Dave's Transformers Age of Extinction Rant: Lockdown One-Step Changer Lockdown Dinobot Warriors Lockdown & Hangnail Deluxe Generations Lockdown Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/AoE/Lockdown Well, Deluxe Lockdown is sort of a wave 2.5 running change, and I picked up the One-Step Changer for $5 thanks to Target's "Cartwheel" app, so I figured I'd cover both at once (I also got One-Step Slash for $5 at a TRU BOGOHO sale, but I don't feel like reviewing it). And I got the Construct-Bot Lockdown with Hangnail on clearance for $15. If I get the big simple Lockdown, I'll add it to this file. Note, other than the Deluxe, I'll just do extended Capsules. CAPSULES One-Step Changer Lockdown: Pushbutton transformation (that doesn't always complete itself cleanly) to robot mode, "massage it back together" for vehicle mode. Robot mode is a statue, but looks decent despite the limited paint detail. Uses the visor-down face, which makes it easier to treat as a drone working for the Deluxe. Vehicle mode is a little unstable, and the use of silver instead of black on the windows doesn't look as good. Vehicle shell is dark brownish gunmetal, slightly darker than the Deluxe, but still not as dark as in the movie. 4.5" (11.5cm) long in vehicle mode, 4.75" (12cm) tall in robot mode. Worth the $5 I paid, not too bad for $8 if you get it on sale or clearance, kinda iffy for full price of $10. Dinobot Warrior Lockdown: Like other Construct-Bots, it has at least one wildly inappropriate color. In this case, a whole lot of bright orange used on almost the entire "skeleton" of the figure. Construct-Bot instructions in this series really do poorly when the parts are darker colored, I can barely make out details on the blue and purple parts in the instructions, which makes assembly a bit tricky. Anyway, despite the orange and the fact that the gunmetal is far lighter than other Lockdown toys, it actually looks pretty good in both modes...one of the better Construct-Bot vehicles, more reminiscent of TF:A Lockdown than a Lambo. Unfortunately, getting it all snapped into vehicle mode is difficult. Hangnail is nice as a dino, but I learned my lesson from the other two Dino-Warriors: don't bother with the armor mode, it's clunky and makes the figure fall over. Definitely worth the $15 I paid on clearance, mildly recommended at the original price of $19.88. (Aside: the clip-based construction of this year's Construct-Bots is a lot more likely to break, and harder to fix or swap out.) Deluxe Lockdown: Given how many stores are choking to death on the initial waves, I'm not too surprised that I've only seen one of these on the pegs so far. Unfortunately, it was at TRU, and they wanted $16.99 (a buck more than the Evolutions exclusives), ow. The compromises between the movie design and toy realities result in a toy that looks kinda cheap at first glance, and while experience reduces this a little, it still really needed to be manufactured by someone with better QC than Hasbro. Mildly recommended. RANT As noted above, just the Deluxe down here. Packaging: The exterior style is the same as previous waves, co-sells are the wavemates Strafe and Drift. Inside, there's a folded up catalog, that's a miniposter of Stomp & Chomp Grimlock (the $70-80 one) on one side, and various selections from the toy line on the other (One-Step Changer Driftcopter and Galvatron, Flip and Change Optimus and Grimlock, Power Battler Bumblebee and Hound, Deluxe Slash and Lockdown, some Battle Masters, Kre-O, and various merch). DECEPTICON: LOCKDOWN Series: M4 Number: 008 Altmode: Lamborghini Aventador (licensed) Transformation Difficulty: 13 steps Previous Name Use: TF:A, DotM (non-movie character) Previous Mold Use: None Weapon: Headcannon Function: Bounty Hunter Motto: "You're worth slightly more to me alive. Try not to tip the balance sheet." LOCKDOWN captures everything he tracks. Few of his targets have outmaneuvered him, and even fewer have escaped his prisons. Now, the merciless bounty hunter has set his sights on the AUTOBOTS! Packaging: Robot is held in by the blister, and has a plastic shell rubber banded over the torso to protect it and keep it from bouncing around. The headcannon and its missile are held into the blister by its shape. Robot Mode: This one's head has an unvisored face, putting it in the minority of Lockdown toys. Aside from that, it has an odd flatness about it, that at first glance makes me think both "knockoff" and "brick". It comes from the compromise of the movie's VERY organic "humanoid with a few vehicle bits tacked on" design and the need to actually turn into something. Where Galvatron solved that by being an ubershellformer, Lockdown molds detail into panels like a sort of bas relief, trying to give the illusion of depth when the real thing is unavailable. Another compromise comes with the colors. Rather than being mostly black like in the movie, they lightened it to a brownish gunmetal so it'd have more of a "pop" on the shelf. 5" (12.5cm) tall, and predominantly brownish gunmetal with some silver and black. The pelvis piece and the wheels (at shoulders and hips) are black plastic. There's light silvery gray struts on the shoulderpads and holding the roof/hood pieces together as the backpack. That color is also used in most of the joints, and on the collar area. The lightpiping is medium blue clear plastic, and the various car windows on the backpack are made of that plastic as well. Everything else is brownish gunmetal plastic. Silver is the most common paint color, found on the face, bits of the abdomen, the forearm/hand pieces (which can be unscrewed from the door panels if you want to repaint them), and some details on the fronts of the thighs and shins. Theres black paint on some fake front end details on the chest, and some gold paint on molded shock absorbers/struts on the thigh fronts and some tiny details on the abdomen. A purple Decepticon symbol is printed on the underside of the right arm. The head is on a very restricted ball joint, the waist does not turn. The shoulders are ball joints on the ends of struts that are hinged for transformation and allow shrugging. There's swivels just above the hinge elbows, but the car panels can get in each other's way. No wrist joints. The hips are universal joints, and their roots touch in the pelvis so that lifting one leg will tend to lift the other. Swivels just above the hinge knees, and the ankles let the toes point down but not up. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, but they're shallow and will have trouble with borrowed weapons that are too rounded at the peg end. There's 3mm holes next to the hands for transformation, and they'll hold borrowed 3mm pegs (and do so more solidly than they hold their intended pegs in car mode!). The pegs for those holes are on the thighs just above the knee, and C-clips will hold onto them. No other standardized connections. Weapon: The big gun, or "headcannon," is a sort of rail rifle design that fires a missile via the "cyberjet" style. But like other AoE missile launchers of this type, it doesn't fire very far. The entire barrel needs to be pulled back to pop the missile out, and it needs to be pulled out before you can reload. 5" (12.5cm) long when loaded, it only shortens by a millimeter or two when fired The missile and barrel are light silvery gray plastic, while the rear part is the same brownish gunmetal that makes up the robot's vehicle shell bits. In robot mode, the headcannon can either be tabbed into a slot on top of the head for headcannon mode, or held in either hand via a 5mm peg at the back. The face shield is split into two slats, and you can get a two-handed grip by putting one of these slats into the hand not holding the main peg. In vehicle mode, the face shield tabs go into slots behind the rear window, and it's quite secure there. No, there's really no attempt to store the gun inside the car...it's longer than the car! Transformation: Fairly simple in theory, but good luck getting all the panels to stay in place! The main offenders are the small pegs on the thighs and their holes on the forearms (doors). Trying to get them to stay on tends to make the rear of the car spread out, or push the hood up, or otherwise derange other panels somewhere. Vehicle Mode: Hardly the first Lamborghini-based Transformer, but one of the few to be licensed rather than "almost but not quite". The Aventador is the immediate successor to the Murcielago, which was used as the basis for several modern-era TFs. If you're very lucky with the panel massaging, the panel lines don't detract much from the sleek lines of this sports car. 4.75" (12cm) long, it's about 1:40 scale. None of the light gray parts are visible in this mode, making the body shell entirely brownish gunmetal, with clear medium blue windows (oddly, the louvred rear window is unpainted clear blue plastic) and black wheels. A little poking about Google image search indicates that it's not unheard of for the wheel hubs to be entirely black on the real thing, so the cheaping out on paint for the toy is plausible. There's some metalflake brownish gunmetal paint on the A posts and a tiny bit of front fender, a decent match for the plastic but lacking the swirl. The headlights are painted metallic blue, the taillights are painted red (hey, painted taillights for once!). There's gloss black on the side mirrors, the front intakes and some panels on the rear (not really sure what those are, might be for air from the behind-door scoops to flow out). The Lamborghini shield at the front of the hood is simply painted gold, they didn't try to print a tiny logo. The Decepticon logo ends up on the front end of the driver's side door. Rolls well once you have all the panels aligned (or close enough), be sure you have the soles of the feet together or the legs might drag. There's no attachment points for 5mm or 3mm standards, only the unique slots for the headcannon. Overall: Too many compromises, really. Looks just enough like the movie model to be a clear failure at being the movie model, but too much to let it be its own toy. Oh, and the face is pretty ugly, but at least it can be covered by the headcannon. Dave Van Domelen, supposes he could flip a coin to pick between Generations Roadbuster or the Walmart AoE two-packs for the next review.