HAmblebee vs. HAde Swipe.

[Yuyuyami]

Yes, this is a comparison review between HAmblebee and HAde Swipe. This will not be a picture review, though I may add pictures later.

 

 

In the box, HAde Swipe looks to be the superior purchase. His alt mode is flawless at sight and the box art looks decent. HAmblebee looks GOOD, but not superb in alt mode. Don't let this fool you!

 

In hand, HAmblebee's alt mode looks and feels like it's made of Heaven and awesome. It's solid and satisfying to hold with excellent plastic.

 

HAde Swipe, though he looks cool in alt mode, feels like his paint will chip and his parts will wear down into dust over time. There's just a grimy, dusty feeling I get when I hold him, like I'm holding a dry pickle. His alt mode shifts too much for the amount of pressure I use in handling him for it to be satisfying.

 

In robot mode, HAmblebee looks like a statue with an immaculate head sculpt and his shins have this GENIUS design of being multi-jointed and held into a humanoid form by his knee cap and a ratcheted joint. It makes all of his stances super stable and natural looking. His arms suffer from the seats, but only because the seat ratchets aren't strong enough to allow you to grab them when moving his arms. While I wish he were right handed, the gun suits HAmblebee well.

 

HAde Swipe looks like a hunchback midget in robot mode. He has fat thighs and short legs and tiny feet and hands. He's hard to balance and his for-arms are hollow. Most of the time I find my self fighting his telescoping leg joints, trying to keep them from sliding back up. While the telescoping can make for some awesome poses, more often than not it's a nuisance. If you're like me, you'll want to disable most of his mechalive, I.E, the pistons on the back of his legs and his thigh "muscles". The pistons always slip out, so I just fold them down and I chopped off his thigh "muscles."

 

My final verdict: HAde Swipe, though I've ripped on him in the comparison, is actually not that bad of a figure. He just looks REALLY bad in comparison to HAmblebee and he has the unfortunate backpack which makes all of his problems seem worse. I have yet to do any backpack mods on him, but I suspect they will alleviate many of my qualms with him. If you don't have HAmblebee, save up and skip any other transformers you may want until you get him. After you have him and the other RotF staples, like Leader Prime, Crabitron and MixMaster, and your next plastic craze starts coming on (which will be a while with HAmblebee), THEN get HAde Swipe. He takes some fiddling with and getting used to but he DOES hold his own in that his design is enough off the beaten path to be refreshing.

[ShellformerV1]

A series of really good points. I have to agree on pretty much all of them.

[Amethyst Ed]

Sideswipe is nowhere near as awesome as Bumble Bee.

 

I did the backpack mod and it helps alittle...

 

This figure makes me truley miss Alternators...

Those figs are some of my most favorite TFs ever!

 

And the HA line has the potential to go in that direction.

BB was great! SS took a step back.

 

Now lets see Skids and Mudflap...

[Yuyuyami]

So I did the backpack mod on him. While I wish it pegged into his back and it folded up a little more, where the backpack fills in his chest it looks awesome. It's like he had a shitload of muscle and armor there.

 

Unfortunately he still has those shitty legs, though I'm figuring out how to use them better.

 

 

EDIT: I did a little more modding on this guy and I unlocked his thigh swivels. So now not only is his backpack stowed nicely away underneath his chest, but he can also move his legs in enough useful ways to support his weight.

 

Also, his feet are best if you turn the inside pieces flat onto the ground. That way you get a side to side swivel out of them.

[deceptikhan]

i saw HAmablebee as you call him, i call him "HA Bee", the other day and had to skip on him since i only had $28 dollars left for the month. :( This was the first time i saw him AND i saw Swipe as well, and was really BUMMED that i could not get him that day. Especially since hes supposively been out for some time and i havent got one yet. However, it wasn't all bad as i did get th Ice Cream Twins dlx package to satisfy my TF needs.

 

Anyways, i found by pics online AND in person HA Bee was the better choice. Im gonna go with Alliance Swipe for my SS mold, and HA Bee and Cannon Bee for my ROTF Bee mold. I have about 9 Mv1 Bumblebee's so im not sure why ieven am getting anymore. :P

[Yuyuyami]

^ I hope you get your HAmblebee soon. Try HAks, too, if you can, Skids is an awesome mold when you do a few small mods to him. Check out Matt Booker's blog for detailed information.

[Amethyst Ed]

Yea, I did the Booker mod to Skids and it improves a mediocre HA figure.

 

Still nowhere as awesome as BB and slightlty worse than Sideswipe...

 

Hasbro seems to be going backwards with the HA designs... Hmmm...

 

See, Sideswipe has a sweet silverly concept car mode.

 

And Skids in almost HALF his size. In all his kiddy green glory.

 

Very small figure for $30 HA...

 

If the Skids HA mold was sold as the Deluxe, my opinion would be different...

 

These figs need some modding to be decent, that's a fact!

[bigkid24]

Thanks for the info on Bee and Sideswipe. I'm thinking about checking out the HA line since I found some for cheap. Where can I find the mods for the Swipe and Skids?

[Yuyuyami]

Mattbooker.info has the mods for Skids. I think he may also talk about the needed mods for Sideswipe. However, it's not hard to figure out what needs done on these guys.