Dave's Wal-Mart Exclusive Rant: Tripredacus Agent Wal-Mart's second exclusive recolor, of Transmetal II Cheetor. Check http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Phase3/IIDeluxe1 for a complete review of the original toy, I'm only going to concern myself with the differences. CAPSULE Tripredacus Agent: What a difference a recolor can make. TMII Cheetor is one of the few toys I've panned, but this one is actually almost worthwhile. The change in plastic also helps in a few places. Mildly recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart. RANT PREDACON: Tripredacus Agent Function: Covert Intelligence Operative Altmode: Panther Motto: "Deception is the nemesis of detection." [gag me with a spark extractor] His outer appearance resembles that of a Maximal, but within beats the fuel pump of a devious espionage agent! A former saboteur, this agent adopted several aliases while involved in the Beast Wars. As an assassin he works best when operating solo. His irradiated spark, which was salvaged by the Vok, allows him to cloak his energy signature. He carries a low-radiation proton bomb launcher with laser targeting. His only weakness is a sensitivity to bright light. STR 6.5 INT 8.6 SPD 8.2 END 7.1 RNK 7 COUR 8.6 FRP 5.8 SKL 9.4 Avg 7.65 I actually hardly changed the note on this one, it's pretty much readable. Basically, Hasbro lost the right to call toys Ravage (from what I heard, anyway), so even though the cartoon character could be called Ravage, the figure could not be. And THIS is why Hasbro keeps recycling names, people. It's use it or lose it. The packaging is a weird hybrid. The pattern on front is the Transmetal one, the back is mostly the late TMII packaging (including pictures of toys that haven't been on the shelves in a couple years), with a Beast Machines logo replacing the TMII logo. The bubble has the same "Wal-Mart Exclusive Transmetal" sticker as the Wal-Rat exclusive did. The beast mode, transformation and robot mode are basically the same as TMII Cheetor, see his review referenced above for that information and a lot of snarking. Keep in mind the late note (which is on the webpage, but not in the review itself) to swing the shoulders up 90 degrees to make the figure less hunchbacked in robot mode. The new colors on this toy make all the difference between one I suggest you avoid and one I suggest you might want to buy. Mainly black with dull silver robo-bits, plus gold chrome (which kicks the butt of the purple chrome on Cheetor) and some metallic red accents. If you accept this as the remains of Ravage recovered from the explosion in "Agenda" and rebuilt using Vok tech, it works pretty well. The robot head could use a little more detail to match the techspec painting (I added it already with some black paint), but unlike Cheetor you don't need to do massive repainting to make it look good. The spark is a Predacon one. In addition to just looking better, the black plastic used in the hands is a little more rubbery and frictioned. As a result, "Ravage" holds his gun pretty firmly. Not as firmly as I'd like, but an improvement. Overall, while the mold is still woefully lacking in many ways, at least it looks good and holds together a little better than its original version. Dave Van Domelen, also got a big-booted DOM Gundam toy today....