Dave's Transformers Animated Rant: Deluxe Wave 1 Bumblebee (compact car) Prowl (motorcycle) Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime (semitractor halftrack) Lockdown (muscle car) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Deluxe1 Wow. A flood day for me, finding $150 in Transformers all at once thanks to the fact that Hasbro initially asked for a late-June "street date" and eventually let Wal-Mart out of it (or something along those lines, I don't have official confirmation of all of this). The upshot is, my local Wal-Mart put out a bunch of stuff all at once, but I'm going to try to make it last at least a few weeks rather than review everything over the course of a couple of days. :) Most places, Wave 2 hit shelves at the same time as Wave 1 thanks to the attempted street date, but I'm going to review the two waves separately anyway. CAPSULES Bumblebee: Between some iffy engineering and some bad color choices, the vehicle mode is ugly. The transformation is interesting, but cheats by putting a fake roof on the robot chest, and the robot itself is covered in kibble and burdened by a badly implemented weapon gimmick. Despite some nifty points, it's the clear loser of the batch. Mildly recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart Prowl: A good motorcycle that becomes a very good robot with a clever transformation and a lack of the usual cheating found in motorcycle transformers. Strongly recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime: Decent vehicle mode, although the roof doesn't stay on well. Excellent robot mode, and an imaginative twist on the Standard Optimus Prime Truck Transformation scheme. Strongly recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart. Lockdown: Nice-looking if wobbly vehicle mode, decent transformation, big spindly robot mode. Hampered by a number of design choices, though, bringing it down to just Recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Aesthetics: The Animated line generally shoots for things like slender legs, curved lines rather than straight, and big chins. Like, makes Jay Leno look chinless by comparison. I've had enough time watching the cartoon to let the chins grow on me, though, and they no longer bother me. The graceful curved lines are a little harder to reproduce in toys than the big chins are, though, since physical joints tend to interrupt them. Sometimes it's pulled off effectively (as with Prime or Prowl), other times it's not quite there (i.e. Lockdown) or almost totally absent (Bumblebee). In addition to the art style, there's also a strong *de-emphasis* on shooty bits. In fact, of the first four Deluxes, none of them launches anything. There's a distinct lack of mechanical gimmicks other than transformation itself (Lockdown has spring-loaded barrels popping out of his weapon, Prowl has gears to make his throwing blades unfold smoothly, but that's about it). This focus on the "core competency" results in some more solid designs (well, conceptually solid...there's some problems with parts popping off). Since designs don't have to accomodate a bit spring mechanism or key trigger or automorphing, it's possible to get much closer to the animated model sheets in both modes. Packaging: In general size, these are the same sort of blister cards as Movie Deluxes, glued on top and bottom and taped on the sides. However, the specific shape is different, with a more zig-zagged pattern on the sides. The blister is a rounded off rectangle on the right and bottom sides, sloped up to the left on the top, and jagged on the left side. The front has the bottom banner (faction symbol and name) popped out flat as the rest of the front side curves back as you go from right to left. The general color scheme is dominated by white and a faded light blue Detroit cityscape on front, with the red/white/blue Transformers Animated logo at the top. In the upper right of the front is a conversion difficulty box of the same general look (but different colors) as seen on Movie toys. Deluxes are Level 3 out of 4. The card inserted in the bottom front of the blister says "Deluxe Class" on the left front, has a banner with name and faction symbol along the bottom, animated-style art of the robot mode in the lower right, and a call-out for one of the toy's features below the name banner. The left side has the faction symbol and name, plus "Transformers.com". The right side has a "bust" shot of the character with their name. The bottom just has the UPC and legalese. The cardback is mostly white with faded gray Detroit cityscape and some red and blue swooshes along the edges. The logo is in the upper left. The upper right has a bust shot of the character along with their motto, with a faction symbol covering them partly. The left side is dominated by a photo of robot mode, and the right side has name, function (sometimes more of an epithet), bio note, "Galactic Powers & Abilities" and a photo of the vehicle mode, going from top to bottom. There's several callouts pointing to various features, as with Movie toys. Along the bottom are co-sells for other toys (in this wave, it's the other three toys of the wave...oddly, the photo for Prime is mirror-flipped). Oh, and unlike movie packaging, they're using a font with a clear distinction between upper case and lower case. There are NO tech spec numbers on the package. The webpage has "tech specs" but those are just the Galactic Powers & Abilities. I guess they decided the target audience is too young for numbers. The blister has the now-standard combination of taped tabs and glued tabs. The jagged side of the blister has a LOT of little tabs and pieces of tape. In a few cases, the tape is really overkill, 2" wide packing tape or something. Inside the toy is twist-tied down in vehicle mode. There's a loose folded up set of instructions, but no catalog (at least on this wave). Other than having the new logo, the instructions are essentially the same as those for the Movie toys. [Later Note: A running change seems to be removing the twist ties from at least some of the toys in favor of an extra blister piece to keep the toy secured. Prime and Lockdown have been spotted with these revised packages.] [Later Note: Redesign Flaws - It's starting to look like a lot of these toys failed their drop tests and had to get reinforcement in critical areas at the last minute (possibly explaining the delay of the line, too). Several of them have reinforced bits that interfere with range of motion and may even hinder proper transformation. Bumblebee's stingers, Lockdown's hands, Voyager Megatron's cannon strut, and so forth. Fixes included as I find them. Note that these "fixes" will likely make the toys less child-safe, so don't implement them if you have small children!] Note: now that we're getting motto and function officially, I don't need to make up my own. I'm not going to make up tech spec numbers, though, since that doesn't interest me as much. :) Also, under "Altmode" I list what the packaging calls the vehicle mode, even if I disagree with the label. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Altmode: Sports Car Function: AUTOBOT Speedster Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Classic, Movie Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: "Snap on rocket boosters!" "Flip out stingers!" Motto: "Enough talk. It's time for action!" Galactic Powers & Abilities: > Rocket assisted jumps. > Energy stingers fire electrical pulses. > Totally fearless. The youngest robot on the crew, BUMBLEBEE is what some - especially AUTOBOT RATCHET - would call over-eager. It's not his fault he preverse action over talk. Talk is just, you know, boring. Especially when you could be racing at top speed into a fight, or boosting into the air to launch a few well-placed energy stingers at an enemy. Nothing scares BUMBLEBEE, not even MEGATRON. Packaging: Two twist-ties around the vehicle, one around the top booster rocket. The bottom booster is just held in by the blister, oddly. The packaging photos show red tips on the boosters, but the actual toy lacks 'em. Oddly, the instructions don't show how to put the stingers together, although it's shown on the package photo. Vehicle Mode: Well, the packaging calls it a sportscar, but the cartoon makes it clear that it's a fairly dumpy compact car (hatchback coupe). 4.25" (11cm) long. It's kinda like a Ford Focus RS, but even shorter, more like the "Chuki" car from the Cars toy line (which I used to make a kitbash once). I'd guess it at about 1:32 scale. Mainly yellow with a black stripe running the length of the car along the driver's side top and a red dome above the driver. Unfortunately, the paint match between the yellow plastic and the yellow paint is really bad. Most of the top is made of clear light blue plastic, along with some bits on the hood and sides where panels don't necessarily follow the obvious borders. The booster rockets are also made of light blue plastic. The wheels are black plastic, and the rest of the body shell is yellow plastic. There's black paint for the stripe, red on the flasher dome and taillights, white on the headlights (which are nearly invisible against the yellow plastic), and a sort of gunmetal on the hubcaps and as much of the booster rockets. A silver Autobot symbol is printed on the rear bumper, driver's side. The boosters plug into the sides in the upper rear section, and there's a preferred "which goes on what side," since the other way around has the screw holes visible. In addition to the crappy paint match, the panels don't always line up properly, and the paint doesn't wrap around the edges of the clear pieces, resulting in some pretty ugly panel lines. Also, the wheels don't all stay on the table at the same time. Transformation: Probably the high point of the toy. In a rough way, it involves bending over backwards and putting his feet up behind and over his head to transform to vehicle mode. It's like Weird Al meets yoga. If you do it right, it holds together nicely in vehicle mode, and unfolds gracefully into robot mode. Of course, there's a lot of ways to do it wrong, which will result in popping panels and limbs. :) Robot Mode: Wow, disappointing. The other three in this wave do a good job of looking like their animated models, with only Lockdown having significant kibble issues. But this 5.5" (14cm) tall robot is covered in kibble and compromises, and even cheats by having a fake roof for a chest. The head is yellow with a blue lightpiping chunk. The hands are yellow, as are the thighs. The upper arms, shoulder joints, upper shins, neck, hip joints and toe joints are black plastic. Clear blue is used on the stingers, and a sort of visor of it is clipped onto the underside of the chest to simulate the windshield. I've heard at least one report of it popping off easily, but mine seems secure. His face is painted silver with a black border and black triangle on the forehead. He has a black stripe on his chest, partly interrupted by a silver Autobot symbol. Panel lines in his pelvis and thighs are painted black, and his abdomen is painted black as well. The fake rear window on his upper chest is a sort of sparkly black, I think they were trying to evoke the clear blue and failed. [Later note: the stripe is on the wrong side of his chest!] The head is on a ball joint which itself is on a hinged strut that folds forward and back, giving exceptional range of motion. The shoulders are somewhat restricted ball joints on struts that swing forward and back, but the kibble of the rear wheels gets in the way. There's a hinge at the middle of the upper arm for transformation, which gives the hinge elbow a little more range of motion, but the doors stuck to his arms prevent a 180 degree bend. The wrists are hinged for transformation, and don't really move in a useful way otherwise. The waist is actually a joint between chest and abdomen, and it can swivel about 30 degrees either way before getting blocked by kibble. the hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges, and there's a swivel about a centimeter below each knee. The toes are on a combination of ball joint and hinged strut for transformation, but the usable range of motion is minimal. At least the roof kibble forms heel spurs and improves stability. The booster rockets can stay in place during transformation, and look decent on his backpack. The stingers do not fold all the way out of sight, and if you leave his hands out when connecting the stingers it looks like he's wearing energy handcuffs...I recommend stowing the hands when the stingers are deployed. [Later note: If you have a Dremel or similar tool with a small cutter head, you can do this: http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/anibumblemod.JPG As an added benefit, once the stingers can stow all the way, doing so pushes the hands out just enough to make them a lot easier to pull out...it might even be a removed automorph design element.] Overall: Disappointing. A lot of that is just the bad color matching, which makes some of the design problems stand out in harsh relief. But it's also covered in kibble by comparison to the others in this wave, and his huge robot head makes him very blatantly not to scale with the other robots (the Activators version will probably be a closer fit). It's not a horrible mold per se, but it's a bad fit for Bumblebee and badly implemented. Maybe a red recolor would work better. AUTOBOT: PROWL Altmode: Superbike Function: AUTOBOT Spy Previous Name Use: G1, BW, MW, Universe, Alt, RiD, Armada, Energon Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: "2 bladed mecha stars!" "Flip down flash blasters!" "Traffic light 'chain' weapon!" Motto: "Through stillness you will find truth." Galactic Powers & Abilities: > Master of Circuit-Su. > Projects holograms for use as camoflage. > Can use any object as a weapon. PROWL has spent his life studying the secrets of the ancient art of Circuit-Su. Through its teachings, he has discovered the beauty of pure logic, and the invincibility of reason. All things - even combat - are subject to reason. If one is willing to calmly apply one's mental faculties to any problem, the solution will soon reveal itself. he often finds the chaotic antics of humans and other AUTOBOTS frustrating, but he will stop at nothing in their defense. Packaging: One twist-tie holds the motorcycle in, another one holds his traffic light weapon. One of his two throwing blades is held into the blister separately (the other is left attached to the motorcycle). The package photos show the traffic light with a blue string and black handle, but those aren't the final colors. The pictures are either altered to make the gold plastic parts look as shiny as the gold paint, or the prototypes used for the pictures had paint on those parts. On the actual toy, the gold plastic is duller than the gold paint. Also, where the package talks about "2 bladed mecha stars", they mean two stars, not stars with two blades. They are, in fact, triple-bladed. Vehicle Mode: A "street racer" motorcycle in black and gold with a sort of police light bar built into the back of the seat. 5" (12.5cm) long, it's no particular model, but assuming a "typical" sportbike length of about 2.2 meters (taken from the Suzuki Hayabusa, which looks to have about the same proportions) this makes Prowl about 1:18 scale, a common enough scale for motorcycle toys. Most of the toy is black plastic with a matte finish. The windscreen and headlights are clear smoky plastic, the lightbar pieces on the rear are clear red and clear blue (blue on the right half), the wheels are a medium gray, and the blades of the stowed weapons are goldish plastic. There's also some cream colored plastic visible inside, but it's mainly there for the robot mode. The hub parts of the blade weapons are made of the same plastic as the wheels, but entirely painted on the outside. There's extensive gold paint on the toy. Gas tank, trailing edge of the side cowling, border around the windscreen, hubs, non-removable blades on the side of the wheel that doesn't come off, chevrons on the sides of the rear part, and some stripes on the engine cover. There's some black paint on the nose end, gray paint on the engine and the gas cap, and a silver Autobot symbol printed on the nose. The wheels spin freely, with the hub on one side connected to the strut and the hub on the other side spinning with the wheel. The spinning side hub is detachable to become a blade weapon. The front right and rear left hubs are removable. The handles fold in either for transformation or for indicating that Prowl's not accepting riders. A kickstand folds down on the left side. There's dials and gauges molded on the dashboard. Stability is decent, although the side aerodynamic cowling is supposed to peg onto the drive train cover on both sides and really doesn't stay in place on both sides at once (one will peg in and the other pop out). There is no place to store the stoplight weapon. Transitional Modes: Prowl's arms can transform out without affecting the structural integrity of the rest of the vehicle mode, letting him reach out and smack someone around while still zooming along as a motorcycle. You can also kinda keep his legs in cycle mode after transforming his upper body, but this is rather wobbly. Transformation: A very clever transformation. Parts of it are fairly "traditional" by this point, such as the arms splitting off from the sides of the seat section and the head storing inside the gas tank. However, the legs fold up in a nifty figure 8 sort of pattern, with the wheels being at the middle of the shins (which fold straight) rather than being feet or even kibble. The handlebars can fold together across the dials, although you'll need long nails or a tool to get 'em back out later. The instructions don't explicitly say what to do with them, but the diagrams in the later steps have them pointed straight up, while the package photo has them pointed out to the sides. Robot Mode: A lanky 6" (15cm) tall, he's about the right size with respect to Lockdown's robot mode, despite his vehicle mode being about twice the size it would be if the two toys were the same scale in vehicle form. Yay, mass-shifting! ;) A cream color joins the black and gold scheme, found on his pelvis, thighs and hands. The aero cowling from the sides of the motorocycle forms winglets on his back. Of the parts not visible in vehicle mode, the head and forearms are black plastic, while the pelvis and thigh are cream plastic. There's gold plastic vent/armor pieces on the outsides of the thighs. His hands are painted cream, his rather long face is a slightly darker gray than his wheels, his chin and crest are gold, and his "Gurren Lagann" visor shades are painted metallic blue. The head is on a restricted ball joint at the top of a conical neck piece, which itself moves forward and back on a transformation joint, giving a good amount of articulation to the head. The waist is a restricted ball joint that lets it turn or bend forward (very important that Prowl can bow!). The shoulders are ball joints on the end of transformation struts that can let him shrug. The elbows are also ball joints that can bend or rotate (but rotation is VERY stiff). The hands are immobile in a "karate chop" sort of pose, but the lightbar halves can swing around to become energy blades that enhance his chops (they're a little too short to consider them tonfas, and while the card calls them "flash blasters" we've never seen him use them in a blasting capacity on the show). The hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges. The gold thigh armor pieces keep the knees from bending more than 45 degrees, though, even though the joints themselves are theoretically capable of 90 degrees. A little work with an X-Acto can fix that, though. [Later note: a quick fix involves just turning them upside-down, but I don't care for the way it looks. And a Dremel sander head works better than a blade, given the slippery nature of the gold plastic.] Thanks to the joint in the middle of the shin for transformation, though, you can get a 180 degree bend from the legs with only a little bit of proportion weirdness resulting. The toes are on ball joints. The hips could stand to be stiffened up a bit, the usual nail polish or superglue tricks should be enough. The heels really could stand to have fold-out spurs, though, since he tends to rock backwards on his heels and fall over. His blade weapons are on the outsides of his shins, and can take a little bit of the ol' Excessive Force (TM) to pry out of their slots. The legs look a little hollow with the blades removed. Each weapon is composed of a black base, a cream colored central gear, three golden blades with geared roots, and a medium gray plastic hub painted gold. Pulling out any one blade makes the other two come out in unison thanks to the gearing. Stowed, the hubs are a little under an inch across (23mm), and fully deployed they fill an equilateral triangle 4cm on a side. The bladesfit fairly snugly into the gap between Prowl's palm and thumb. Traffic Signal: A medium gray box 2" (5cm) tall and just under an inch (2.2cm) wide with a 3.25" (8.5cm) black string attached to the bottom. A peg handle 1cm long and 3mm diameter made of the same gray plastic is at the end of hte string. The light lenses themselves are made of clear green, yellow and red plastic as relevant, and 9mm wide. Even with their fairly thick housings, the lights are only 12mm wide overall, making them look kinda lost within the box that holds 'em. This is essentially a flail weapon, and the handle fits snugly into Prowl's hands. http://www.dvandom.com/drawings/signallancer.JPG - Okay, so I couldn't resist. :) It's a little cheaty in places, but feasible. Overall: Probably the best motorcycle transformation to date, avoiding the usual problems of kibble, bizarre robot modes or overly bulky cycle modes. There's a few minor engineering issues, but not enough to significantly dampen my enthusiasm...get this one. AUTOBOT: CYBERTRON MODE OPTIMUS PRIME Altmode: CYBERTRON Truck Function: AUTOBOT Leader Previous Name Use: None if you include "CYBERTRON Mode", just about every line other than Beast Wars/Machines if you don't. Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: "Double handed Ion-axe!" "Windscreen converts to shield!" "Axe converts to giant waraxe!" Motto: "As a team, we can accomplish anything." Galactic Powers & Abilities: > Can cut reinforced steel. > Advanced fire-fighting systems. > Trained at AUTOBOT Academy. Despite having washed out of the AUTOBOT Academy, OPTIMUS PRIME is a natural leader. Trained to lead the bravest of the brave into battle against overwhelming odds, he eagerly looked forward to his first assignment. It's just too bad the DECEPTICONS were defeated ages ago, and the only crews left to lead are the maintenance squads that keep the Space Bridge network running. Since his assignment, he's lost track of his ambitions. The last thing he expects is the chance to test his leadership abilities in a battle to defend his home and fight for freedom. Packaging: Yes, his full name on the package is Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime. Two twist-ties on the vehicle mode, the axe is just held in by the blister. The axe is packaged in double-bitted mode. No rubber bands. Vehicle Mode: This is a sort of semitractor crossed with a halftrack. Rather than rear wheels, it has tank treads on the back end. It has the usual Optimus Prime color scheme: red cab, blue windows, silver grille, blue tail end. However, there's a deliberate "future-y" look to it, with a cab vaguely inspired by some of the high-mileage cab concepts I've seen on Discovery Channel (if a bit snubbier). And, of course, it's a halftrack. :) The vehicle is 5" (13cm) long, 2.75" (7cm) tall and 2.25" (5.5cm) wide. Obviously, there's no real truck to compare it to for roughing out a scale, but if we assume it's supposed to be 8 feet wide (a reasonable semitractor assumption) then he's somewhere around 1:42 scale. The front and roof are made of clear dark blue plastic, the core of the cab and the bottom bit are red bplastic, the wheels and toes are black plastic, a couple of joint bits are light gray plastic, and the rest is darkish blue plastic. There's a not-quite-matching red paint on the edges of the roof and front, yellow on the roof lights, front intakes and toes in back, some well-matching blue paint on the toes and some panels hooked into the boots. The bumper, grille, hubcaps, tread covers, roof vents and an Autobot symbol on the roof are silver. Once you get it properly transformed (which can be tricky), everything but the roof holds together pretty solidly. The toy rolls along on the visible front wheels and the usual hidden tread wheels in back. The roof just doesn't want to fully lock in place, though. There is a storage space for the axe in this mode, which makes the rocket nozzle into a trailer hitch (5mm peg, in fact). However, you pretty much have to untransform the toy most of the way to get the axe into that spot, you can't just plug it in while still in truck mode. Transformation: In a very rough sense, it's the traditional Prime transformation. Head is concealed at the top of the cab, rear section becomes the legs, shoulders are tucked into the sides of the cab, and so forth. However, just about every detail is different, and refreshingly so. Thee's a LOT more twisting and turning (although you can pull the legs right off when trying to extend 'em), and the front wheels come up into the shoulder area a la War Within Optimus Prime. Getting the abdomen plugged together is a bit tricky, though. When going back to vehicle mode, make sure the side panels snap into the boots firmly. One nifty touch is that the left wrist slides down to let the arms mesh together in the back of the cab. The axe also transforms. Not only do you get the obvious change of folding the blades out to go from "single blade with rocket motor" to "double bitted axe", but you can take the shield off his left arm and split it open on a sliding joint to clip it onto the axe and make for "Axe 3" (according to the instructions). Axe 3 is bigger, but looks too much like what it is...a truck roof clipped onto an axe handle. Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall at the head, with a VERY good resemblance to the animated model (what little we see of it before he reformats for Earth). He sticks to the classic Prime color scheme for the most part. The chest is clear blue plastic with red paint around the edges. The upper torso and upper arms are red plastic (as are the forearm blasters and the axe handle). The elbow double joint (a hinge at the top and a ball at the bottom), the collarbone area, thighs and knees are light gray plastic. The forearms, fists, pelvis, head and boots are darkish blue plastic. The black front wheels are embedded in the shoulders in, as mentioned earlier, a War Within sort of look. The abdomen is also black plastic, as are the bits into which the knees plug. The axe blades are clear darkish blue, and there's light gray on the haft hinge (it folds for storage) and the top core with rocket nozzle. The face is painted light blue with silver "retracted battle mask" details around the edges and some yellow strips on the helmet. Prime's expression is a fairly neutral slight smile. He has blue lightpiping that's not very bright. There's yellow details on the pelvis and toes, a silver Autobot symbol printed on the left shoulder, silver abdomen, axe details, and bits on the forearms. The head turns, although in default position it's constrained pretty heavily. Fortunately, the collarbone piece can lean forward and let the head turn more. The waist turns, although you need to make sure the abdomen is snapped together properly first. VERY stiff ball joint shoulders, double jointed elbows, stiff ball joint hips, hinge knees, swivels just below the knees. The toes can move a little on a transformation joint, and the left fist can slide up and down to make it easier to let Prime hold his axe in both hands. The shield has a limited ball joint as well for where it pegs onto a hinged socket on the left forearm. There's no other place to store the shield, it'd be nice to have a way to store it on the back a la Captain America. Undocumented feature: you can get him to "choke up" on Axe 1 (the single bladed version) by simply popping the axe head off the shaft, sliding the top half of the shaft in through the bottom of the fist, and popping the head back on. [Later note: the groove in his butt where the axe fits in vehicle mode will also work to store the weapon in robot mode, although this does limit waist articulation.] Overall: I have some minor quibbles with parts popping off, but the only real issue I have with this toy is the fact that the roof doesn't stay on well in vehicle mode. The robot mode is excellent, both very poseable and hewing closely to the cartoon's aesthetic. DECEPTICON: LOCKDOWN Altmode: Cruiser Function: DECEPTICON Bounty Hunter (that's Freelance Pea...er, never mind) Previous Name Use: None Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: "Flip out hook!" "Engine converts to blaster!" Motto: "Run all you want. It'll make the chase more fun." Galactic Powers & Abilities: > Blaster shuts down most robotic circuitry. > Can track a target even across light years. [sic] > Once a target is locked, he always catches it. LOCKDOWN could care less about MEGATRON and his grand goals of universal domination. He's in this game for upgrades, pure and simple, and he wears the DECEPTICON badge because they're the ones who can get him the systems he wants. For the right price he'll hunt down any target and bring it in - functioning or not. As a bonus, every new target means new trophies for his workshop wall. He enjoys his work, and he's traveled from one end of the universe to the other doing it, which is why he's got a collection of weapons and functions second to none. Packaging: Two twist-ties holding the vehicle in, you really only need to undo the front one. No separate accessories, the engine block is held down with a rubber band. The photo on the back of the card is assembled differently than the toy I have (the upper arms are swapped) and the paint job on the forearms is different (same color, but a lot more of it). Vehicle Mode: The packaging calls it a "cruiser", but I'd go more with "muscle car"...Lockdown moves with a purpose, he doesn't just cruise. :) Whatever you call it, it's a 5.5" (14cm) long black car with an oversized supercharger on the engine, big pipes sticking out under the doors, and a spiked "cowcatcher" ram plate on the front. There's also spikes on the roof, and conical spike hubs. The spoiler in back has a design evocative of the ramplate. Overall, it pretty much screams "Car Wars" to me, especially if you pop out the guns on the engine. Oh, and while there's no real car to base this on, but if you start with a 70s muscle car like the 1974 Plymouth Barracuda (190") and assume about a 30% "stretch" suggested by Lockdown's proportions, then Lockdown is about 1:45 scale, give or take. It'd be reasonable to take Lockdown and Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime to be the same scale in vehicle mode. Most of the car is made from black plastic, some of which also seems to be painted matte black. :) The windshield/roof piece, the headlights and the taillights are clear red plastic, while the engine, hubs and pipes are light gray plastic. The hook piece which stows under the ramplate is fully painted silver, and I can't tell what plastic color it's made of without damaging it. Also painted silver are the ramplate, spoiler and the roof spikes. There's a slightly dayglo green paint on the front corners of the hood. A gold Decepticon symbol is printed on the roof, and a little line of red paint on the supercharger. [Later note: ExVeeBrawn of the AllSpark reports that the hook is black plastic.] The car is kinda wobbly, I can't get all four wheels on the table at once. There's no "action features" in this mode, although you can see the chin of the robot mode through the windshield. Undocumented feature: his hook can be deployed from his front bumper and hook onto a victim's rear bumper. Transformation: In a trick sometimes seen on Mini-Cons but not, to my recollection, on a full sized toy in recent years, the entire length of the car becomes legs. The outer quarter slice on either side unpegs and swings down to become legs, with some folding and lengthening to improve poseability. The middle half of the trunk end unfolds into the arms, the core chunk becomes the torso (with the head and neck stored inside it), and the front middle part becoming a "bustle" that detaches for weapon mode. Unfortunately, the hip joints aren't that much stronger than the pegs that hold the feet to the arms, so when unpegging the legs for transformation there's a decent chance you'll just pull one or both legs off entirely. Warning, the hands do NOT fold out all the way. This seems to be an intentional design element, to make him look like he's ready to draw pistols or something (they're molded in a semi-open "about to grab" pose). If you try to force them to go straight, you're likely to break 'em off entirely. http://www.dvandom.com/images/tfalockdownhand.JPG shows the issue with the hand. The pin is inserted in such a way that it can't be driven back out, so any mods have to be done with the hand attached. I found it easier to remove bits from the backs of the hands using a thin blade X-Acto, but others have reported success Dremeling out the section highlighted in yellow on my pic. [Later note: More reports on modding, if you go for the part highlighted in yellow you need to be VERY careful lest you remove too much you'll cut through the part that holds the wrist pin.] Robot Mode: Because of the way the legs transform, he's a tall drink of oil. At 7.5" (19cm) tall, he's well into traditional Voyager height, although he's a lot spindlier than most Voyagers. Almost cadaverously skeletal, one might say. There's a little of the asymmetry seen in the cartoon model here, with different details on the upper arms and lower legs, but it's not as aggressively color-scrambled. He's got a sort of neo-Kirby look to him, particularly in the tattooed face. There's spikes along the sides of his neck and on his shoulderpads to match the ones on his car roof. Again, mostly black plastic. His lightpiping is clear red, his hands are the same light gray as his engine block. The exhaust pipes, while symmetric in vehicle mode, have uneven details on his shins in this mode. He's a bit more green in this mode, with mode of that dayglo green on his pelvis, chest, right kneecap and left upper arm. Additionally, the green hood chunks are now the top of his thighs. An olive drab green is painted on the top and sides of his chest. There's dark red paint in some panel lines on his forearms and on his left kneecap. Lots of silver paint, on his face, spikes, upper right arm, toes (the spoilers from the car) and the ramplate bits now on his thighs. There's yellow paint on the sides of the bustle, and a gold Decepticon symbol on his sternum (in the cartoon, he has a blank emblem more in keeping with his mercenary nature). Good poseability, if a little limited in places by his proportions. The head and waist both turn smoothly. The shoulders are universeal joints rather than ball joints, but they're a bit restricted by the shoulderpads. They rest on transformation struts which give more range of motion at the expense of looking a bit wrong. The elbows are double joints, with a hinge at the top and a ball joint connecting to the forearm. The hands can fold inward but that's the only wrist motion. The hips are ball joints, the knees are hinged but only bend about 45 degrees. The toes have some range of motion on their transformation hinges. There's a swivel just below each hip socket, with maybe 45 degrees play either way. The bustle unpegs and can snap on over either forearm. If you put it on the right forearm, there's a little peg there that makes the barrels on the sides of the engine block pop out. Despite the limited range of motion of the hands, you can't plug the weapon chunk on without folding the hook out. You need to press down rather hard to get the barrels to pop out. Also, you're supposed to spin the air intake of the engine around for gun mode. And yes, this is Ratchet's EMP generator. The hands aren't really designed to hold anything, and can't quite manage a 5mm peg. However, an Attacktix gun's handle fits in pretty nicely. Undocumented feature: the chest can be used to store stuff, like stolen upgrades, and the figure can be posed as reaching into the open chestplate. Overall: Big, nicely spooky/menacing. But there's a number of places where joints don't bend far enough, and it's tricky to transform without popping the legs off (and getting all the pegs back together in car mode can take some doing too). A good toy, but not without significant flaws. ONLINE CONTENT A lot of information about the characters is available on Hasbro's webpage. Unlike the Cyber Key stuff, it doesn't need to be unlocked. The "Tech Specs" they provide are the same as the "Galactic Powers and Abilities" on the packaging, so I won't be including them here. They also have the mottos, which are the same as on the packaging. You may notice that the Decepticons get the short end of the stick here. BUMBLEBEE BUMBLEBEE is the "kid" of the team, easily the youngest, and most immature of the AUTOBOTS. He's a showoff and acts solely on impulse; he behaves like a rebellious teenager with a sarcastic, wise-cracking, attitude and disdain for authority. As far as his superhero status goes, BUMBLEBEE naturally digs the spotlight and will do anything to have it shinning brightly, and exclusively on him. His big mouth, brash tone, and "bring it on" attitude sometimes get him in over his head. ROBOT MODE POWER: "Stingers" Two sparkplug-looking cannons allow BUMBLEBEE to send electric force blasts that stun his enemies or blast away through whatever's in his path. BUMBLEBEE not only has super-electric stingers, but he is the fastest AUTOBOT in both robot and vehicle mode. PROWL PROWL is the silent ninja of the team; he only speaks when he has to and it is as brief as possible. Of all the AUTOBOTS he is the most skilled in direct combat, he is a natural spy and can infiltrate without being detected. PROWL is the AUTOBOT of little talk and a lot of action. ROBOT MODE POWER: "Shuriken" PROWL'S main weapon are [sic] his throwing shuriken, bladed weapons that hurl through the air (always returning like a boomerang). He has a myriad of these at the base, and uses them when needed. Some are separated, super charged, others ENERGON based. PROWL also possesses powerful JUMP JETS that allow him short burst of flight. OPTIMUS PRIME OPTIMUS PRIME is the young commander of a ragtag inexperienced group of AUTOBOTS. He's a born leader, a never-say-die fighter, humble, friendly, and cheerful. OPTIMUS PRIME is not the kind of leader who needs to bark orders to command respect. He is usually the first to join the fight and the last to leave it putting himself before any member of his team. ROBOT MODE POWER: "Battle Axe" OPTIMUS PRIME'S main weapon is his battle axe. It is an ENERGON-based weapon that has multiple purposes. The axe blade can modify into a laser blade, it can also grow to cut large objects. The handle can grow in length for a pole-vault style attack, and the back of his axe has a built-in thruster for added lift and boost of great speeds. OPTIMUS PRIME is a walking multi-utility knife with ability to convert any part of his robotic body to into a tool or gadget. His arms and legs can hyper-extend, he can whip grapples and swing his way around Detroit. OPTIMUS PRIME can also "spike" into any computer or machine to control it. AXE? SMOKESCREEN? HANG GLIDER? FIRE EXTINGUISHER? He has all of these tools and much more; but he isn't just stocked with tools, he is clever about how he uses them. LOCKDOWN Just his packaging bio note. Dave Van Domelen, reviewed Bumblebee last...kinda a bummer to end on, eh?