is the turret, which
turns when you move a wheel at the back of the vehicle.  It also raises and
lowers manually, giving Blastcharge full command of the sky and ground with
his rockets.  The launcher itself only actually fires the central missile.
The other two slots are just for storage, something I've seen on other toys.
Of course, since this means two less missiles to go flying off into the
corner or the heating grate by accident, I don't really mind.  Finally,
pressing a panel at the middle of the top of the vehicle causes the front
third (the chromed third) to shoot forward about a centimeter, revealing a
joint that lets the front part turn.  If only the wheels rolled better, you
could just push the toy and it'd go in circles.

     Transformation: There's a lot of steps that need to be done in the right
order, or parts get in each others' way.  I don't know if I'd quite call it
"advanced" like the package does, but it is satisfyingly complicated.
Helpful tip: if you don't want the launcher to stick out like very bizarre
breasts, pop off the head and flip the launcher back, then reattach the
head.  It is possible to transform the toy so that the turrent points
backwards without removing the head, but the vehicle's front bumper gets in
the way and forces Blastcharge to look down.  You can get a better looking
collar for this if, after putting the head back on, you turn it around to
face backwards, then pop it back out and put it in facing forwards.

     Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall at the head and pretty stocky, but nowhere
near as bad as the old Autorollers.  Not very poseable, however.  The legs
really only move at the hips (swivels) and the ankles (ditto).  The shoudlers
are ball joints, the elbows are hinges, and the head is on a swivel.  That's
basically it.  Oddly, due to the way some fenders close together during
transformation, Blastcharge has, um, a fly.  A bomb bay, of sorts.

     Wheeled Robot Mode: Not simply a matter of leaving the legs
untransformed, this puts them into a different position than when in vehicle
mode.  

     Other Fun: Another way to look at the missile rack on Blastcharge's
chest is to think of it as a variant head.  Just fold away the regular head
and suddenly you have a hunchbacked missile drone.
     Also, by folding down the backpack/front chassis, you can generate a
variety of four-wheeled "centaur" modes.  These centaur modes also leave the
turret-turning wheel exposed, and you can turn BC's head without turning the
turret when his torso is in robot mode.  You can also just fold down the
backpack in robot mode and put the wheels back in vehicle configuration on
the chrome piece, giving Blastcharge a fast robot mode with feet as skids and
a pair of wheels propelling him along.  And you can do the backwards turret
trick without popping the head off when you centaur him.
     Anyway.  He's no Scavenger, but there's a fair amount of flexibility.
     [Later note: http://www.dvandom.com/images/blastchargejet.GIF is a sort
of aircraft mode.]

     Overall: This toy feels like a Mega design that someone realized wasn't
worth $15, so they trimmed a few things and got it under Deluxe budget.  It
has Mega-level gimmicking, plus iffy poseability and transformational
weirdness.  But it is a solid value as a Deluxe.


VEHICON: Sonic Attack Jet
Altmode: Aerial Drone
Function: Aerial Combat [or cannon fodder, to be honest]
Motto: None.  They never talk.

Controlled by the vehicon Aerial General, Jetstorm, or by Megatron himself,
the Vehicon Sonic Attack Jet is a mindless automaton that relies on sheer
numbers to overpower Maximal forces.  Sonic Attack Jets attack with
overwhelming speed and volume of fire, strafing their enemy with lethal
scatter bombs and plasma lasers...which usually end up being reflected back
at their firers.  Equipped with an automatic evacuation command, the nearest
Aerodrones rescue Jetstorm when he is disabled in battle.  Otherwise, they
lack any volition and are harmless without Jetstorm's or Megatron's
leadership. 

STR 7.7  INT 2.5  SPD 8.8  END 7  RNK 2  COUR 6.5  FRP 6.9  SKL 7  Avg 6.1

     See my review of Jetstorm at www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BMac/BMDelux1 for
details about this mold, which is very nifty.  I initially planned to pass on
this "plain" recolor of Jetstorm, until I actually saw it in the store.  It
looks a LOT better in person than in any pictures (and please, no wiseacres
asking me to take a picture of it).  Two shades of medium blue with metal
flakes for a slight metallic look, metallic green/blue paint accents, grey
and silver body parts and a few accents of yellow and red make this a very
good looking repaint.  It has an orange spark.  The red strip on its helmet
initially seems incongruous, but it matches up with the two red missiles on
the arms, accentuating the impression that the hover mode is a flying
trident. 
     Unfortunately, SAJ shares one flaw with Jetstorm as well.  The way he's
packaged causes one of the "ears" to be permanently bent down a bit.

     Dave Van Domelen, giving the designers a cookie for Skydive....