Dave's Universe Classics Rant: Ultra Wave 1 Powerglide Onslaught Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/UUltra1 I've decided to "file" Universe Classics under Classics for now, any Universe recolors under the old Universe directory, and if the Universe line spreads further I'll decide where to go from there. :) I'm amused that they seem to be really trying hard to push the Onslaught character now, given that he also gets a Legends figure (recolor of Cybertron Defense Red Alert). CAPSULES Powerglide: Okay vehicle mode, good transformation, decent robot mode, stability issues in both modes. On the low side of Recommended. $24.99 at Target. Onslaught: Good, solid vehicle mode with a few minor flaws, decent transformation, very good robot mode. Strongly recommended. $24.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same basic shape as the Voyager boxes, but bigger. 12" (31cm) across, 10" (25cm) tall, 4.5" (11.5cm) deep. The trapezoidal indent is 2cm deep, short vertical side 4.25" (11cm) long and the tall vertical side 5.25" (13.5cm) long. The triangular truncation in the upper right takes 2" (5cm) off top and side. Both characters have faceplates, so no zombie face syndrome on the art. The bottom front advertises "Electronic Lights and Sounds" in the corroded metal part (where the Voyagers talked about Mini-Cons), and the shiny plate in the lower right says "ULTRA CLASS". There's a Try Me hole in the front window to let you try out the sound and light feature. The left side co-sell is for the other Ultra, the bottom has co-sells for the first wave Deluxes (Sunstreaker, Prowl, Tankor). Instructions (two-sided, with the back side covering attack modes and electronics) are loose inside the box, no catalog. As in previous Classics 2.0, I make up the function and motto, since they're not present on the package. AUTOBOT: POWERGLIDE Altmode: Fighter Jet (so says the box, but see review body) Function: Air Defense Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: None Call-Outs: "Launching Thermal Beam Projectile!" "Electronic Lights and Conversion Sounds!" "Jet Combat Sounds!" Motto: "You'll never catch me, but you're welcome to run away!" Not as fast or powerful as the DECEPTICON fliers, POWERGLIDE relies instead on his raw skill as a combat pilot. Where his enemies rely on afterburners and advanced weapon systems, he executes loops, flat spins, and other aerial maneuvers that make even the craziest and most foolhardy DECEPTICONS backfire out of fear. In a sky full of bad guys, you can always easily spot POWERGLIDE twisting and diving through enemy fire, dodging missiles, and generally outclassing even the best among the DECEPTICON air warriors. STR 3 INT 7 SPD 8 END 7 RNK 5 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 9 Avg 6.625 Packaging: Five twist-ties all the way through the cardboard tray hold the vehicle to the raised blister. The missile is twist-tied to the blister itself, requiring some cutting to get out, or at least creative prying. Vehicle Mode: 9.5" (24cm) long, wingspan of 9.25" (23.5cm). As with most other Classics, it's based on a real vehicle, but with enough changes to avoid lawsuits. In this case, it's an A-10 Thunderbolt, the same vehicle that G1 Powerglide turned into (although they really downplayed the fact back then). And because they're striving for realism here, they went with a mostly light gray color scheme that's actually like one used in real life, rather than the solid red scheme of G1. The Japanese release will be available in all red, though. Trademark-skirting changes include a more snubby nose, mounting the main gun fully outside the nose (although that's as much to make it easily removable as anything else), the engines being mounted a little farther forward, and different angles on the ailerons. (You can see the real thing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-10_Thunderbolt.) Oh, and the A-10 is not a fighter jet. It's an attack jet. Fighters are made to go up against other planes, attack jets are tasked to ground assault. The toy is almost entirely made of very light warm gray plastic. The cockpit and the thruster vents at the back of the jet engines are a clear orange-amber plastic. The landing struts and missile are black plastic. The main intake turbines and some underbody bits are made of a silvery light gray plastic. There's plenty of molded panel lines and rivet dots. The main paint color used is bright red: leading and outer edges of the wings, front end of whatever the forearms are supposed to be, front edges of some unnecessary air intakes flanking the cockpit (the engines are out on struts, they need no integrated intakes!), the outer faces of the ailerons, the trailing edges of the engines, and wing symbols that evoke winged Autobot symbols without being Autobot symbols. Slightly metallic medium gray paint is used on the cockpit borders, some fuselage-side details and the leading edges of the jet engines. A more orangey red paint is used on the sound and light button that's located at the very center of the top side of the plane. Black printed numbers and letters are all over the plane, and may have some in-joke meanings: 9G on the wing symbols, JJM 7128 on either side of the fuselage just behind the cockpit, B-12129 on each engine housing, M-10 over a big 51 on each aileron. Like the real A-10's GAU-8 cannon, Powerglide's gun is a seven-barrelled rotary cannon mounted off the centerline. However, the GAU-8 is mounted so that the firing barrel is on the centerline, and Powerglide's gun is a bit too far to the side to allow this. If you swing Powerglide's gun around 180 degrees, it becomes a missile launcher (and it can be a bit tricky to keep it loaded when in seven-barrel mode, as the missile gets tangled in the undercarriage junk). There's a famous picture of the GAU-8 out there that shows it dwarfing a VW Beetle. The robot arms are disguised as weird underwing mounts. The forearms look kinda like jet intakes at the front, but not at the back. The shoulders might be intended as chemical lasers or something, they have nozzles at the front and tubing details molded on them. Pressing the red button at the middle of the plane cycles through three sound effects, which emanate from a speaker just behind the button. First is a "firing up the engines" sound accompanied by three flashes of the red LEDs located in the cockpit, engines and tail (although the last one is meant to not be visible in this mode). Second is a "swooshing past overhead" sound with three LED flashes. Finally, there's a rotary cannon sound that will last as long as you hold the button down, accompanied by rapid flashing. If you just press it and let go, you get 12 shots (I think, they're pretty rapid) and an equal number of LED flashes. There's landing gear that swings down, but the connection between the wings and the fuselage is a bit loose, so the plane tends to sag down in the middle when resting on its landing gear. The tail section is also somewhat loose, not being pegged down. However, the fuselage itself is held together pretty solidly, so you can pick the toy up without it falling apart. The engines are the battery compartments (one battery per engine), so they don't rotate or anything, being fixed to the soundbox. Transformation: True to G1 Powerglide, the wings fold up into shoulderpads and the underwing stuff becomes arms, but the similarities pretty much end there. Most of the top of the fuselage and tail becomes either the upper torso or gets shoved out into a backpack, covering up the sound and light button (but it's easy to push it down a little too hard and get a never-ending rotary cannon sound). The bottom of the fuselage front splits into legs. Generally a fairly easy transformation, although getting the wings to snap into place on the torso is somewhat frustrating, and they don't stay very well. It's also a little tricky getting the abdomen together the first time, but it's fairly obvious once you've done it once. There's a button just behind where the legs hinge down that controls the transforming sound effect. When pressed in, you get the forward G1 transforming sound, when released you get the reverse sound. This can be pressed in vehicle mode, too. When transforming back to airplane mode, make sure to line up the forearms so that the [-shaped holes line up with similarly shaped pegs on the wing roots. Robot Mode: 8.5" (21.5cm) tall, bigger than most Leader Class toys anymore! The proportions are a bit off, though. The engines give him a huge bulky torso reminiscent of the Sky Guardian from Exo-Force, but he has a really narrow waist and hips. Feels kinda pinched at the middle. The head is molded in a clear homage of the original Minibot head, down to a detail that evokes the old screw hole in G1 Powerglide's forehead, and an antenna on the left side of the head to look like how the gun barrel ended up off-center on the original's head. If you lift up the center chest piece, you'll see a heart molded underneath, in reference to the G1 cartoon episode, "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide". It's unpainted, but that's easily fixed. :) [Later note: to wit, http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/pgheart.JPG] The head is made of clear orange-amber plastic, and the clear bits of the engines are now facing forward as his pecs. Cravat and upper arms are made of black plastic. The three silvery gray bits of plastic from the underside of the fuselage join together in this mode as the center chest, abdomen and pelvis. Also made of silver gray plastic are the lower thighs. Upper thighs, feet, fists and pretty much all other parts are light warm gray plastic. The helmet is painted bright red with medium metallic gray on the forehead detail and the vents by the cheeks. The faceplate is painted silver. A red and white Autobot symbol is printed on the center chest. There's no other new paint in this mode, although some of the red edgings make more sense now (as the "cuffs" on forearms and boots), and the strange bits of gray on the fuselage flanks are now kneepad details. His head turns and can move forward and back on a transformation joint. The waist turns smoothly. The shoulders are universal joints that ratchet on the swivel but are smooth on the hinge part. There's smooth swivels right above each ratcheting elbow. The wrists do not turn. The hips are universal joints that ratchet in both dimensions, there's smooth mid-thigh swivels (that are the main issue for stable standing in odd poses), ratchet hinge knees and smooth hinge ankles. In this mode, the sound and light button only causes the rotary cannon sound, which works as it does in vehicle mode, except that the LEDs flash two more times after the shooting sounds stop. The eyes light up red in addition to the thruster rears and the backpacked cockpit. The gunpod can be held either rotary barrels forward or missile forward, but it's a little harder to point if in rotary cannon mode if the missile is loaded. There's no ddicated storage for the missile if it's not loaded, and it's too thick to be held in the hand as a club. Overall: A good design, but joint tightness hurts the jet mode, and pegging weakness on the shoulders hurts the robot mode. Plus, of course, the "it's not G1 Powerglide" color scheme will matter to some. Still, for relaunching a size class that hadn't seen action since Cybertron, it's pretty good, and compares favorably to most Cybertron Ultras. It's mainly hurt by comparison to Onslaught. DECEPTICON: ONSLAUGHT Altmode: Assault Vehicle Function: Strategist Previous Name Use: G1, G2 Previous Mold Use: None Call-Outs: "Electronic Lights and Sounds!" "Shield attaches to arm!" "Engine and Blaster Sounds!" Motto: "No plan survives contact with the enemy. No enemy survives contact with me, however." If ONSLAUGHT enters into direct combat, it's only because something has gone wrong with his battle plan. He prefers to remain on the sidelines of a fight, directing the action and revising his tactics second by second. Nothing gives him joy as much as a well-executed ambush, or the swift, organized destruction of an AUTOBOT base. When he must get involved in a fight himself, he does so with cold fury, advancing meticulously across the battlefield with his fire focused on the most dangerous opponent. Every variable in a fight is taken into account in his mind, every possibility assessed, and every contingency planned for. STR 8 INT 8 SPD 3 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 8 FRB 8 SKL 9 Avg 7.25 Packaging: Three twist-ties hold the vehicle mode to the blister, with a secondary shell over the vehicle to try to keep the cannon barrels in place. Despite this, a lot of people have found the barrels popped off in-package, much like Leader Brawl's from the movie line. A rubber band holds the right barrel to the upper shell, and one of the ties holds down the left barrel, so even if the pop out, they're not going to rattle around. The riot shield is held to the blister by one twist-tie. All ties go through to the back, so no need to mess with the blister tray. Another rubber band keeps his brushcutter bits up. The photo on the back is not quite transformed correctly, the armor buttflap is meant to fold up a bit more than shown on the box. Both the package photo and the instructions show the knee armor flipped way out, but it can actually be pressed flat into the line of the boots. Vehicle Mode: Billed as a SWAT APC, but it's really a full-on military APC with turret and mine-clearing teeth (like movie Brawl's) that just happens to have SWAT stenciled on the side and a police lightbar stuf on top. I've done a fair amount of searching online and can't find an APC model that matches it closely (even leaving off the turret), the front end is a lot sharper-nosed than most APCs, it's almost an amphibious craft in appearance. The undeployed mine-clearing teeth swung up against the bottom of the prow give it a somewhat bulldog-like appearance, though, appropriate to a police vehicle. 7.25" (18.5cm) long, 4" (10cm) wide, 3.5" (9cm) tall. The turret is roughly 2.5" (6cm) square, with two thin 2.25" (5.5cm) long gun barrels sticking out the front. The gun barrels may be warped a bit, especially near the tips where the rubber band or twist-tie grabs it. Running very hot water over the barrel seems to straighten them out a little, but not all the way. It runs on six tires 1.5" (3.5cm) in diameter. A riot shield 3.5" (9cm) tall and 2.5" (6cm) wide can be attached on top of the turret. Most of the toy is made out of a slate gray plastic with slight metalflake inclusions. The wheels are black plastic, the mine-sifter claws are rigid silvery gray plastic, the gun barrels are soft light gray plastic (lighter than the claws) and tend to be a little warped (mind don't fall out easily, at least). Clear amber plastic is used for the lightbar, openings on the tops of the turret, the front windows, the headlights, the turret searchlight and the taillight. I don't know what color plastic is used on the light and sound button, as it's completely painted over. A silvered surface (mylar?) is inside the turret to reflect the LED lights up through the amber windows. A metallic yellow-green paint is used on several armor plates around the vehicle and on the louvres over the speaker in the turret. Silver paint is found around the molded winch at the front, the space between the stowed sifter claws and on a bit of diamondplate behind the turret. The winch line is painted black, but there's no black paint on the vision slits of the molded side doors. A bright orange-red paint covers the sound and light button and a pair of tail lights. White printing on the side doors says S.W.A.T., and on the front side plates says MONZO over 12782. This is a reference to the Transformers fan who goes by the handle Monzo, who was born on December 7, 1982 (whippersnapper!). The sifter claws are hinged to fold down, which the instructions list as an attack feature. The turret can turn 90 degrees to either side, but wiring leading into the main body means it can't turn freely. The hatch over the main driver's compartment can be opened up, and you can stick a Lego minifigure or something of comparable size in as a commander. The rear gate opens for transformation, but is not meant to do so as a vehicle mode feature. The wheels spin, five of them freely. One triggers a sound gimmick, so is not free-spinning. The middle pair of wheels has rubberized strips along the edge to get more traction, although only one of them needs it. The shield has a hole to accomodate the lightbar and louvres over the turret's amber windows, so all the lights can shine through it. The louvres are painted metallic yellow-green, and a big S.W.A.T. is printed in white at the bottom. There's a hinged bit at the top that lets you push the light and sound button even when the shield is on the turret. A single little clip holds the shield in place, and not very well. The slot that holds the shield tab is actually a little too tight, and tries to squirt the tab back out. Scraping a tiny bit away from the clip sides seems to help a little Pressing the turret button alternates between two effects. The first is a single whoop of a police siren, with red LEDs inside the lightbar flashing once. Holding the button down does NOT keep this sound going, which strikes me as an accidental bug. It's not just mine, it seems to be common to all sampels of the toy. The other effect triggers the side LEDs to flash rapidly along with a machinegun sound...I think the lights are meant to be evoking cartridge ejection or something. The LED flashes a couple times after the shooting stops, and just tapping the button gives one to three shots followed by a faint echoing sound. This one *will* continue as long as you hold the button down. Some have reported an ozone or burning smell coming from the speaker after extended firing, but mine doesn't seem to do that. [Later note: David Lau tells me that the Japanese release of the toy has a properly working siren that will keep keening as long as you hold the button down.] Rolling the toy forward or backwards far enough triggers a sound (but no light) that is either supposed to be the engine roaring, or crashing through a barrier. Hard to tell. There's a series of cams inside the panel holding the wheels on the left side that presses a button on the robot's hip that triggers the sound, that way they don't need to run wires all the way into the wheels themselves. :) [Later note: if you can roll the toy fast enough, the engine noise will keep going. But it has to be pretty fast...trying it in robot mode I had to really crank on the button as fast as it'd snap back into place.] Once you have all the panels in the right place (not always easy when transforming back from robot mode), it's pretty stable. Transformation: The vehicle sides pop apart and fold into legs, with the front pair of wheels folding inside the boots and the armor panels above those wheels folding up rather cleverly into toes. The front sides become shoulderpads, with the arms being tucked under the middle of the vehicle. The rest of the front end folds to become the chest and abdomen. From there it's just a matter of getting a few panels folded up. Going to robot mode is quite easy. Going back to vehicle mode, on the other hand, can be a bit frustrating, as all the panels need to go back in just the right places. There is no transformation sound effect. Robot Mode: 8" (20.5cm) tall at the head, 8.5" (22cm) at the tops of the shoulderpads, 9.25" (23.5cm) at the tops of the back cannons. While shorter than Powerglide, his proportions are MUCH better and give a sense of size and power that the other Ultra lacks. The head is molded to be reminscent of G1 Onslaught's (but rounder and with something of a Master Chief feel to it), and the back cannons further help the image. The shoulderpads already stand out pretty strongly, and being painted silver strengthens the effect when I think he'd be better served by muting it. The head and upper thighs are black plastic, as is the right forearm cannon. The fists, knees, boot-instep wheel cages and hip joints are silvery light gray plastic. The shoulderpads are actually all slate gray plastic, but with a load of silver paint. Interestingly, a winch is molded onto the belt buckle location, perhaps for a faux-transform look. The visor is amber clear plastic. The sides of the faceplate are painted silver, as is most of the shoulder area. There's a dark blue paint on the forearms and lower pelvis, and next to that the gray plastic looks more greenish. A violet Decepticon symbol is printed on the left shoulder. Bright red paint is on the "belt" parts of the pelvis and on a small forehead dot. The molded winch line is painted black. Onslaught's head turns, the waist does not. The shoulders are universal joints, with the swivel being soft-ratcheting and the lift-to-side hinges being smooth. Smooth upper arm swivels, smooth elbow hinges, smooth wrist swivels (plus a transformation hinge for the fists). Hips are universal joints that ratchet both ways, there's smooth mid-thigh swivels and ratcheting hinge knees. The toes are on hinges, but the hinges are loose enough not to offer support. A rectangular peg folds out of the left forearm, and between that and a clip further down the forearm, the riot shield holds on very firmly. He can't really hold the shield the way a cop normally holds a riot shield, though. Nor is it nearly big enough to work as a riot shield for him. :) Pushing a button on the right forearm lets a black blaster barrel flip out. Sound and light are identical in this mode. A red LED inside the head glows steadily during the duration of each sound. The rolling sound gimmick trigger is on the left side of the pelvis front, and can be easily triggered if you want him to have "stomping on hapless Autobots" sound effects. The turret button will override the stompy button. Combiner: No, it's not designed to be a combiner. I fully expect to see at least one kitbash before the end of the year, though. I can see how the toes could unfold and become kneecaps for leg units (and there's some gaps on the soles of the feet where a leg unit could be pegged in). Arm connections would be a bit trickier, though. Overall: Not perfect, but very good. And if you intend to leave it in robot mode, most of those problems go away. One of the best Ultras in years, and not hampered by the kinds of gimmicks that hurt a lot of older toys in this size class (i.e. it doesn't have to combine with anyone). Dave Van Domelen, not watching the Olympics.