Dave's RotF Rant: Deluxe Wave 1 Bumblebee (2010 Camaro, retool, 89099) Sideways (unlicensed sports car, 89158) Sideswipe (Corvette StingRay concept, 89159) Rampage (bulldozer, 89160) Breakaway (unlicensed fighter jet, 89161) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Deluxe1 Bumblebee came out in the preview wave, and is reviewed there: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Deluxe0 http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=59047 - this is a thread devoted to fixes to various RotF deluxes. At the time I type this, it has a fix for Breakaway that requires tool use, a simple fix for Sideswipe, and a no-tools-required fix for the spring action of Rampage's legs. [Later note: according to the catalog that comes with wave 2, Sideswipe's official function is Warrior.] CAPSULES Sideways: Good not-quite-an-Audi vehicle mode, decent but shellformery transformation, interesting looking robot mode. Recommended. $11.88 at Walmart. Sideswipe: Looks very good in both modes, but the robot mode is rather unstable and the transformation is finicky. Mildly recommended. $11.88 at Walmart. Rampage: Such lofty ambitions, such disappointing execution. I doubt this idea could really be done on anything less than a Voyager budget, and even then it'd have to be Deluxe sized. Not helped by iffy tolerances on tabs and joints, either. Avoid. $11.88 at Walmart. Breakaway: Solid jet mode with reasonable amounts of undercarriage junk, decent transformation, somewhat weird but solid robot mode with solid if unspectacular gimmicks. Definitely the best toy of the wave in terms of "something for a kid to play with". Recommended. $11.88 at Walmart. RANTS Packaging: Same as the preview wave, including the fact each only has one co-sell. All four have the Mech Alive logo on the back with an arrow pointing to the new gimmick. Or what the graphic designer thought was the Mech Alive gimmick...it's not always correct. Mech Alive: Instead of Automorphing, this time the gimmick is Mech Alive, in which you move some piece of the toy and other bits move, often gears or other internal stuff. As with Automorph, the larger the toy the more elaborate one can expect the MA to be. As with the Scouts, there's no official functions or mottos, so I'm making my own. There's also no catalog in with the instructions. DECEPTICON: SIDEWAYS Altmode: Sportscar Licensor: None Previous Name Use: RiD, Armada, Cybertron Previous Mold Use: None Mech Alive: Spinning "Saw" Blade (actually, not) Function: Courier Motto: "Hey, I was never here." Back on CYBERTRON, SIDEWAYS was a simple courier who avoided combat at all costs. He tried to always remain in the shadow of larger DECEPTICONS, where the AUTOBOTS might not notice him. On Earth, he's keeping much the same practice. He teamed up with DEMOLISHOR early on, and hopes that if the AUTOBOTS find them, the big CONSTRUCTICON can keep him safe. STR 4 INT 7 SPD 7 END 5 RNK 3 COUR 4 FRB 3 SKL 4 Avg 4.625 He appears in the movie, but doesn't have a licensor. So either they modded the car enough to generify it, or the license deal didn't cover the toys. It looks to be an Audi R8 with modifications, and Audi may share the "no war toys" outlook of Volkswagen. Interestingly, no two Sideways toys seem to share a deco. The Robot Heroes toy is all black, this one is almost all silver (in car mode), and the FAB version is black down the middle of the hood. Cosell: Sideswipe Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: As already mentioned, this is almost an Audi R8, but with no trademarked details. In fact, looking at the gap under the headlights, I strongly suspect there was supposed to be a chunk of distinctive grillework under the lights (see http://wikicars.org/en/Image:R82.jpg) was simply removed and not replaced. The section has an unfinished look, an obvious missing piece rather than something planned from the start. This suggests that the lawyers thought that even with tweaks (different side mirrors, vents behind the doors shrunken and moved back a bit, gas cap removed, six-petal hubcaps rather than five-petal) it was too close to the real thing, and they just yanked a couple pieces rather than retool the front end. 5.25" (13.5cm) long, pretty much the typical Deluxe car size and scale. It's mostly a gunmetal metallic color with pinkish-red windows. One clever detail is that the rear-mounted engine is molded in negative relief on the rear window. There's no physical engine piece there...in fact, there's a big gap in the underside at the back. Customizers might want to paint the inside of that window silver or some other colors to further bring out the details. Pretty much all the visible plastic in this mode is black or clear, and from the fact that the headlights are clear colorless I'm guessing that the pink is actually a clear paint on the windows. The taillights are painted clear bright red. A gunmetal paint is used on most of the body shell, with a black gloss stripe along the bottom of the doors and then angled up at the rear fender scoops. I'm pretty sure it's black paint over gunmetal paint over black plastic, since the black stripes are shinier than the unpainted black plastic. The wheel hubs and the area behind the headlights are painted silver, and a black Decepticon symbol is printed on the back of the trunk (rear-facing, not up-facing side). Because no attempt is made to match opaque plastic to paint-over-clear-plastic, it's all nicely unified save for the unavoidable seams. There's essentially no ground clearance, and there's just enough sag in some of the robot bits that even if you get things transformed back exactly right, it'll drag an elbow or something and prevent free rolling. No action features in this mode, the doors and rear hatch only open for transformation. I suppose you can use the automorph for "up on blocks with stolen front tires" action. It's worth noting that some versions of this toy have a wide black stripe on the hood (FAB) or are entirely black (Robot Heroes). He doesn't really appear long enough in the movie (from what I hear) to really be sure which color scheme is 100% correct, if any. The official computer model online has that "shiny black" look that could be interpreted as black, silver or gunmetal. Transformation: The first step is to punch him innaface. Er, push in the middle of the grille. The pieces interlace like fingers, so in theory you should press in the exact middle to get things to trigger, but some people have reported needing to press off-center, possibly due to the fact that most people don't have conical fingertips. :) If you press in just a little, the belly panel will flip down first, and you can see the mechanisms that will also trigger the collapse of the front wheels into the chest. Then lift the trunk and pull back a bit to unpeg the doors from the rear fenders. At this point, it all kinda BLOOORGS out into a pile of robot parts that you need to rearrange into a robot. While there's an official way to reassemble things, there's a few choices you can make to increase articulation at the expense of stability, such as not pegging the wheel panels to the insides of the calves, instead leaving them outside. The roof chunk looks like it's actually supposed to peg onto some bits on the back (lower than the instructions show), but it's hard to get it to hold together that way, and the slots can also rest on the back of the hood piece (just not locking in place), but only you can choose to leave the chest closed up and more non-Bayformery. The slots would go around the little wing pieces that otherwise flip up around the collar. Note, if you don't lock up the joints in his lower legs by pegging things together, the figure pretty much has to stand on its toes and nothing else. Pegging things together according to the instructions lets the wheels become heels, which is a lot more stable than it looks initially. Robot Mode: I can definitely see them redecoing this in purple and gold and calling it Kickback. :) There's a strong grasshopper vibe here, from the digitgrade legs to the side windows sticking up like insect wings. There's also quite a bit here to suggest that the design may have started as a reformatted Barricade, such as the sawblade on one arm. At the head, Sideways is 5.5" (14cm) tall, but adding in the winglets on his shoulders raises the total to 7.5" (19cm). The gunmetal dominating the vehicle mode is largely folded up in the backpack, and black is the new main color, with red abdomen and some other bits. There's a fake regular wheel on the back of his left hand, and a buzzsaw bladed one on the back of his right hand, both spinning freely. Despite all the gunmetal in the vehicle mode being paint, there is some gunmetal plastic on the toy. The hips (both parts of the hip joint), the tarsal bits on the feet, some struts inside the torso, several gears inside the upper arms and the bits that hold the shoulders and the hood side pieces. The calves and much of the torso are made of bright red plastic. Other than the Mech Alive gears, the arms are all black plastic, as is the head. The thighs, shin plates, toes and vehicle panels on the legs are also black plastic. The lightpiping is clear colorless, but since the windshield sticks up behind the head, the eyes will tend to glow pinkish-red anyway. There's silver lines on the face, plus silver on the hubcap of the fake left hand wheel and on the left claw, but no paint on the saw or the right hand. The sides of the collar piece are painted gunmetal. Otherwise, he relies on the vehicle mode paint, but could probably stand to have some paint on his abdomen to break up the red. There's no robot mode specific Decepticon symbol on him, only the car one that ends up on his backpack. His head is on a very restricted ball joint, mainly just able to wobble up and down a bit in addition to turning. The waist turns smoothly and will go 90 degrees either way but won't go all the way around without forcing. The shoulders are ball joints on the ends of hinged struts. There's a swivel on the upper arm, hinge elbows, and the wheel/saw on the hands spin. Ball joint hips with swivels right below the socket. The knees are hinged, and you get an extra hinge if you leave things unplugged on the lower legs The toes are on ball joints, but even if your joints are stiff enough, the toes are too small to stand on with any real stability. The package calls the sawblade the Mech Alive function, but it just spins freely. The real Mech Alive for this toy is a bunch of gears in the upper arm. When you bend the elbow, the gears (visible through gaps in the arm) turn. Also, you can turn one of the external cams and get the arm to bend and straighten. Overall: Well, he's a wheel-foot, but designed in such a way as to be stable. Some of the proportions look a bit weird, especially if he's standing next to Sideswipe, but it's generally a decent robot mode. He has most of the usual panelmaster issues, but not too badly. For a character who barely appears in the movie, he does pretty well for himself in the toy. AUTOBOT: SIDESWIPE Altmode: Corvette StingRay concept Licensor: GM Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Alternators, Armada, Universe2 Previous Mold Use: None Mech Alive: Shifting battle armor Function: Close Combat Specialist [Warrior] Motto: "I suppose I COULD shoot him, but where's the challenge in that?" SIDESWIPE was built to fight. He is sleek, fast, and single-minded in battle, focusing on his enemy with absolute attention. His blades are a shining blur as he leaps through the air, twisting to avoid enemy fire. Converting from vehicle to robot at blinding speed, he uses every trick in the book to get close to his opponent, and put his powerful swords to work. STR 8 INT 7 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 3 SKL 9 Avg 6.625 The packaging photo is rather more photoshopped-up than usual, making dull gray parts look like they're highly polished metal. Cosell: Rampage Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: Okay, so a Corvette StingRay would be more appopriate for Tracks than Sideswipe, but given how so many of the names in this movie seem to have been drawn out of a hat by lawyers, at least Sideswipe's still some sort of sportscar. And unlike a lot of reused names, Sideswipe has always been a sportscar of some sort. Here's the WikiCars entry on the StingRay concept: http://wikicars.org/en/Chevrolet_Corvette_Stingray_Concept (as of mid-June 2009, it's pretty much just one picture and a template, total stub). 5.5" (14cm) long, shiny silver with medium blue windows. And like Sideways, the silver is all paint...well, except for the rubbery plastic side view mirrors, which seem to be silvery plastic. But most of the body shell is actually dark gray plastic, the rest is clear plastic with clear blue paint (two tiny bits near the rear wheels are light gray instead). The tires are black plastic, the tailpipes are light gray plastic. The headlights and taillights are also clear plastic, with the headlights unpainted and the taillights painted clear red. The hubcaps and pretty much every other non-clear part of the car are painted silver, although the tailpipes are left unpainted. There's a molded license plate area, but no paint or printing on it. And like the Legends version, some black paint in the front grille would have been nice. No Autobot symbol visible in this mode, although there's an unpainted Corvette symbol molded on the hood. Another one suffering from no clearance. Even right out of the package it has bits dragging on the table, so it's not a case of mistransformation on my part. And like Sideways, none of the bits open up in a vehicle mode fashion, just transformation joints. Transformation: Not as simple as unfolding Sideways, there's a lot more interlocking panel stuff here. If you pull the sides out a bit that loosens things, then pull the driver's side of the front end up (the tab that holds the front halves together can be pulled straight apart with Excessive Force, but is better slid vertically). The hood shell pieces pull away on struts, this is a very shellformery figure. The guts of the front end become legs, while the arms are tucked under the rear section, and kinda tricky to get out. The hands require strong nails or a pry tool to get out unless yours is a lot looser than mine was. The hood shells end up on big struts and you have to refer to instructions or package photos to figure out where they go, since there's no obvious or natural position. The official mode is pretty compact, though. One cute little bit of sorta-automorph has his tailpipes rise up when the piece hooks over his back. Mine does not have the chest clipping problem that some have reported, and that is part of the fixes thread linked at the top. One fix of my own, however, is to leave the toes pointed out rather than folding them as in the instructions, it seems to help stability a bit. Robot Mode: Another wheels for feet, digitigrade legs and "fold all the vehicle shell into a backpack" toy like Sideways, but the proportions are a bit closer to human and he has big stabby blades on his forearms. At the head, a mere 5" (12cm) tall, but he goes up to 6.25" (16cm) if you count his backpack kibble. His forearm blades are 2" (5cm) long, 3" (7.5cm) if you count the wheel at the base. He's all shades of gray, black and silver with a few blue accents, lacking the bright colors that break up Sideways's design. In addition to the vehicle shell bits, several robot-only pieces are dark gray plastic: upper arms, lower legs and shoulder struts. The ankle sections around the wheels are black plastic, as are the relaxed open hands, the elbow joints, the collar area and a bit in the abdomen. Forearms, thighs, toes, head and abdomen are light gray plastic. There's clear plastic on the lightpiping and some armor panels in the thighs, and rubbery dark gray piston connectors around the crotch. The ball joints of the hips are unpainted clear plastic, which is a bit worrisome given that clear plastic has a tendency to get britter faster with age than opaque. The clear plastic on the lightpiping and the thigh armor is painted clear blue, but I think they laid it on the thigh pieces a bit thick. Much of the head is silver, and a silver Autobot symbol is printed on his chest. That's pretty much it for robot-specific paint. His head turns, but the waist does now. The shoulders are ball joints on the end of hinged struts, but between the car rear fenders getting in the way and the fact that the ball joint's socket is in the middle of the upper arm, there's not a whole lot of useful range there. The elbows are double hinges and the wrists bend inward on transformation hinges. The hips are ball joints, and the rubbery connections are on sliders so they don't hinder movement. Hinge knees, not much articulation below that, although you can swing the toes sideways on their transformation hinges. The main Mech Alive gimmick is that when you bend the knees, a strut connecting the calf to the thigh pushes in and makes the clear armor panel push down. Also, the blade halves are geared to swing forward together, although I find I generally have to move both at once anyway or the arm will just bend around to follow. You can pose the blade halves to look like a forearm bow weapon. Do NOT push the clear thigh armor pieces in, the can get stuck and block the knee from bending! Overall: A lot of the toys in this line are topheavy with tiny feet, but Sideswipe is pretty bad even by those standards. I'm tempted to get some Gundam figure stands and mod them to accomodate these. While Sideswipe looks good in both modes, he's a bit more hassle than I'd like. [Later clarification: to me, lacking a robot mode that can stand without external support is a major design flaw. They should've done like with Chromia, and included a stand.] DECEPTICON: RAMPAGE Altmode: Bulldozer Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, BW Previous Mold Use: None Mech Alive: Moving jackhammer pistons Function: Blunt Instrument Motto: "Maybe I will be gentle and only crush your head." The stink of diesel fumes and hot tar follows RAMPAGE wherever he goes. His treads are packed with metal shards stripped from his victims, and the countless scratches covering his chassis are testament to hundreds of brutal battles. He lives to pound his enemies into submission, and thinks of little else. His idea of beauty is the sight of sun [sic] glinting off the raw edges of shredded AUTOBOT armor. STR 9 INT 3 SPD 4 END 9 RNK 2 COUR 8 FRB 4 SKL 4 Avg 5.375 [Later note: the back of the package lists vehicle mode, jackhammer mode and attack mode. No actual "robot mode". And, apparently, jackhammer mode is all he uses in the movie.] Cosell: Breakaway Twist-ties: 4, 2 of which help hold down a secondary blister shell. Vehicle Mode: Suspsy identifies this as a Caterpillar D11 model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar_D11) and that's close enough for me (although the treads are clearly different...chalk it up to avoiding needing the license). The D11 has the "rippers" at the back that Rampage sports, a mysterious bit of equippage I first recall seeing on a Transformer with Beast Machines Scavenger. Impact rippers are used to break up pavement, rocks, etc, before using the blade to shove the rubble away. Unfortunately, there's a lot of elements about this vehicle mode where the actual production seems incapable of living up to the promise of the design engineering. I can see where the hrydraulic pistons are supposed to connet to the back of the blade, but they just fall away (although there's a few other places you can stick it that are a little better). An extra screw added to the pelvis chunk wasn't compensated for and the back panel of the cab area can't fold down all the way because the screw bit gets in the way. At least the panel hooks over the screw chunk, so while it's several degrees out of true it's at least stable, unlike the pistons. There's a few connectors here and there made of black or gunmetal plastic, and the non-rolling treads are black rubbery plastic, but otherwise it's a sort of icky yellow "Caterpillar Inc." color. The cab is either made of yellow plastic with clear red window pieces inside, or molded entirely from clear red, but either way the non-window bits are painted over in gloss black. Keeping in mind that bulldozers aren't intended to be flashy, they were appopriately subdued with the paint. The radiator grille is gunmetal, the leading edge of the dozer blade is silver. There's also a bit of silver on the pistons directly supporting the blade, and one some of the struts (the bits that become claw-toes in robot mode). The taillights are red, and a black Decepticon symbol is printed behind the cab. The treads do not move, it rolls along on tiny wheels hidden underneath. Straight out of the package, it can't roll because the dozer blade is depressed too far down. Transformation: The shovel blade and its supports unclip to become secondary legs, but the whole thing holds on by a single clip. Not a metal pin, just a clip, which comes apart easily. The treads become arms fairly intuitively and the legs fold out from underneath...and then you just sort of fiddle with the rest of the bits until they rest in something like a stable configuration, but the pistons really don't lock anywhere despite a plethora of tabs and slots. The one on the stomach just fits so loosely it's hard to tell it's even there. Jackhammer Mode: This is almost, but not quite, a "stop partway to robot mode" thing. You need to reconnect the pistons to the hips, and the instructions also want you to fold the rear legs up into a backpack (or handles), but it works just as well to leave the rear legs out. This is the mode that the Robot Heroes figure is trying to portray, by the way...it just fails on multiple levels. :) And failure on multiple levels about describes this mode. The idea is to push down on the legs and have it spring back up, but the spring is very strong and this just makes all the loosely tabbed bits come apart elsewhere in the toy. Robot Mode: This is a crabtaur, with four legs and obvious claws. Add in the rubber treads and the Rampage name reuse is quite appropriate. It's simply homaging Beast Wars Rampage rather than the G1 Predacon. The mooshed up Bayformery head even looks vaguely crabby. Okay, so there's not enough legs for a proper crab, but the general look is definitely there. The rubbery treads become whip weapons held in the claw hands, one of the few pieces of this design that I think worked as intended. 4.75" (12cm) tall at the head, 6.25" (16cm) at the top of the pistons flanking the head. Exact length depends on exactly how you position the legs, but plan on needing shelf space about 5" (13cm) long and 4-5" (10-13cm) wide to accomodate this mode. As with vehicle mode, it's mostly that slightly brownish yellow plastic, with a few joints and bits here and there in gunmetal or black. The toes of the feet are rubbery black plastic, the eyes have red lightpiping. The Bonecrusher-ish face is painted silver in the middle bit, the shins and crotch are painted dark gunmetal. Otherwise, the dribs of paint as per vehicle mode, although much of the top of the vehicle is wrapped up inside the backpack. No Decepticon symbol visible in this mode. The head is on a blocked ball joint and can only really look up and down and maybe tilt a little too the side in a "baroo?" fashion. The shoulders are swivels at the root with offset hinges so the arms can be raised, but the swivels are actually set several millimeters ahead of the shoulders so swinging the arms forward also swings them down. The claws can open and close, but there's no elbows. The waist turns. The hips are spring-hinged TOGETHER. It's a single bar through the pelvis, so you might as well leave the legs together and make him a tripod. There's a swivel above each knee, and the knees are spring-hinged with two stable positions. There's decorative calf-flaps, but there aren't even proper feet much less ankles. The rear legs can spread apart, and have two knee-like joints each. But thanks to the springs in the front legs, there's not a lot of options even in the rear legs. You can swing the shovel blade around and make it look like a park bench that Rampage is lounging on, and this takes up a bit less shelf space if you decide you have to display the toy. http://www.dvandom.com/images/rampagebench.JPG (his head can't look down far enough to make this work for anything but lazing around) Overall: So many neat ideas, such disappointing execution. And only some of it can be laid at the "quality control isn't up to supporting the design" issue endemic to this wave. Some of the design choices were simply bad. They should have pushed this up to Voyager or scrapped it, it's just not something Hasbro can pull off at Deluxe price point. AUTOBOT: BREAKAWAY Altmode: Fighter Jet (F-35 unlicensed) Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Movie1 Previous Mold Use: None Mech Alive: Spinning gatling cannon Function: Motto: Serving in an army of robots tied to the ground makes BREAKAWAY unique. He is one of the very few among the elite AUTOBOT flyers, and he is unmatched for speed in a straight line. While other pilots focus on aerial acrobatics that confound the enemy, BREAKAWAY is content to speed over a fight at seemingly impossible velocity, releasing bombs and missiles that strike their target before the thunderous boom of his passage can catch up. STR 6 INT 7 SPD 10 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 8 FRB 8 SKL 4 Avg 7.125 So, Breakaway tends not to break away. Hm. Cosell: Sideways Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: Heh, his robot face peers out from the cockpit. Now I have this mental image of a pilot climbing up a ladder and preparing to get in, then seeing that giant face where the seat should be and freaking out. Anyway, it's more or less an F-35 just like Armada Thrust is more or less an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. I think the intakes are a bit narrower than on the real deal, but otherwise it's very close. There's the usual undercarriage junk, but it's not too obtrusive. Oh, and thanks to the wide stretches of smooth plastic, I finally noticed the trademark stamping. Breakway is from 2008, late October to be precise (30081 means 300th day of 2008, first shift, if I'm recalling correctly). The copyrights are also 2008. 7" (18cm) long, with a wingspan of 4.75" (12cm), he's an inch longer than Thrust and a teeny bit narrower, making his proportions more slender than ol' squidhead's. Since he's not turning his hands into thrusters, there's just a single jet nozzle as per the real F-35. The main color is a very pale tan/gold with accents in silver, russet and a couple different greens. The undercarriage junk adds metallic faded denim blue and a flash of neon green. Almost all of the jet parts are made of a metalflake pale gold/tan with very slight "gold plastic syndrome" swirls. The nosecone is made of a rubbery plastic of the same color, with more pronounced swirls. The cockpit is colorless clear. From above, there's just a couple little bits of metalflake faded denim blue (which I will just call "blue" for the rest of this toy's review) in the joints and the head-in-cockpit. From underneath a lot more blue plastic is visible, as it's the majority of the undercarriage junk. A few bits of neon green plastic (it even has a strong UV glow) are visible on the underside of the cockpit region. The nosegear and the little wheels on the undercarriage junk are also blue plastic. The wings and horizontal tail bits have angular camoflage patterns painted in pale avocado green and olive drab, plus silver on the trailing edges. Silver paint is also used on the exhaust nozzle, the tips of the vertical stabilizers, and the Autobot symbol is printed in silver over the right side intake. The tops of the intakes are painted russet red/brown. A few bits that become the outsides of the upper arms in robot mode are painted pale gold, a very good match. The nosewheel rolls, so the jet can taxi around reasonably well. The cockpit opens up, although there's that face staring out. And you can spin the Mech Alive barrel, which is visible through a gap between the vertical stabilzers, but it's not exactly impressive. The whole thing pegs together quite firmly. Transformation: The wings really panel around weirdly, it can be tricky to get them in place without popping things off, especially the arms. On the other hand, the undercarriage junk turns easily into the legs. The arms are stuck together in a weird way to form the jet engine, which is clever but can be tricky to put back together. Unless you have long nails or a tool, getting the cockpit open is difficult if you wait until the shoulders are all put together. One unfortunate bit about the transformation is that you have to choose between making the back lock together or having a waist joint. There's a joint on the waist, not needed for transformation...that gets locked in place when you hook the tail section onto the back. Oops. Note that there's jointing for the head to emerge from the cockpit a bit, but there's insufficient clearance for it to get out. The site linked at the top shows how to shave bits off the clear plastic pieces to let the head emerge fully. Robot Mode: Reminiscent of the G1 Aerialbots, in that he has a plane folded up on his back. At least the wings and tail sections are hinged to reposition enough that it's not as bad as, say, Slingshot. He's very hunchbacked, especially if you don't fix things so that the head can come out. His rubberized nose just settles down, so it sticks out of his belly like some of the later Veritech battloids. He has a rotary cannon sticking out of his right forearm. The struts on his spine look like actual structural members, with circular holes cut out to conserve weight while maintaining strength. In the out-of-package style, he's 4.25" (11cm) tall at the head, 6.25" (16cm) at the top of his backpack kibble. A lot more blue enters his color balance, plus more neon green, and the russet painted bits become a sort of life vest shape. Head, upper arms, abdomen, pelvis, spine, inner thighs, rear calves, feet, heels and rotary cannon are blue plastic. Neon green plastic is seen on his torso centerline, the "bones" of his upper arms, his ankles and the sockets on his hip joints. [Later note: on taking the toy apart, I see that the neck root is also neon green.] He has pale gold top of the head, dark clear blue [Later note: too dark to let light actually shine through, oops.] on the lightpiping and white on the facemask (the head resembles an angular version of a pilot's helmet with mask). His Autobot symbol ends up on his right chest. The top of the pelvis has pale gold with neon green lines flanking it. The head has joints, but they don't do anything unless you make the mods. The waist has a swivel, but it's locked down. Ball joint shoulders, upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, and the hands swing inward on hinges. They're in relaxed open positions, and the hinge isn't needed for transformation, about all it's good for is scratching his chest. Ball joint hips, hinge knees, dual-direction hinge ankles, hinged heels. There's airbrake-like flaps that pop up on the calves, but they do restrict the range of motion on the knees. The side to side hinges on the ankles have sufficient range of motion to ensure the feet remain flat no matter how far apart they're spread. The front to back hinges are a bit loose and not as free to move, so his leading foot can't be too far forward. [Later note: the mods to the head area mainly let the head look up more, it doesn't dramatically pop out of the cockpit or anything.] Breakaway's documented Mech Alive is one of the less impressive of the line...push on a little wheel on his right forearm and the rotary cannon rotates, whee. However, he has one extra bit, the green "bones" of his upper arms are visible through windows and have turbine molding on them so that when you swivel the arms the internal details move around. Okay, not terribly impressive compared to the gears on Sideways, but it's something. :) While some of the wing and tail panels tend to pop off under rough handling, it's otherwise a very sturdy toy. It doesn't untransform at random, it has nice big feet with highly jointed ankles for exceptional stability, and if it has an unimpressive gimmick at least it's one that's not going to break down easily or hinder the rest of the toy. Overall: Some odd design flaws hindering each other (head and waist joints made useless by other bits), but it's otherwise a pretty solid figure in both modes. Nothing spectactular, but very low on the negatives as well. It may end up being a pegwarmer, which is a shame, as it's probably the best overall TOY (i.e. thing for a kid to play with) of the wave. Dave Van Domelen, will do the wave 2 Deluxes before moving on to Voyagers. Might even have some idea what the real waves are for Voyagers by that time. But don't bet on it.