So today I went down to Seattle to attend the Emerald City Comicon.  While there I found many TF's from G1 to Alts.  I happened into this on little booth and there he was... Alt. Optimus Prime in his greatness with a $25 sticker on him (the only one out).  Without hesitation I grabbed him with one hand and pulled out my wallet with the other.  Now that business had been taken care of I proceed to inquire if they had any Alt. Swerves, the seller lifted the skirt to their table and there was another Alt. Optimus Prime, I bought that one too.

 

Now while I'm at home I've had the time to open one.  His truck form is kewl (although I'd prefer him to be a Chevy Silverado SS instead).  I started looking at his gimmick (steering) and I've come to realize that his steering sucks!  Granted that Hound, Swindle and Rollbar don't have steering but they do have shocks that work good.  Optimus Primes steering bearly turns and I'm afraid to push it because I don't want the steering shaft to break.  I have yet to transform him but from the underside I looked at his head and that looks really good (it's loose but some nail polish should take care of that).

 

As for the other one that I have, my first thought was to throw it up on end cap and recover some of my cost for todays adventure but I'm leaning towards the side of keeping him MISB for keeps.

 

I also notice that his box (fish bowl packaging) is different form the first types of fish bowl boxes.  Instead of the tabs beaing glue pressed to the top fo the box, it is glue pressed to the sides.  Still no way of taking off the packaging without ripping the printed cardboard material unless you cut the fish bowl at the edges with a x-acto blade.

 

Alt. Mode: 5 out 5 stars

Robot Mode: TBD

 

I'll try to post pics later tonight.

Yes! The alt mode is his best atribute. Mine has a horribly loose hood and loose knees. I corrected the knees with some crazy glue.

Robot mode is a b!tch ok...  Getting him here was almost on Wheeljack/Grimlock level, maybe even a little harder.  I had popped off the door and part of the front bumper even the gun popped off when trying to place it his hand.

 

I had to loosen his legs (take screws out) to pull his legs out of the truck bed.  If I had not I would have surely broken them trying to pull them out.

 

Once his legs are pulled out and he is in robot mode, he wants to constinately do back flips at these joints.  He also suffers from fatty legs.

 

As far as I can tell he is the only Alt. who's body doesn't clip/lock into place (maybe windcharger/d.charge are like this too?)

 

His forearms are painted red rather than a dyed red like Alt. Silverstreaks.  I think it would have looked better if they had used a dyed mold than painted since the rest of his body is a dyed mold.

 

I looked at the box one last time and I realized that on the bottom of the box where they show Prime in robot mode he is mistransformed from his instructions.  The grill is not transformed correctly.

 

I rate the Robot Mode: 3 out 5 stars.

The worst part about transforming him (for me) was getting his legs to extend.  One knee extended just fine - the other knee was jammed into place...

 

I finally got up the courage to do a "blind faith" pull. FINALLY, it paid off -- the leg finally extended and I gave a sigh of relief because it was either the leg comes off or the extension comes out.

 

Tranforming him (as simplistic as he is) was a pain, yes.  I got frustrated at one point, and almost set him down on the spot.

Yeah, I almost went with blind faith pull too until I saw that it was stressing the joints so I just chickened out (or came to my senses).

At least I know that when I buy him I won't transform him.I made that mistake with Shockblast.

shockblast wasnt that hard. Grimlock is still the hardest for the "virgin" transformation.

I was trying the blind faith leg pull, Then I checked the instruction to be sure. I didn't pay 42 bucks and wait over a week for em just to break em. Getting the front fenders to pull away from the body was hard for me too.

Don't have Prime (don't plan on getting him either), but he still sounds like the POS that many people thought he would be. Now we just seem to have verification of this.

congrats!!

i bought ALT prime 2days ago, the stuff much better than i think !!