Continuing on my trend of unpopular reviews. I will again be using the Bell Curve system of scoring. Under this, your average toy will get between a four and a six. A great toy could get an 8 (and would be better than nearly 80 percent of the available toys). Only a perfect toy could get a 10 (better than 100 percent).

 

Recap: 1=Worst transformer imaginable 2=utter crap, hard to believe it passed marketing 3=a turd with some good points 4=below average but still okay 5=average tf with its ups and downs 6=above average, definitely a good buy 7=a great toy 8=One of the best along all points, most Alternators are in this category 9=the kind of toy that would start you collecting again, less than five toys in a decade would get this score, 10=dead on balls perfect,i.e. doesn't exist

 

After a couple more reviews in this format, hopefully I can scrap this preface.

 

Wreckloose

Lizard- As liitle lizards go, this one has a lot to offer. You can display him either with or without the crest. With the crest, he looks prehistoric and has access to his boring key gimmick (pop out blades.) If you take the crest off, he looks an awful lot like a komodo dragon. I kind of like it better without myself, except for the fact that this takes away nearly all of the green. In my head, this toy was green, but to my surprise, only the crest and his two dinky front arms are green. Weird, huh? The crest also has one of the most complete afterthought examples of a faction symbol I have ever seen. All of the areas with the silver appear to be wounds upon closer inspection. It looks like deep gashes and missing paint. There are little strips covering the gashes like emergency spot welds/band-aids. Very neat. Considering the way he transforms, the tail remains very poseable. My only problems with articulation are the static head (unsderstandable) and the fact that the robot hands prevent the front legs from sitting in any proper lizardlike poses other than 'basking.' There are an awful lot of colours on this little guy, but it is surprisingly not an overload. I don't like the colour seperation between the two halves of the tail. That could have easily been made gradual so as to match the front half's gradiation.                                              Score=6

 

Transform- Remove crest if you haven't already. Give the tail/waist a quarter turn and seperate the two halves. Flip out the feet and rotate them forward. You can do whatever you like with the lizard back legs. They just kind of hang there and have no place or position to go. Split the lizard head open, thus revealing the bot head. Maneuver the front legs so they resemble arms. The crest can clip to his back or resemeble a shield on the UNDERSIDE of his arm. It took me awhile to find that hole. Nothing special here.                                      Score=5

 

Robot- He is a fairly articulated little guy and the colour scheme is the same right down to the surprising lack of green. Other than the annoying little legs hanging off his right leg, he doesn't have two much in the way as kibble. I even kind of like the motley nature of his legs. I feel his head looks a little out of place. It looks like the head of a brute, whereas Wreckloose is kind of sleek. I would also prefer a better weapon, but I can generally say that about the last ten years worth of TFs.                                                                      Score=6

 

Overall- He's articulated, has an interesting colour palette, and makes for a pretty decent showing in both modes. Not bad at all.                       Score=5.7

 

Backstop

Rhino- I thought I would like this mode a lot more than I do. In pictures, it looked a little longer and a lot less squat. In fact, it's a grey glob of Rhino. The red and yellow accents look good in their sparseness (sparsity?) but there is a darker grey accent that would look great if it were'nt so subtle. I could only even see it in direct sunlight. Although, they don't look like they would be, the legs are rather flimsy and they tend to flop around when handling him. The action feature is pretty cool. Considering that it can rotate it's head, the horn pops out pretty far, and in a way which it doesn't look like should be physically possible. All bad things aside, he's still a neat little rhino.                                 Score=5

 

Transform-Give a tug on all of the legs at once, and you should be able to lower the robot waist from inside of the body. Snap the front legs together and the back legs together (similar to Red alert) and you have the legs. This is definitely not something I was expecting. There is a robot hand, just under the rhino head. This was probably pulled out with the waist. That's all there is to the right arm. Pull out the butt and rotate it down, revealing a strange left arm. Open the panel in the middle of his chest and flip it 180 degrees, revealing the head. The legs were an interesting twist, but other than that, its about what I'd expect or a little less of a basic.                      Score=5

 

Robot- :eek  :eek  :eek  :eek Now, before I start, and before I get rude comments on the score I'm about to give, please read the definition of a 2 up above. How the hell did this even pass development?! I'll work my way from the bottom up. He has no robot toes. He does have his animal mode toes, but they face outwards. Not even outwards in opposite directions, making some sense, but outwards in the SAME direction. He has no knees. Well he does, but they follow the same logic as his feet. His thighs are just big yellow pegs, lacking any shape. His chest is a big boring flat surface, that somehow manages to look like the side of a rhino. Funny that. His head lacks the paint apps in his face that would give it any definition, which doesn't help the fact that his head is difficult to even see, being buried into his chest. If he had nipples, they would be at the same level as his ears. He does have a butt chin, so one small point for that. His right arm is a head with a hand for an Adam's apple. His right hand is the most interesting and detailed part of this entire bot. His left arm, which could of easily been made into his good, articulate arm, was instead made into one of those things you use to throw tennis balls to dogs. This toy would be forgivable if it was indeed the Happy Meal toy that it appears to be. Instead, it was a toy that cost about 7.50 and required a whole design and marketing department to screw up. Not wanting to end on a downer for this review, I shall reiterate the good points. His chin and right hand.                         Score=2 (ouch, I know)

 

Overall- what can I say that hasn't been said. The average of the other two aspects brings up the trainwreck of the bot mode, so choose accordingly.

Score= 4

 

The bot mode pic above, is incidently the only 'pose' he can do.

The next two reviews will be given on their merits as repaints.

 

Brushguard

Jeep-It's Overhaul, only in periwinkle. Oh, and he has that weird little mountain range symbol that Landquake had. This is an extremely boring repaint. There is nothing for me even to be given the pleasure of outright hating.

 

Bot-The addition of the small amounts of lime green are somewhat interesting, but only because everything else is so boring. His claws are lavender. This colour appears nowhere else. Although I thought it might be, due to the card art, his head is not retooled at all. When the missile is not in his chest, the lighter colours make it easier to see straight through him. You can definitley not buy this and not not miss a thing.

 

 

 

 

Street Speed Mincon Team

Holy Primary Colours Batman! This is the third incarnation of one of my favorite minicon teams and definitley the worst. There's not much more to say that half a glance won't tell you. These colours are so distracting and bright, that they strip any details that you might have otherwise noticed. Stick with the originals, or, if you can get them, the ones that came with the Armada Beastformers.

Thanks mflinn!

 

For those who care'

Wreckloose-stw7

Backstop-su39

Brushguard-s0u6

Hmph. I totally disagree with your scores. Way too lenient. :D

Robot mode for backstop is THE reason why I passed on him.  Now to see a review, it sounds even worse.  Too bad, I like rhinos too.

Backstop is probably this line's Sideswipe.. I suppose I should start expecting to see 'Universe Rhinox' and half a dozen more repaints of this guy.. :lol

 

I kind of like Brushguard myself.. if they gave him more of an artic feel the color scheme could of been pretty complimenting.

Again very critical reviews, and I like it. You're not afraid to point out the flaws. :thumb Nevertheless, I think you're a bit too lenient with Backstop. A "2"? come on, this is so close to "1" it seems like a missed opportunity not to give him that grade.

 

I haven't got any of these figs yet and with the exception of Wreckloose I'm not going to get any either. Don't like minicons, think Overhaul was already a waste of my money so don't need the repaint and Backstop...well, need I say more than :puke ?

No surprise at all on that Backstop score,  definitely a top candidate for the "WTF were they thinking award." That bot mode has to be the most silly looking thing I've ever seen. Seriously, it makes Armada Sideswipe look like a gem. And yeah, that means we'll probably see no less than 5 repaints of Backstop!  :tard  (at least 2 of them for next years botcon exlusive set no doubt)

 

I am a little surprised though that you gave Wreckloose the score you did, I would have guessed no higher than a 4. I may get him and Backstop just to complete the line, but chances are they are the only ones that will probably never see bot mode.  :tdown

I don't know if Wreckloose just kind of appealed to me, or if it was because I had been scouring the D/FW area, only to find four suck-ass TFs. Wreckloose looked awesome by comparison.

 

And as far as Backstop being a 1, a 1 is just like a 10. Nothing can be so good as to get a 10 and I'd like to hope nothing can be so bad either. A 1 would have to be the absolute worst imaginable, and I can have some pretty bad dreams. In my head, I see a Supreme scale toy that shares Twin Twists transformation, only isn't spring loaded. He has nine different colours on him including all three primary's.